How to Get a Golf Handicap in the UK

To get a golf handicap in the UK, you join a golf club affiliated to your country's golf body, play and submit scorecards totalling 54 holes, and the club's system gives you a Handicap Index under the World Handicap System (WHS). In England, golfers without a club can also get one through a subscription run by England Golf. If you just want a figure to track your own game, Tee Time works out a Tee Time handicap from the rounds you log, using the same maths; it is a personal estimate, not a WHS Handicap Index.

What a golf handicap is

A handicap measures how well you can play, so that golfers of different standards can compete fairly. Under the World Handicap System, used across the UK and Ireland since 2020, your figure is called a Handicap Index. The lower it is, the better the golfer: a scratch golfer is 0, and the highest Handicap Index is 54.

Your Handicap Index travels with you. Before a round it is turned into a Course Handicap for the tees you are playing, using that course's Course Rating and Slope Rating, so a harder course gives you more shots. Club pages on Tee Time show the CR and Slope for each course where we hold them, as on Alwoodley Golf Club in Leeds and Burnham & Berrow Golf Club in Somerset.

How to get a golf handicap through a club

1. Join a golf club. Any club affiliated to your national body can give you a Handicap Index: England Golf, Scottish Golf, Wales Golf or, in Northern Ireland, Golf Ireland. Some clubs sell a cheaper flexible or academy membership that still includes a handicap.
2. Play and record your scores. Each round needs a marker: another golfer who keeps your score and confirms the card. For a casual round to count, you usually register it with the club's system before you tee off.
3. Submit scorecards totalling 54 holes. Any mix of 9-hole and 18-hole rounds will do, so six 9-hole rounds or three 18-hole rounds both work. Your club enters them, or you submit them yourself in the clubhouse or on your national body's app.
4. Receive your Handicap Index. It is calculated from those first scores, and it updates after every round you submit from then on.

Ask the club's handicap secretary or the pro shop how they want first scores submitted. Some clubs ask new golfers to play with a member for their first cards.

Getting a handicap without joining a club

In England, England Golf runs iGolf, a yearly subscription for golfers who aren't members of a club. You record your scores in the same way, with a marker, and get a WHS Handicap Index that you can use when you visit clubs. If you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, ask your national golf body whether it offers something similar.

How your Handicap Index is worked out

Each score you submit becomes a score differential: how well you played compared with the course's difficulty. Your Handicap Index is the average of the lowest 8 differentials from your most recent 20 scores, so one bad round doesn't ruin it, and it moves as your recent form changes.

Two rules stop a single disaster from counting too much:

• Net double bogey: for handicap purposes, the most you can score on a hole is par plus two, plus any shots you receive on that hole.
• Caps: if your index rises quickly over a year, the system slows the rise.

Courses are rated for difficulty by the national bodies. The Course Rating is roughly what a scratch golfer would score, and the Slope Rating says how much harder the course plays for a higher handicapper.

The Tee Time handicap

If you aren't ready to join a club, the Tee Time handicap gives you a figure to track. It is worked out from rounds you log on Tee Time with World Handicap System maths, and it isn't a WHS Handicap Index: it can't be used in club competitions, and a club that asks for a WHS Handicap Index may not accept it.

How it works:

• Sign in, open the club or course page for the course you played and press "Log a round", or log one from a past booking. Your rounds and your handicap are under "Your rounds".
• Complete 18-hole and 9-hole rounds on tees with a course rating and slope count. Abandoned rounds never count, and a round you end early counts as a 9-hole round if you played at least 9 holes.
• Your Tee Time handicap appears once you have logged three rounds on rated tees, and it uses the lowest 8 of your last 20 counting rounds, fewer while you have under 20.
• It is calculated, never typed in, so it moves only with the scores you log.

Clubs that ask for a handicap when you book a visitor tee time get this figure. Some members' clubs ask visitors for a handicap from their national body instead, and say so on their own website.

Rated courses you can log rounds at include Cardiff Golf Club, Bury St Edmunds Golf Club in Suffolk, Chelsfield Lakes Golf Centre near Orpington and Beedles Lake Golf Club near Leicester.

Your next steps

If you are new to golf, a few golf lessons and some rounds on a 9-hole course will help you reach 54 holes of scores you are happy with. When you are ready to join, golf memberships near me covers the types of membership and what to ask a club before you sign up.

To find a course near you, browse golf in Yorkshire and the Humber, the South West, Wales or the East of England, or search tee times by distance from where you are.