A Handicap Index indicates a measurement of a player's potential ability, and is not about determining averages.  It is expressed as a number taken to one decimal place (for example 10.4).  A Handicap Index is a great way to track your improvement, because it indicates your best performance - what you will play to approximately one out of four or five rounds.

After at least five 18-hole scores have been posted to your GHIN number, you will be issued a Handicap Index.  Indexes are updated on the 1st and 15th of the month throughout the OGA's active season.  Our active season begins on March 1 and ends on December 1.  Keep playing and posting!  It's fun to see your Handicap Index change.

GHIN stands for "Golf Handicap Information Network."  It is a service that the USGA started over 30 years ago to assist golf associations like the OGA.  The USGA Handicap System is the set of rules, procedures and formulas for handicapping, and GHIN in turn calculates all of the numbers.  Each Oregon Junior Golf member has a specific GHIN number to post scores to.  It is your record to maintain and be responsible for, but it is open to review by others.

Each golf course is rated following USGA standards and procedures, measuring length and evaluating obstacles such as bunkers, trees, water hazards and green surface and size.  This assessment gives us two important numbers that are part of the handicap formula.  One is Course Rating, which is denoted as a whole number, such as 125.  Look at a scorecard from your favorite course and you'll see these numbers listed, usually by each set of tees for both men and women.  For example at the OGA Golf Course, the white tees carry a men's rating of 68.9 / 119 and the women's rating is 73.9 / 134.  Because Course Rating and Slope Rating are crucial to the Handicap Index formula, it is very important that you post your score using the correct information provided.

​ESC is a mandatory procedure in the Handicap System, short for "Equitable Stroke Control."  This keeps an exceptionally bad hole score from changing your Handicap Index too much and sets a maximum number that a player can post on any hole depending on that player's Course Handicap.  Figuring this out is easier than it sounds!  Remember to start with your Handicap Index, then convert it to a Course Handicap using a Slope Chart.  Refer to the ESC Chart here - it will tell you your maximum hole score number.  For example, if my Handicap Index is 10.5 and I'm playing a set of tees with a Slope rating of 125, my Course Handicap is 12.  On the ESC chart this would mean that for handicap purposes, you can't post a score higher than a 7 on any given hole.  If your maximum score was 7 and you had two 8's on your card with the rest 7 or less, you would subtract two from your actual score to find your ESC score.  If you shot 92, your ESC score, the score you would post to your GHIN record, is 90.

Oregon Junior Golf will post all of your tournament scores for you so you will not need to post any of these.  However, for all other rounds, you'll need to post almost all the time.  There are very few times when you would not post your score during our active season.  To see these rare exceptions, you can visit the "Preferred Lies Blog" in the Handicapping Section of the OGA website.  The blog post can be accessed by clicking here.

A Handicap Index represents potential playing ability and is based on a standard calculation for everyone who has one.   A Course Handicap represents a whole number of strokes needed on a specific set of tees, based on that tee's Slope Rating.  You never actually play with your Handicap Index, but you need it to convert to a Course Handicap so you can use it to play.  There are several ways to convert an Index to a Course Handicap, but the two most popular methods are to use a Course Handicap Table (Slope Chart) found posted at every golf course or the OGA's Mobile App (Search GHIN from your phones application store to find this free application).