Golf Scoring

Golf is scored in two main ways: stroke play or match play.

Stroke play is the most common way of scoring golf. In this method, your score equals the sum of the strokes you use to complete every hole of the course. If you need 4, 5, and 5 strokes to finish the first three holes, your score for those holes is 14. The player with the fewest strokes at the end of the round (usually 18 holes) wins.

In match play, you play against one opponent and compete hole by hole. For instance, if you shoot a 4 on the first hole and your opponent shoots a 6, you win the hole and are said to be “one up.” These matches often last fewer than 18 holes, as one player can get ahead by enough holes to make it impossible for the other player to catch up. For instance, if one player is up four holes after 15 holes have been played, there aren’t enough holes left for the second player to catch up. In this case, the first player is said to win “4 and 3,” because the game ended when the first player was up by four holes with just three holes left to play.

In addition to stroke play and match play, to understand golf scoring you must be familiar with the concept of par. Par is the standard number of strokes it takes an expert to complete a hole. To complete a par 4 hole, an expert golfer could expect to need 4 strokes:

A hole’s par is based largely on its length. Women’s pars are calculated somewhat differently from men’s pars, because men tend to hit the ball farther than women do:

These yardages are simply a guide and don’t absolutely determine the par value of a given hole. For example, a 450-yard hole that happens to be very difficult due to its layout might be rated a par 5 for men.

Golf has special terminology to describe how well a player does on a given hole compared to par:

For each additional stroke over par past double bogey, the term is triple bogey, quadruple bogey, and so on.

You can also describe your score over an entire golf course in terms of par. If par on a course is a 72, and you shoot an 80, then you’ve shot “8 over par.”

To level the playing field so that two golfers of different abilities can play a competitive round against each other, the United States Golf Association (USGA) developed a handicapping system. In this system, a player is allowed to remove one or more strokes from his score based on his skill. Generally speaking, a player who regularly shoots 8 over par would have an 8 handicap and would be allowed to subtract 8 strokes from his final score. A golfer who usually shoots par on a course has a zero handicap, which is also called being a scratch golfer.