Four years after the historic launch of the World Handicap System, which combined six different handicap systems around the world into a single programme, the USGA and R&A will begin releasing the first major changes on January 1, 2024. The changes are based on information from the 100 million scores reported every year under the WHS. In 2023, there will be nearly 3.5 million people with a handicap index, up from 2.59 million in 2020.
As you start to make scores in 2024, keep these three things in mind:
- A fresh way to play nine-hole games.
When the school year starts in January, they will use a “expected score” formula to change nine-hole results to 18-hole score differences. That means players won’t have to post a nine-hole score and then wait for another nine-hole score to be paired with it to make an 18-hole overall score.
How does the new trick work? Based on the posted scores from the previous year, a model scoring system has been made for each handicap index for both men and women. The right one will be added to your index, and it will give you an expected score on any holes you still had to play for handicap reasons. This is done instead of giving you a score of net par for any holes you missed. The new formula is made to work on a normal golf course, so the calculations aren’t as based on the course as they were with the old formula.
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Managing director of Handicap and Course Rating for the USGA Steve Edmondson said, “We want to be able to understand somebody’s true demonstrated ability, so you want to get rid of some of those outliers.” He added, “We feel like that has done that.”
Also, golfers whose main round is nine holes will have their handicap score updated at the same time as golfers whose main round is 18 holes. Everybody in the WHS will have their figures run every night. If you still have nine-hole scores, they will be adjusted under the new system around the middle of January. The same goes for any short-course scores you post in the new year.
2. Your points will be used to figure out your handicap at more courses.
From 2024 on, the USGA and R&A will lower the minimum yardage of a course that can be used in the Course Rating method. A nine-hole course had to be at least 1,500 yards long and an 18-hole course had to be at least 3,000 yards long. Now they should only be 1,500 and 750 yards long. This should make it possible for about 700 more par-3 courses in the U.S. to join the WHS scheme.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, golf has become more popular. According to the National Golf Foundation, 3.3 million people in the US played on a course for the first time in 2022. Playing nine-hole games has also become more popular. Statistics from the USGA show that more than half of all new male golfers (21%) and more than four in ten new female golfers (45%) played nine-hole rounds.
Edmondson says, “We are trying to make sure we are meeting the game where it is moving, meeting the golfers as they play it.” One way they do this is by giving more nine-hole rounds for handicap reasons.
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The WHS started using a “playing conditions calculation” (PCC) in 2020. This changed how your score affected your Index based on the average of all the scores posted at that course that day. Let’s say that 20-mph winds make you shoot in the high 80s when you usually shoot in the 78s and 79s. This was taken into account by the WHS system so that the score wouldn’t hurt your Index, especially if all of your scores that day were high.
The PCC will still be in place in 2024, but it will be used more often because the statistical threshold for when a change is made has been lowered. Edmondson said that the model in 2020 let changes happen at a rate of 5 to 10 percent. It will now be used at a rate of 10 to 15 percent.
Here is a link to the USGA website that has a full list of all the changes that will be made to the WHS in 2024.
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