Your app index
The app calculates a handicap index with the World Handicap System formula: the best score differentials from your last 20 rounds. It needs three finished 18-hole rounds before it can calculate one.
Only complete 18-hole cards count, with a picked-up hole at its maximum score. Nine-hole rounds do not, and neither does a round where you played a scramble, shamble or alternate shot, because the score was not your own ball.
Your starting index
Until the app has calculated an index for you, you can type yours in Settings as a starting point, and it is used for your strokes. Once you have three finished 18-hole rounds the app calculates it for you, and the field becomes read-only. Handicap history on your profile shows how it has moved.
GHIN
The app’s index is not an official GHIN index. You can save your GHIN number in Settings for your own records, but the app does not read from GHIN or post scores to it.
Group handicaps
A group can run its own handicaps. Group admins choose one in Group Settings → Handicaps:
- App-wide WHS index — everyone plays off their app index.
- Group WHS — a separate WHS index per player, from this group’s rounds only.
- Society — handicaps move by finishing position. By default the winner is cut 1.0, second 0.5 and third 0.25, and the bottom quarter of the field goes up 0.1. The cut table can be changed.
In the group’s rounds, the group handicap sets each player’s strokes when they are added to the round. The Commish can still adjust a player’s handicap for the round.