Handicaps Home vs. Away

[Brian Potash]

My handicap is a 10.9 index.  If I only counted rounds at my home course (probably 70% of my rounds), my index would be just about the same.  In other words, I very rarely end up counting away scores.

If I only counted away scores, I would probably be about a 15.

Obviously at my home club I feel more comfortable, I think mostly because I know exactly where to miss, and can swing with more freedom because of this.

However, this difference still seems extreme to me.  Others think my home course is hard.

Do others play much better at home, and normally pretty poorly on the road?

Brian

[JMEvensky]

Do others play much better at home, and normally pretty poorly on the road?

I think one of golf's great truisms is the mark of a good player is that his game travels. The converse is probably true also.

[Bill Brightly]

Same with my handicap. I believe it is because we know how to get up and down from our normal misses; we know the exact spot to land the ball and how much it will roll out. We probably have to work this out on away courses, and sometimes we'll get it wrong. More importantly, we'll never be as comfortable over the recovery shots as we are at home. Two or three more saves per round is all it takes...

[Brent Hutto]

You stated the answer as part of the question. You don't play hardly any away rounds. And you're not very good at scoring on away rounds. It's causal.

[Adam Clayman]

Knowing the greens and having that confidence, should explain most of the difference.

[archie_struthers]

 

My scores tend to be lower away. Particularly net .

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Way lower away.  Especially if I can get out of these god forsaken mountains. 

[Michael Felton]

My county golf association back in the UK did a study comparing results of scratch matches between clubs and handicaps and so on and they found that on average home advantage was worth about 3 shots. Obviously it will vary by player and by club, but as a general indicator I think that 3 strokes is a pretty good stab.

[Ian Mackenzie]

There could be another (partial) reason for the discrepancy you see.
Perhaps your course was rated harder than it plays...?

[Brad Tufts]

I feel as though if i played only at home, my cap would be lower by a half-shot or so.

I play all over so it probably stays a touch higher.

And, on behalf of GHIN and the handicap system, if you want to get it right...you have to enter them all!! Home or away!!  They all count!!

[Thomas Dai]

A golfing conundrum. Local knowledge vrs complacency at home. Lack of knowledge vrs greater concentration away from home?
atb

[Michael Felton]

A golfing conundrum. Local knowledge vrs complacency at home. Lack of knowledge vrs greater concentration away from home?
atb

I sometimes find it's better not to know where not to hit it. I've played courses I didn't know before and hit shots that wound up way closer to trouble than I would have dared if I'd known what was there. Conversely I've hit what I thought were great shots and found them in lakes and trees and all sorts (I occasionally do this on courses I know well too though).

Played a hole in Arizona one time, I forget which course it was on. Standing on the tee and it's a 440 odd yard par 4. The fairway splits in two and there was a small copse of trees in between the two sections of fairway. Behind the trees we could see that the fairway came back together again, but then it crested the brow of a hill and we could see no more. I thought it looked like the perfect shot was over the middle of the copse of trees and pulled my driver out. Ripped one straight over the middle of it all and it cleared the trees handily. We get up to the top of the hill to see the hole turn sharply to the left, with a huge lake beyond the fairway. Lovely.

[Jon Cavalier]

Interesting. I am generally lower away. I've always assumed this was due simply to the difficulty of my home course.

[Mark Johnson]

my handicap is dramatically lower away as well.   love not have to deal with pitch out rough

[Andrew Buck]

I know courses are supposed to be rated consistently based on fixed criteria, however I question if the criteria is still correct criteria.  If a course rating is based off a scratch golfer hitting the ball 250 yards, it may skew toward a very straight ball-striker, because with modern technology, I know very few scratch players (not just sub-5's, but scratch) that don't hit the ball further than 250. 

It has always seemed to me like course ratings haven't taken enough into account tightness, in favor of length for the low handicap/scratch.  In addition, I feel like courses with wider fairways but extreme crap off them don't have high enough ratings, while narrower fairways with standard bunkering or rough that can be recovered from have too low rating. 

[Garland Bayley]

Handicaps average everyone and everything. The short straight hitter gets averaged in with the long wild hitter. No way that handicaps can account for all the variables. Therefore, I can play much longer yardages away from home and end up with a lower index from only those scores than I would get from playing just the short course at home that is suited to the short straight hitter.

[Paul Gray]

Do others play much better at home, and normally pretty poorly on the road?

I think one of golf's great truisms is the mark of a good player is that his game travels. The converse is probably true also.

Very true.

I am, genuinely, an awful low handicapper. My 3 at home could well become 33 away! I just spend too much time looking at features and not playing golf. Good players have to have an innate leaning towards tunnel vision. I , on the other hand, have an innate ability to wander off at a new course as if I've done some amazing acid and find myself getting transfixed by a bit of spare land I've spotted and totally absorbed in designing a spare par 3. It's fun but it's certainly no way to break 70........or 80......or 90!

[Adam Warren]

I play better away - in tournaments.  If I just play an away rounds, its usually not much to speak of.  When I play in an invitational or some stroke play event, I always play better in those.  My handicap would be very low if I only reported tournament scores!