Average Handicap Results

[Grant Saunders]

Sorry for the delay in presenting the findings of this little exercise.

In the end, there was a total of 164 respondents, which is a fairly good representation of the posters on this site. Please note, when doing the averages I rounded index numbers up or down accordingly for ease of calculation. If B Richard or anyone else would like to crunch the numbers using the decimal points, please do so as I didn't feel up to it tonight. I don't think the overall results are affected too greatly however.

The findings:

- Golf Course Staff (Green staff, construction, etc):

   23 replies with an average handicap of 4.6

- Architects

  2 replies with an average of 7

- Professionals and coaches

   6 replies with an average of +1.2

- Avid Golfers

   87 replies with an average of 6.9

- Other

   3 replies with an average of 7

- People who didn't assign a category

   43 replies with an average of 7

- The average of all people who replied

   6.3

- Single figure respondents

   123


Some interesting facts I found from the National Golf Foundation:

- Only 25% of males regularly score better than 90 on a regulation golf golf course

- The average 18 hole golf score for men on a regulation golf course is 97

The USGA states that the average mens handicap is 16

What does this amount to?
 
When starting this thread, I suggested that a golfer will appreciate architecture and design better if they are confident in their own golfing abilities and less focused on simply making contact with the ball. I tend to feel that this exercise lends itself towards supporting this theory.

Based on the results, would it be fair to say that this group(GCA posters), is in fact somewhat out of touch with the "average" golfer and we in fact represent the voice of the better player.

I had hoped for more replies from architects as this was the one category I was most curious about.

Good to note that golf courses we play on are generally in very capable hands as the people looking after them appear to be accomplished golfers.

Thoughts...

[JeffTodd]

While I appreciate the findings and I think they’re interesting, I think they also lend themselves to the theory that the lower your handicap the more likely you are to post it in a thread full of single digit handicaps.

[Ed Oden]

It does not surprise me that the participants on this site have a lower handicap than the national averages.  The USGA figures include a large percentage of golfers who play only an occasional round and are probably not that serious about the game.  If you are interested in golf enough to post on this site I think it is safe to say that you are likely to play and practice more (probably a lot more) than the national averages.  I would assume that those that play and practice more and are more serious about the game will likely have lower handicaps.

[Lou_Duran]

Grant,

Thanks for the interesting exercise.  Based on the several "un-official" gca.com outings I've been a part of, I suspect that your findings are quite a bit off.  Maybe it is sampling error, or simply a problem with self-reporting (like with sub-prime loans when applicants only had to state income with no verification).

An interesting off-shoot from your research might be a series of challenge matches based on the reported handicaps for a not-so-nominal amount, say the cost of the round plus $50.  We can even hold a calcutta with a small percentage going to administer this site.  Just kidding, of course.