# PinFlag for beginners and high handicappers > Canonical: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners One number, two taps, and the mistakes that decide a beginner’s score named after the round. **Is PinFlag good for beginners?** Yes, for a beginner who wants to learn course management from the first round. The number shows which target is the safer play before the swing, the lie is read from the course, logging is two taps, and a handicap level lens reads every shot on a beginner’s scale rather than a tour player’s. Nothing has to be understood first: a lower number is a worse spot. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/is-pinflag-good-for-beginners **Where does a high handicapper lose strokes?** On the benchmark model a 25 handicap gives up about 26 strokes a round to the tour average, 16.9 of them in the long game, 5.2 in the short game and 3.9 on the greens. The recoverable ones are penalties, three-putts and doubles, and Score Killers in PinFlag names them after every round. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/where-does-a-high-handicapper-lose-strokes **Do I need to understand strokes gained to use PinFlag?** You use one comparison: this target against that one, before you hit. The strokes gained under the aim is the price of playing there, and moving the aim shows the price of playing somewhere else. The handicap level lens puts the numbers on your own scale, and the deeper Insights wait until you want them. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/do-i-need-to-understand-strokes-gained-to-use-pinflag **How do I break 100 with PinFlag?** Nine bogeys and nine doubles is 99, so no pars are needed; the task is removing the holes worse than a double. PinFlag prices the penalty before the swing, a tee shot out of bounds costs 2.05 strokes on the published table, and Score Killers shows after the round which penalties and three-putts turned a 99 into a 104. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/how-do-i-break-100-with-pinflag **Will all my strokes gained numbers be negative?** On the Tour lens most amateur numbers are, because the comparison is a tour field. Switch to a handicap level lens and the same shots read near zero, with the gains and losses in the places that separate you from your own level, which is the scale a beginner should read. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/will-all-my-strokes-gained-numbers-be-negative **Is logging shots hard for a beginner?** Two taps: the target before you swing and where the ball finished after it, with the club and lie confirmed in one sheet. The map pans under a fixed mark, nothing commits until you confirm, any tap can be undone, and it works with no signal. A round is logged in the time a scorecard takes. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/is-logging-shots-hard-for-a-beginner **What should a high handicapper work on first?** The whole stroke mistakes, then the long game. On the published tables a penalty costs about two strokes and a three-putt from 20 feet 1.12; on Broadie’s split about 65 percent of an amateur’s gap sits in the long game and 15 percent on the greens. PinFlag shows which of the two is yours from the shots you log. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/what-should-a-high-handicapper-work-on-first **Can a beginner use the PinFlag calculators for free?** Yes. The strokes gained, expected strokes, club distance, course handicap and golf handicap calculators on pinflag.io are free, need no account and run on the same baselines as the app, so a beginner can price a shot in the browser before the app is on their phone. Page: https://pinflag.io/answers/beginners/can-a-beginner-use-the-pinflag-calculators-for-free