What is a good golf score?

Breaking 100 clears the hurdle most golfers find hardest. Breaking 90 is bogey golf, which on a par 72 means exactly 90 with no disasters. Breaking 80 is good golf by any standard. Rather than leave it at that, here is what each score actually implies about your handicap, worked out with the World Handicap System formula on an ordinary course.

What your score implies

Every round produces a Score Differential, which is what that round was worth once the course difficulty is removed. Shoot these on a course rated 71.2 with a slope of 128, and the differential is what a golfer capable of that round carries as an index:

So a round of 90 is worth 16.6, a round of 80 is 7.8, and a round of 100 is 25.4. Those are the numbers behind the usual shorthand that breaking 90 makes you a mid handicapper and breaking 80 makes you a single figure golfer.

What each handicap shoots

The same arithmetic run backwards. Your index becomes a course handicap on the tee you are playing, and par plus that is the round you are expected to produce when you play well:

A good score for nine holes

Halve everything. Par for nine is usually 36, so breaking 50 is the equivalent of breaking 100, breaking 45 matches breaking 90, and breaking 40 matches breaking 80. Nine holes is a small enough sample that one blow up hole moves it several strokes, which is why handicaps combine nine hole rounds rather than rating them on their own.

What par actually is

Par for eighteen holes is usually 72, typically four par 3s, ten par 4s and four par 5s, though 70 and 71 are common and 73 exists. Par is the score a scratch golfer is expected to produce, which is the reason almost nobody shoots it: this course is rated 71.2, so a scratch golfer is expected to average slightly under par here and the rating, not par, is what the handicap system actually uses.

A good score for a beginner

Under 120 in a first full season is real progress, and the number matters far less than the shape of the card. Beginners improve by removing triple bogeys rather than by making pars, and the triples disappear long before the good holes arrive. Breaking 100 works that through: nine bogeys and nine doubles is 99, so it needs no pars at all.

Where to go from your number

• Shooting over 100: how to break 100, which is a penalty problem rather than a swing problem.
• In the 90s: how to break 90, which is bogey golf minus a single shot.
• In the 80s: how to break 80, which needs eleven real pars and becomes an approach problem.
• Want the actual index: the handicap calculator takes your scores and works it out.