Analytics is the use of numbers and statistics to help you to make better decisions. If you want to improve your golf game through analytics, the first thing you need to learn is basic scorekeeping and the use of the scorecard. This article/video covers the very basics of golf scorekeeping and the golf scorecard to keep a record of your score.

Golf is unlike most other sports in that you are trying to get the lowest score possible versus the highest score. The object of the game of golf is to get your ball into the hole on the green with as few strokes as possible.

What is a stroke? A stroke is counted every time you swing at the golf ball with the intention of hitting it.

Once you put your ball into the hole, you count up the total number of strokes it took you to get there, and that becomes your score for that hole. In its simplest form, you do this for 18 holes and add all the strokes together to get your total score for the round.

To keep track of your total strokes, you’ll use a scorecard for the round. Each player’s name is written down on the scorecard, and for every hole they’ll write down the number of strokes it took them to put the ball in the cup.

Hole Number

The first thing you typically see on the scorecard is the Hole Number.  All golf courses have a certain number of holes, typically 9 or 18 on regulation course, 6 or so on shorter or “executive” courses. 

Holes are usually played in order from hole 1 to hole 18, but in some cases if the course is especially busy, players may start on the 10^th hole and play 10 through 18, then circle back and play holes 1 through 9 to complete their round.

Regulation 18 hole course scorecards are split into two 9 hole sections, one through nine known as the “front 9” and ten through 18 known as the “back 9”.

The ninth hole shows the end of the front 9, or the end of the “Out” section, which means you are playing out from the clubhouse.  The 18^th hole marks the end of the back 9, or the end of the “In” section, which means you are playing back toward the clubhouse.

Tees and Yardage

For every hole, there are typically at least two, but in some cases 5 or 6, sets of tees.  This particular course has three sets of tees, Black, Blue and Green.  Next to the tee color, the approximate distance from the tee to the hole is listed in yards.  

The Black tees (or on some courses the Gold tees), known as “championship” tees, are the furthest from the hole.  These are usually played by professional golfers or very good amateurs.  Many courses don’t even have black or gold tees. 

Blue tees are normally for very good amateur players, and are the furthest back if a course doesn’t have black or gold tees. 

Although this course doesn’t list white tees, they are most often used by average golfers. 

Red tees are usually reserved for ladies or senior golfers and are set closer to the fairway to make the course shorter than the other tees. 

Finally, green tees are used by junior golfers or beginners.  

There is no unbreakable rule in golf that a certain gender or age or level of golfer has to play a specific tee.  It really comes down to how far a golfer can hit the ball.  A beginner playing the championship tees is likely to have a poor round and a terrible golfing experience.

Hole Handicap

I do a deep dive into a golfer’s handicap in another article, but the Handicap listed on the scorecard refers to the hole, or course handicap.

Every hole on the course has a handicap, or index rating.  The holes are ranked one through 18, the hole marked with the handicap of 1 is the hardest hole on the course.  The hole marked 18 is the easiest, and everything in between gets progressively easier with the higher hole handicap number.

Some scorecards, like this one, list a “Ladies’ Handicap” since some holes may play differently for men and women. In both cases, the hole handicap is not used for scoring when playing pure stroke count or non-handicap scoring.  It is helpful to know the rank of holes on a course by difficulty, however, in case you need to adjust your play accordingly.

Par

“Par” in golf means the expected number of strokes a player should take to get the ball in the cup for each hole. Hole 1 is a par 4, so a good player is expected to take 4 strokes to finish the hole.

Most golf courses have a total par between 70 and 72. The most common is a par 72, meaning if you add the pars for all of the holes, the total will equal 72. Pars for each hole will most often be 3, 4, or 5, although I did play a pretty cool course in Tennessee that had a par 6.

For the most part, pars relate to the length of the hole. Par 3s are the shortest holes and par 5s are the longest. Par 4 is the most common par on a course. Check out the Out and In columns for par on each set of 9 holes, they are typically each a par 36.

The goal of any good golfer is to get through a round of golf with a score of par or better. A hole score of one under par is known as a birdie, two under is called an eagle. A hole score of one over par is known as a bogey, two over is a double bogey, and so on.

Hole 1 on our sample scorecard is a par 4. On hole 1, Sam and Mary both scored four strokes, Rachel had 3 strokes, and Phil 5 had strokes.

To call out non-par scores on the scorecard, bogeys will be noted with a single square around them, double bogeys will have two squares, birdies will have a circle and eagles a double circle.

Rating/Slope

The Rating and Slope of the course are two numerical ranking systems that can be used to calculate how difficult the course is to play. These are important to know for calculating an individual player’s official handicap, which I cover in detail in my handicap article. For now though, they’re helpful in pure stroke play because they can help you to compare the difficulty of one course versus another.

How can one course be more difficult than another if both are say, a par 72 and a length of 6,700 yards? Well one course may have tighter fairways or more hazards or may be more hilly than flat. This course would be much harder in spite of that same par and yardage of a less challenging course. Rating and Slope are two metrics that provide that level of difficulty.

The RATING is given in the number of strokes that a scratch golfer would be expected to shoot in the round. A scratch golfer is a golfer who averages a score of par for every round. So for our sample course, a scratch golfer would be expected to score a 72 when hitting from the black tees, a 69.8 hitting from the blue tees, or a 64 hitting from the green tees.

The SLOPE is a measure of the relative difficulty of the course for a bogey golfer. A bogey golfer is a player who shoots one over par for each hole on average. A higher slope number indicates a higher level of difficulty for a bogey golfer. The average slope number for a golf course is typically 113. If the slope of a golf course is less than 113, the course is easier than the average golf course. Over 113, the course is harder than average.

Our sample course has a slope of 127 for the black tees and 122 from the blue tees. This should tell you that this course is relatively more difficult than the average golf course at those tee ranges. From the Green tees, the 108 number should tell you the course is slightly easier than the average course.

Now that you know basic golf scorekeeping and the use of the scorecard, you are ready for the next steps to improve your golf game through analytics.