Calculate a World Handicap System score differential from a round, or turn your handicap index into course and playing handicaps for any tee. Runs entirely in your browser — your numbers never leave this device.
All course data comes from your scorecard or tee sheet — ratings differ by tee set, so use the slope and rating for the tees you actually played. The Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC) is taken as 0, as it is on most days.
The World Handicap System (WHS) rests on one idea: a score only means something relative to the course it was shot on, so every round is first converted into a score differential — a course-neutral number. The formula rescales your adjusted gross score by the course's difficulty: (113 ÷ slope) × (adjusted gross − course rating), where 113 is the slope of a course of standard difficulty. A differential of 12.2 from an 85 shot on a hard course (rating 71.2, slope 128) therefore represents better golf than the same raw 85 on an easy track. Differentials are recorded to one decimal place, and this calculator takes the Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC) — the rare daily adjustment for abnormal weather or setup — as 0, as it is on the large majority of days; if your club applied a PCC, it is already inside the differential on your record.
The second mode runs the system in the direction you need on the first tee. Your handicap index is portable but abstract; the course handicap makes it concrete for today's course and tees: index × (slope ÷ 113) + (course rating − par), rounded to a whole number. The rating-minus-par term is the part players most often miss — it is why the same index earns more strokes on a course rated above its par and fewer on one rated below. The playing handicap then applies the competition's handicap allowance to the course handicap — 95% in singles stroke play under the standard recommendations — and is also rounded whole, because strokes arrive one at a time.
Nothing about any specific course is baked into this page, deliberately: slope and course rating differ by tee set on the same course, are revised as courses change, and a stored table would quietly go stale. You supply the four numbers — from your scorecard, the tee markers or your club's published table — and the arithmetic, rounding and WHS order of operations (differential to one decimal, handicaps rounded whole, allowance applied last) are handled for you.
The index is your portable, course-neutral number, calculated from the best differentials on your record. The course handicap converts that index into the strokes you receive on one specific course and tee set, using its slope, rating and par — a 12.4 index becomes 13 on the worked example's course. The playing handicap then multiplies the course handicap by the format's allowance (95% for singles stroke play) to give the strokes that actually count in that competition.
Because par and difficulty are different things. A course can be par 72 yet rated 71.2 — scratch golfers are expected to beat par there — so the formula returns 0.8 of a stroke before rounding, reflecting that the course plays easier than its par suggests. Ignore the term and you will be a stroke out on most real courses, which is the most common error in hand-worked handicap calculations.
Your gross score after the WHS caps are applied: any hole's score is capped at net double bogey (par + 2 + any handicap strokes you receive on that hole) before the total is used for handicap purposes. One disaster hole therefore cannot wreck a differential. Enter the adjusted figure here — your handicap record or scoring app shows it if your club posts scores that way.
The values for the exact tees you played, printed on the scorecard and usually on the course's website or the national association's course database. The same course publishes different ratings for its championship, men's and women's tees. Entering another tee's numbers is the fastest way to a differential that is wrong by a stroke or more.
The Playing Conditions Calculation is an automatic adjustment, from −1 to +3, applied to a day's differentials when weather or course setup made scoring abnormally hard or easy. It triggers on a minority of days and is calculated by the handicap authority from all scores submitted that day — it cannot be known while you play. This calculator states PCC = 0 openly; if a PCC was applied to your round, use the differential on your official record.
Not from a history — an index is the average of the best 8 differentials from your most recent 20 rounds, with additional caps and exceptional-score rules, and it lives on your official record. This page covers the two calculations around it: turning one round into its differential, and turning an index into the course and playing handicaps you need before a round.
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