Today I came across the official New Zealand Golf Network’s statistics website which calls itself DotGolf. This website runs software where you can look up any member of any golf club in New Zealand to see what their scores have been and what their handicap is, as well as tracking how your friends (or competitors) are doing. I enjoyed looking up some family members and checking out their latest scores. No tall tales of the hole-in-one are possible when your scores are live on the Web.

After some further reading, it’s plain to see that handicapping in golf is a pretty complicated process!

According to DotGolf;

A Handicap Index is New Zealand Golf’s mark which is used to indicate a measurement of a player’s potential scoring ability on a course of standard difficulty.

Their page on the New Zealand Golf Slope Handicap Formula reminds me just a little of being back in maths class at school.

We have a large list of New Zealand golf course websites in NZS.com (more than 160!), so I’m sure your local course has some information if you’re looking at getting into the sport during summer.

Image from Flickr.