Golf Glossary

Introduction

This page describes the various different ways you can record rounds of Golf in MyGolfRounds.com. Currently these include Gross Strokes, NET Strokes, Stableford Points, and Skins.

Gross Strokes

Gross Strokes is the simplest and purist way of scoring a round of Golf. Each shot the player takes is counted. A shot is defined as an attempt to hit the ball, so practice shots do not count, but air-shots (where you intend to hit the ball but miss completely) do. Penalty shots also count towards your final total.

At the end of the round the player with the least number of shots wins.

In MyGolfRounds.com matches scored using Gross Strokes are shown with the following accumulated Strokes Graph:

NET Strokes

NET Strokes has the same basic scoring mechanism as Gross Strokes, i.e. counting the number of shots you take to go round the course. However at the end of the round your handicap is deducted from your final score.

So if your handicap is 18 and you went round in 90 strokes your final NET Score would be 72 (90 - 18 = 72).

As handicaps are used, this scoring method is more about who has had the best round on the day, rather than who is the best Golfer. And as with Gross Strokes, the player who has the lowest NET Strokes wins.

In MyGolfRounds.com matches scored using NET Strokes are shown with the following graph.



This graph shows the total of each player’s strokes at each hole. As this is NET Strokes each player starts of with a negative value indicating the advantage given to them by their handicap.

Stableford Points

Stableford Points is a popular method of Scoring, unlike Gross and NET, it rewards holes played well as opposed to punishing you for bad holes. Therefore it is very common in club competitions and also in games amongst friends.

The basis of the scoring is that you earn Stableford points for each hole played. These are awarded on the following basis:

1 point for a bogey
2 points for a par
3 points for a birdie
4 points for an eagle
5 points for an albatross (double eagle for our friends in the USA)


Simple enough so far, however now we need to take the handicaps into account. In the Stableford Points scoring method, the Par of each hole is adjusted for each player depending on the Hole Stroke Index (SI) and their Handicap value. Therefore a Hole with a Par of 4 can be for you in-fact a Par 5 or even a Par 6, meaning that if you shoot 6 you will get 2 Stableford Points. However for your single figure handicap, annoyingly good playing partner, it may still be a Par 4, so they may shoot 5 and only get 1 Stableford point. Hurray!

This works in the following way:

Taking the holes in order of difficulty, as indicated by their Stroke Index (SI), with 1 being the hardest and 18 being the easiest, you are awarded one extra shot for every hole covered by your handicap:

So for example:
If you have a Handicap of 5 you get an extra shot on the Holes that have the Stroke Indexes or 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. This means that if one of these Holes is a Par 3 it now becomes a Par 4, and if you shoot 4 you get 2 Stableford Points.

Now say your Handicap is 18. This means you get an extra shot on top of Par on every Hole on the Course, as there are 18 Holes on a Standard Golf Course.

If your Handicap is over 18 the extra shots get looped back and the additional ones are added to the remaining Holes, starting with Stroke Index 1. So if you have a Handicap of 19 (one more than the number of Holes on the Course) you get 1 extra shot on each Hole of the course except for the Hole that is Stroke Index 1 (the hardest Hole) where you get 2 extra shots, thus making, for example, a Par 3 a Par 5.

So translating this into practice, taking a round played with a Handicap value of 20, this is how the Stableford calculations are done:

Hole	Par	SI	My Stableford Par	Stokes	Stableford Result
1	4	11	5 (Par + 1)	6	1pt – Stb bogey
2	3	7	4 (Par + 1)	3	3pt – Stb birdie
3	4	1	6 (Par + 2)	6	2pt – Stb par
4	4	17	5 (Par + 1)	4	3pt – Stb birdie
5	4	5	5 (Par + 1)	4	3pt – Stb birdie
6	3	15	4 (Par + 1)	4	2pt – Stb par
7	4	3	5 (Par + 1)	6	1pt – Stb bogey
8	5	13	6 (Par + 1)	7	1pt – Stb bogey
9	4	9	5 (Par + 1)	5	2pt – Stb par
10	5	10	6 (Par + 1)	7	1pt – Stb bogey
11	3	16	4 (Par + 1)	4	2pt – Stb Par
12	4	6	5 (Par + 1)	6	1pt – Stb bogey
13	4	2	6 (Par + 2)	4	4pt – Stb Eagle!
14	3	14	4 (Par + 1)	10	0pt
15	4	12	5 (Par + 1)	5	2pt – Stb Par
16	4	4	5 (Par + 1)	6	1pt – Stb bogey
17	5	8	6 (Par + 1)	5	3pt – Stb birdie
18	4	18	5 (Par + 1)	2	5pt – Stb Albertros
In					18
Out					19
Total					37 Stableford Points

At the end of the rounds the player with the most Stableford Points is the winner, regardless of the number of Gross Strokes. MyGolfRounds.com shows Stableford matches using the following graph:

Skins

Skins’ scoring is a great way to play a Match with two to four people. It is based on winning Holes. Each Hole won is a Skin, with the Player with the most Skins at the end of round declared the winner. In Skins a Hole is won by taking the least number of shots.

All simple enough so far, however there is a twist. If there is no clear winner of the Hole, with two or more players getting the same lowest score, the Hole is halfed and no Skins are awarded. The Skin then rolls-over on to the next Hole, with the winner of that taking both. That is unless of course that Hole is also halfed and then both Skins roll-over again until the next, as so on until the Hole is one.

This is a great fun way of playing Golf. As the number of rolled-over, unclaimed Skins rises, so does the tension. It is quite possible to have 8 or 9 unclaimed Skins.

MyGolfRounds.com shows matches played with Skins as shown below:

Other Scoring Methods

We are adding more Scoring Methods to MyGolfRounds.com all the time. In an upcoming release we are adding “Match Play” and the “On the Perch” Scoring methods, so watch this space. To find out more, and sign up for our no strings attached free trial click here.