Laser's post in the recent "newbie questions" thread made me think of this. I don't have a calculated handicap. I just play to play. Most of the time I keep score, but a lot of times I just play through and don't bother.
I was playing with a buddy for the first time a couple of days ago and he kept score for both of us (because I wasn't going to bother.) I noticed he was employing ESC for both of us. At the end of the round he "beat" me by 1 stroke, although without ESC I would've beaten him by about 20 (when he blows up on a hole, he REALLY blows up - but he's very new to the game, and he plays really well considering.) That just got me wondering - do most people play with a max score per hole every time they go out? If I did that I would've broken 90 a long time ago. In fact I'd probably shoot in the high-80s pretty much every time I play, because I normally have a few blow-up holes mixed in with several pars and the occasional birdie. Not sure I'd feel good about it, though. Unless that's the way everyone plays and I've just been screwing myself over on the scorecard the past few years.
So is this the normal way to score, and I've just been killing myself trying to score well with the occasional double-digit hole?
If this is how I'm supposed to be doing it, how do I know the max score per hole? Is it something to do with the hole handicap listed on the card? Admittedly I didn't read the USGA pages about it that Laser linked, so I guess I'll go do that now.
I was playing with a buddy for the first time a couple of days ago and he kept score for both of us (because I wasn't going to bother.) I noticed he was employing ESC for both of us. At the end of the round he "beat" me by 1 stroke, although without ESC I would've beaten him by about 20 (when he blows up on a hole, he REALLY blows up - but he's very new to the game, and he plays really well considering.) That just got me wondering - do most people play with a max score per hole every time they go out? If I did that I would've broken 90 a long time ago. In fact I'd probably shoot in the high-80s pretty much every time I play, because I normally have a few blow-up holes mixed in with several pars and the occasional birdie. Not sure I'd feel good about it, though. Unless that's the way everyone plays and I've just been screwing myself over on the scorecard the past few years.
So is this the normal way to score, and I've just been killing myself trying to score well with the occasional double-digit hole?
If this is how I'm supposed to be doing it, how do I know the max score per hole? Is it something to do with the hole handicap listed on the card? Admittedly I didn't read the USGA pages about it that Laser linked, so I guess I'll go do that now.