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Tour pros play a game that feels both strange and familiar.
On the other hand, they stick to the same rules and use the same equipment as the rest of us (for now, at least, while a potential golf ball rollback is still being discussed).
On the other hand, it is superior in every performance category. They hit the ball farther and straighter. It cracks and strikes more precisely.
How much better are they than us ordinary pranksters?
Unlike many sports, golf allows us to tell the difference between a pro and a joe.
The World Handicap System, devised by the governing bodies, works just as well for the likes of Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler as it does for chops in the four-weekend.
Browse on GHIN, the USGA’s handicap management website, and you’ll find that pros make use of the system. Quite a few of them have disabilities. The catch is that they don’t always stay up to date. Take Max Homa, for example. He is listed on GHIN as a plus-9, playing out of Plantation, a private club in the Palm Springs, California area. But January was the last time he scored, and we know he’s played a lot of golf since then.
What would the HUMA Disability Index be like if it was kept up to date? What about Ram and Shuffler? And Brooks Koepka, Colin Morikawa, and Cameron Smith, among other members of the game’s elite?
We wanted to know.
So, we gathered scoring data from 10 of the biggest stars in the men’s professional game (the top 9 stars in the Official World Golf Rankings, plus Brooks Koepka, who’s been on a tear in the recent majors) and asked our friends at the USGA to help us crunch the numbers. To get to the handicaps of Rahm, Scheffler, Koepka, and others, the USGA used the same method that applies to all of us: They took the best 8 rounds from each player’s most recent 20 rounds based on points differential (scoring difference is the score in relation to the difficulty of the course, as measured by rating slope and trajectory), and calculate the mean difference.
methodology
It should be noted that all 20 rounds were played in tournaments; The calculations did not take into account results from any other rounds that the ten golfers may have played during the same time period, as these results were not publicly available. Also, because Augusta National does not have a course or slopestyle classification, scores from the 2023 Masters are not included.
Another note: the calculations were based on the course and slope rating of the championship distance for each venue, but did not factor into the course setting, as the specific ratings for these settings were also not available. In the case of the Mexican Open, where a tournament setting is played for longer than the course’s longest-rated yardage, the USGA has used a procedure known as Appendix G, which accounts for this differential.
In a perfect world, the more data the better. “We always want people to post all of their results,” says Lee Rainwater, USGA’s director of disability education and outreach. “As a disabled person, I would be especially interested to see all the scores the tour pros score, including the tours they play with friends at their local club.”
However, these additional scores are unlikely to change the Tour pro handicaps significantly, Rainwater said, since the scores they shoot are already so low, “it’s hard to imagine they’ll drop much.”
You can check out the disabilities below. In the meantime, if you want another way to measure yourself against the best in the world, the USGA has produced it This fun toolwhich calculates what you’ll shoot this week at Los Angeles Country Club, host of the US Open, based on your handicap, estimated slope, and course rating for tournament preparation.
Pro Handicap Tour
During the Memorial Tournament (June 4)
(1*) Scottie Scheffler: +8.4
(2) Jon Rahm: +7.7
(3) Rory McIlroy: +6.3
(4) Patrick Cantlay: +7.4
(5) Victor Hofland: +7.5
(6) Xander Schavelli: +7.8
(7) Max Homa: +6.5
(8) Matthew Fitzpatrick: +6.6
(9) Cameron Smith: +7.6
(13) Brooks Koepka: +8.2
*rankings.