The handicaps of the world’s best male golfers? We crunched the numbers

Tour execs play a sport that appears each international and acquainted.

On the one hand, they abide by the similar guidelines and use the similar gear as the relaxation of us (for now, a minimum of, whereas a possible golf-ball rollback remains to be being mentioned).

On the different, they’re superior in each efficiency class. They hit the ball farther and straighter. They chip and putt with better precision.

How significantly better are they than us bizarre duffers?

Unlike many sports activities, golf permits us to quantify the distinction between execs and Joes.

The World Handicap System, as devised by the governing our bodies, works simply as nicely for the likes of Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler because it does for the chops in your weekend foursome.

Surf round on GHIN, the USGA’s handicapping administration web site, and also you’ll discover that execs make use of the system. Quite just a few of them preserve handicaps. The catch is that they don’t at all times preserve them up to date. Take Max Homa, as an illustration. He is listed on GHIN as a plus-9 index, taking part in out of the Plantation, a personal membership in the Palm Springs, Calif., space. But January was the final time he posted a rating, and we all know he has performed lots of golf since then.

What would Homa’s handicap index be if he saved it present? What about Rahm and Scheffler? And Brooks Koepka and Collin Morikawa and Cameron Smith, amongst different members of the sport’s elite?

We needed to know.

So, we gathered scoring information from 10 of the greatest stars in the males’s professional sport (the prime 9 in the Official World Golf Ranking, plus Brooks Koepka, who has been on a tear in current majors) and requested our associates at the USGA to assist us crunch the numbers. To arrive at handicaps for Rahm, Scheffler, Koepka, et al., the USGA used the similar technique that applies to all of us: They took the best 8 of every participant’s most up-to-date 20 rounds based mostly on scoring differential (scoring differential being the rating in relation to the problem of the course, as measured by the slope and course ranking), and calculated the common differential.

Methodology

It ought to be famous that each one 20 rounds had been performed in tournaments; the calculations didn’t consider scores from every other rounds the 10 golfers might need performed over the similar time interval, as these scores weren’t publicly out there. Also, as a result of Augusta National doesn’t have a course or slope ranking, scores from the 2023 Masters weren’t included.

Another be aware: The calculations had been based mostly on the course and slope ranking from the championship distance of every venue, however they didn’t take into course setup, as particular rankings for these setups weren’t out there both. In the case of the Mexico Open, the place the event setup performed longer than the longest-rated yardage for the course, the USGA used a process, often known as Appendix G, that accounts for that differential.

In a perfect world, the extra information the higher. “We always want people to post all their scores,” says Lee Rainwater, the USGA’s director of handicapping, training and outreach. “And as a handicapping guy, I’d be especially interested to know all the scores these Tour pros are shooting, including the rounds they play with friends at their home club.”

Even so, Rainwater stated, it’s unlikely that these extra scores would alter Tour professional handicaps considerably, as the scores they’re capturing are already so low, “it’s hard to imagine them going much lower.”

You can try the handicaps beneath. Meantime, if you’d like one other technique to measure your self towards the world’s best, the USGA has produced this fun tool, which calculates what you’ll shoot this week at Los Angeles Country Club, host of the U.S. Open, based mostly in your handicap and the estimated slope and course ranking for the championship setup.

Tour Pro Handicaps

Through 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) Viktor Hovland: +7.5

(6) Xander Schauffele: +7.8

(7) Max Homa: +6.5

(8) Matthew Fitzpatrick: +6.6

(9) Cameron Smith: +7.6

(13) Brooks Koepka: +8.2

*World rating.

Josh Sens

Golf.com Contributor

A golf, meals and journey author, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Magazine contributor since 2004 and now contributes throughout all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Sportswriting. He can be the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Fun Yet: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.