How to read a scorecard
Let’s break down the parts of the golf scorecard and what you need to know. Here are the general parts you are going to find on every golf course scorecard:
Hole numbers
Tees and yardages
Par
Handicap
Course & slope rating
A couple other things you may or may not find on a scorecard:
A pictorial layout of the golf course which shows the routing or path you’ll travel on your round
Any local or course-specific rules
Hole Numbers
The hole numbers are (I think?) pretty straightforward. Most courses will have 18 holes, but some will have just 9 and others 27. You play the holes in number order, with the “OUT” or “Front 9” being holes 1-9, and “IN” or “Back 9” being holes 10-18.
“OUT” means as you play the course you are moving away from the clubhouse, and “IN” means as you play you are moving back towards the clubhouse. But not every course has this out and then in layout, so it may just say “Front 9” and “Back 9”
Here’s my scorecard from a round this summer. I keep track of my stats on my scorecard: like putts, whether I hit the fairway or not, and whether I hit the green in regulation.
Tees & Yardages
You can generally expect to see at least 3 sets of tees at each golf course. The longest tees & respective yardages are at the top of the scorecard and the shortest tees are at the bottom.
The tees might be called different names but typically you will see them as colors. For example: white, blue, silver, red, gold. When you go on the golf course, you are going to look for the markers on the tee boxes that correspond to the color tees you identify on the scorecard that you want to play.
For me personally, I’m looking to play yardages that are somewhere around 5,000 +/- 200 yards across 18 holes. That is a very comfortable distance for me, a 5”4’ athletic 42 year old woman. For 9 holes I’m looking to play 2,200 to 2,500 yards.
Par
This is the number of strokes a skilled golfer would take to complete the holes. Each hole has a par number, and there are par totals listed for the front 9, the back 9, and the total 18 holes.
There might be different par for the shorter tees, so definitely watch out for this. For example at my home course Hickory Woods, hole 16 on the back 9 is a Par 5 for the Blue & White tees, but it is a Par 4 for the Red tees. You can see that on the line that says “RED PAR.”
Handicap
While I’m not going to explain the handicap system in this post, what you need to know is that each hole is ranked from 1 to 18 based on its difficulty. So when you see a hole with a handicap of 1, that means it is considered the most difficult hole on the course. Similarly the hole that has 18 in the handicap line is the least difficult.
If you keep a handicap, you’ll use this line when playing with others in friendly competition. I definitely recommend signing up for an official handicap through the USGA or R&A.
Similar to the par line, there may be another handicap line that corresponds to the different sets of tees.
Course & slope rating
Again, I’m not going into too much detail here, just giving you a general feel for what this info means. The USGA / R&A have a rating system for golf courses which tells you the relative difficulty of the golf course.
There’s also a line for you to sign your scorecard, and a place for the person who was there with you to “attest” to your score. You’ll use this when playing in tournaments.
The scorecard is not just for keeping score
The scorecard is not simply for keeping score. It tells you valuable info about the golf course.
Pro tip - when playing with new people, write down your playing partners names on the scorecard right after introductions.
I like to keep track of not just my overall score but also I track the number of putts, so the scorecard can also be a good tool to help you keep track of your golf stats.
Hope this was helpful! Drop a comment if you have any questions or want more info.
