Short answer. Your Handicap Index is the number that belongs to you. Ringer turns it into a Course Handicap for the tees you play, then into a Playing Handicap for each game, and the Playing Handicap decides where your stroke dots land. Ringer handicaps are not official handicaps; they are for your games with your crew.
How it works
| Term | What it means in Ringer |
|---|---|
| Handicap Index | Your standing index, one decimal, such as 7.5. It belongs to you, not to any one outing. The GHIN import confirm sheet calls the same number your "Ringer Index". |
| Round override | A number the Commissioner sets for one outing only. When it is present, it replaces your Handicap Index for that outing. |
| Course Handicap (CH) | Your index converted to the tee you actually play: Index × Slope ÷ 113 + (Rating − Par). |
| Playing Handicap (PH) | Course Handicap after the game's allowance, and after "off the low" if the game uses it. The PH is what the stroke dots are drawn from. |
| Allowance | The percentage of your Course Handicap a game gives you, from 1% to 200%. 100% means full handicap. |
| Off the low | The lowest player in the game plays off zero and everyone else receives the difference. |
| Stroke index (SI) | The course's ranking of hole difficulty from 1 (hardest) to 18. Strokes go to the lowest stroke index first. |
| Stroke dots (pops) | The strokes you receive on a hole, drawn as dots next to your name on the scorecard. |
| Frozen handicap | The copy of every player's handicap taken the moment a round starts. The board and money read that copy, not today's index. |
| Unhandicapped | A player with no index on file. Ringer never treats them as scratch; net games leave their ball out. |
| Verified | A number imported from a GHIN card screenshot or entered by a Commissioner. A number you typed yourself is "Player supplied" and shows as "est." on rosters. |
Good to know
- A plus handicap is written the golf way, with a leading plus:
+2means better than scratch. Scratch shows asscron chips and as0in a field you can edit. - Indexes are accepted from
+10to54, rounded to one decimal. - Ringer does not recompute your index from your scores. It uses the number you entered or imported, exactly as given.