Editorial Policy
This page sets out how the content on Free Golf Handicap Calculator is researched, written, checked and corrected. We publish it because a site that explains handicap rules should be open about where its own information comes from.
Who Writes This Site
Free Golf Handicap Calculator is an independent project rather than a publisher with a newsroom. Articles and calculators are produced and maintained for the site as a whole, and they are published under the site’s name rather than under invented bylines.
We would rather say that plainly than present a roster of authors that does not reflect how the work is actually done. You can read more about the project on our About Us page.
Our Sources
Everything we publish about handicapping traces back to primary documentation rather than to other websites.
- The Rules of Handicapping published jointly by the USGA and The R&A, which define the World Handicap System, its formulas, its caps and its adjustments.
- National association guidance where a country applies the WHS with local rules — for example on which competitions count, or how general play scores are submitted.
- Course Rating and Slope Rating methodology as published by the governing bodies, for anything describing how courses are assessed.
Where a national body and the general position differ, we say so in the article and treat the national body as authoritative for that country.
How We Research and Write
Each guide starts from the relevant rule text, not from a summary of it. Where a rule involves arithmetic, we work the calculation through with real numbers before describing it, because a formula that has never been evaluated is easy to describe incorrectly.
We aim to state what a rule does, what it does not do, and where its limits are. Where something is genuinely uncertain, or varies by jurisdiction, we say that rather than choosing the tidier answer.
How We Check the Calculators
Every calculator implements a published formula. Before a calculator is released or changed, its output is compared against worked examples calculated by hand, including the edge cases that most often go wrong: the maximum Handicap Index of 54.0, the soft cap and hard cap, rounding at each step, and the treatment of nine-hole rounds.
Our calculators are educational tools. They do not issue an official Handicap Index, and a figure produced here has no standing in competition. Only an authorised association or an affiliated club can issue an official Index.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to know, and we would rather be corrected than leave an error standing.
- Report it through our contact page or by email, telling us which page it is on and what you believe the correct position to be.
- We check the claim against the source documentation rather than against our own previous wording.
- Substantive corrections are made to the article itself and to its Spanish and French versions, so the three do not drift apart.
- Where a correction changes the meaning of a passage, we say what changed rather than editing silently.
Keeping Content Current
The Rules of Handicapping are revised on a multi-year cycle, and national associations adjust their local rules more often than that. When a rule changes, we review the calculators and the written guides together: a guide that describes a superseded rule is as much a defect as a calculator that returns the wrong number.
Content that references a specific year is reviewed when that year’s position changes, not left to age quietly.
Independence
This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the USGA, The R&A, or any national golf association. When we describe their rules we are describing them; we do not speak for them.
We do not accept payment for coverage, we do not publish sponsored articles, and no third party reviews or approves our content before publication. Where we mention a product, a service or an association, it is because it is relevant to the topic, not because of any commercial arrangement.
Contact Us
Questions about this policy, or about how a particular article was put together, are welcome at support@freegolfhandicapcalculator.com or through our contact page. Our full position on the limits of this site is set out in the Disclaimer.