We’ve all played with someone who turns up on the first tee and responds to the question about their handicap with something along the lines of: “I’m not sure really, I don’t have an official index. I’ll just play off 18.”
If you’re playing four-ball better-ball, any sort of match play game or a stableford with drinks or money on the line, it can be frustrating and unfair when a playing partner plucks a handicap index out of thin air and then proceeds to play the first three holes in level par.
