>There are two weekend hackers competing. One normally shoots around 80, the other around 90. Courses have handicaps by hole. Is it the same to apply the handicaps per hole are you play as using the 10 stroke difference at the end of the round?

Hi Jay.

Don't quite understand the question. But there is no formula, that I know of, for spotting your friend a few strokes.

You already may know this but...
Your handicap has nothing to do with the hole you're playing. In fact it may not have anything to with the course your're playing either. You need to play at least ten rounds of golf to get an "accurate" calibration of your handicap... um....so I've heard. But for us hackers, just give the less skilled opponent the amount of stroke he is usually beaten by, minus two. So if you usually beat you opponent by 5 strokes, spot him 3.

The hole handicap is just the difficulty rank given to a hole relative to other holes on the course. I don't know how they come up with the ranking tho... Maybe they have few local pros play a few rounds of golf and they determine the handicap of the hole and slope of the course or they determine that during course design time.... or probably they just draw the hole number out of a hat. :)

Hit 'em long and straight Jay.