2026 might be the time to finally get a GHIN handicap

If you are looking to get a golf handicap for the 2026 season it is nice and easy with any of your local golf organizations.

1) Sign up for a Handicap ID

Your unique Handicap ID number gives you the ability to post scores from which your Handicap Index is calculated. Get your Handicap ID number when you join a WA Golf member club such as the men’s or women’s club at a local golf course, or one at your workplace or community. Or join the Oregon Golf Association (OGA).

Join a WA Golf Associate Club or OGA club. Associate members receive all the benefits of a WA Golf membership with no strings attached or obligations to their host club.

2) Start posting your scores

With your Handicap ID number, you can post your scores: Through the USGA GHIN app on your mobile device. The app lets you post your scores, calculate course handicap, view score history and more. The app features touch-point GPS for thousands of golf courses worldwide. Download the free app from the App Store or Google Play.

Here are a couple of ways to get it going: Through ghin.com or Online at wagolf.org/post. Scores should be posted as soon as possible after your round on the day it was played.

3) Post three 18-hole rounds

A minimum of three 18-hole or six 9-hole scores posted are all that’s needed to calculate and establish your Handicap Index! The more often you post your score, the more accurate your handicap.

Statistics about golfers with handicaps

How did you play last year? Don’t give us your gut feeling. Supply us with hard numbers, the kind of stats you get from counting every stroke and posting every score. That’s what is required to keep an accurate handicap. It’s not hard. Lots of people do it—3.68 million golfers in the United States alone.

In 2025, golfers posted 82 million rounds under the World Handicap System, a domestic record. The USGA counted every one and crunched those numbers to produce the 2025 Golf Scorecard, a compendium of data-driven findings that provide a snapshot of trends in the game. Here are seven that caught our eye.

• More Golfers Are Keeping Score: The 3.68 million golfers who kept a handicap in 2025 represent an 8.2 percent bump from 2024, and a 46 percent jump since 2020. Another way to put it is that the number of golfers who keep handicaps has increased by around 1.16 million since Covid hit.

• Average Handicaps Haven’t Budged: With so many new golfers taking up the game, you might expect handicap averages to go up. But there hasn’t been dramatic change in those numbers. In 2025, the average handicap was 14.0 for male golfers and 28.8 for female golfers. In 2020, those numbers were 14.2 and 27.7, respectively.

• Scratch Golfers Are Unicorns: A lot of golfers dream of getting down to scratch. Very few do. Only 2 percent of male golfers have handicaps of 0 or lower. Female scratch golfers are even harder to come by. They make up just .85 percent of girls and women.

• Florida Posted the Most Rounds: When you’ve got year-round weather and courses on every corner, the numbers add up. Florida golfers logged more total rounds than any other state in 2025. The Sunshine State’s dominance in raw volume comes as a shock to absolutely no one who’s ever spent January anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Arkansas Golfers Are the Best in America: If you’re looking for the lowest handicap average for men in the nation, head to Arkansas. Golfers in the Natural State posted better numbers than anywhere else in the country.

Publishers’ note: Don’t feel left out if you don’t have a handicap, 99.92% of golfers in 2025 did not have a handicap.