Handicaps and scoring
Parful runs thisStroke index and stroke allocation
Also called Stroke allocation, Handicap holes, Where my shots fall, SI.
The stroke index ranks the eighteen holes from 1, the hardest, to 18, the easiest, and decides where your handicap strokes fall. A Playing Handicap™ of 12 gets one stroke on stroke index 1 through 12. Above 18 the allocation wraps: every hole takes one stroke before any hole takes a second.
- Stroke index 1
- The hardest hole, and the first to receive a stroke
- A handicap of 12
- One stroke on stroke index 1 through 12, none elsewhere
- A handicap of 24
- One everywhere, plus a second on stroke index 1 through 6
- Above 36
- Two everywhere, then a third on the lowest indexes
- Plus handicaps
- Strokes are given back, hardest holes first
- Match play
- Strokes are given on the difference between the players
How the allocation works
Every hole on a course carries a stroke index between 1 and 18, printed on the card. It ranks holes by the difficulty they present to a handicap golfer relative to a scratch golfer, which is not quite the same thing as ranking them by how hard they are: a long par 5 usually indexes low because a stroke helps there, while a fiddly par 3 may index high even if it plays over par for everyone.
Your Playing Handicap™ is then handed out one stroke at a time, starting at stroke index 1 and working up. Twelve strokes reach stroke index 12 and stop. Eighteen strokes reach every hole exactly once. Nothing about the allocation depends on your score; it is fixed before you tee off and the same for every round on that card.
Above eighteen, the allocation wraps
A handicap higher than the number of holes wraps around. Twenty-four strokes gives every hole one stroke, then continues from stroke index 1 with a second, reaching stroke index 6. Thirty-eight strokes gives every hole two, then a third on stroke index 1 and 2. There is no ceiling: the rule is simply that no hole takes an extra stroke until every hole has taken the previous one.
This is worth stating plainly because it used to be a real defect on Parful. An older version of the allocator ran two fixed passes and silently stopped at two strokes a hole, so a player off 38 received 36 strokes and quietly lost two on every surface in the product. It was found at Innisfail in August 2026 and fixed; the allocation now wraps as many times as the handicap requires.
Try it
Where do my strokes fall?
A sample card with a common stroke index layout. Enter a Playing Handicap™ from +10 to 54 and watch the strokes land, hardest holes first.
| Hole | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Par | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 72 |
| Stroke index | 7 | 3 | 17 | 1 | 11 | 15 | 5 | 9 | 13 | 8 | 4 | 18 | 2 | 12 | 16 | 6 | 10 | 14 | |
| Strokes | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 24 |
Above 18, every hole takes one stroke before any hole takes a second. A plus handicap gives strokes back on the hardest holes first.
Plus handicaps and match play
A plus player has a negative Playing Handicap™ and gives strokes back rather than receiving them, starting at stroke index 1. A player off +2 adds a stroke to their score on the two hardest holes. The ordering is identical; only the direction changes.
Match play does it differently again. Rather than each player receiving their own strokes, the difference between the two Playing Handicaps™ is given to the higher handicapper, starting at stroke index 1. A 12 against an 8 means the 12 receives four strokes, on stroke index 1 through 4, and the 8 plays the match off scratch. This keeps the match about the holes rather than about two separate net cards.
How a club sets its stroke index
The stroke index belongs to the course and its handicap committee, not to Parful. The common convention spreads the low indexes so that strokes do not bunch: odd numbers on one nine and even on the other, and index 1 and 2 away from the first and last holes so a match is not decided by a stroke on the opening tee. Some committees rank purely by the difference between bogey and scratch scoring on each hole, which is the method the rating system supports.
Parful reads the stroke index from the tee a player is on, which matters more than it sounds: a course can allocate differently from different tees, and reading only one set was the source of a real bug in the product where women's tee pars were ignored.
How Parful runs it
Parful allocates strokes from the matched tee's stroke index for each player, wrapping as described, and shows a small dot in the corner of each hole on the scoring grid where a player receives a stroke. The dot is a cue, not an input: it does not change what you type. Net scores, Stableford points and net double bogey caps all read the same allocation, so a stroke that shows on the card is the stroke used in the arithmetic everywhere.
Where a course has no stroke index on file, Parful falls back to numbering the holes in order rather than guessing at difficulty, and the fallback is visible on the card so a club can see it needs fixing.
Worked example
A worked example: three handicaps on one card
A sample front nine with its stroke indexes. Ana plays off 9, Ben off 24 and Sam off +2.
| Hole | Par | Stroke index | Ana (9) | Ben (24) | Sam (+2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 3 | 3 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | −1 |
| 5 | 4 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 7 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 8 | 4 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 9 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
- Ben's 24 is 18 plus 6: one stroke on all eighteen holes, then a second on stroke index 1 through 6.
- On hole 3, stroke index 17, only Ben receives a stroke. It is the easiest hole on the nine and the last to be reached.
Common variants
- Nine-hole allocation
- A nine-hole round allocates across nine holes with the same wrapping rule, so a 12 handicap receives one stroke everywhere and a second on the three lowest indexes. Parful handles nine-hole cards this way.
- Allocation by difficulty rather than index
- Some casual games hand strokes out on the holes the group thinks are hardest. It is not the stroke index and Parful does not support it.
- Three-quarter difference in match play
- Older club traditions gave three quarters of the difference rather than the full difference. The modern recommendation is the full difference, which is what Parful uses.