What is a golf handicap?

Question

What do the numbers mean on a golf scorecard which list a handicap number for each hole? They seem to vary from 1 - 18 and I can't tell that the individual holes are that different in difficulty.

Answer 1

The other two answers are close but wrong.  They are not ranked according to difficulty, a common but incorrect belief.  They are ranked based on the liklihood that a worse player would need a stoke to compete with a better player.  Holes that have a large gap in average score from good and bad players have a low number and vice verca.

Answer 2

The handicap number for each hole on the score card defines the difficulties of each hole from 1 (most difficult) to 18 (least difficult).  It goes from 1 to 18 because this number rates each hole in order of difficulties for these 18 holes.  

For you playing 18 holes and not betting or in competition, you should be more careful with the holes that has lower numbers, it might not look difficult from the tee box, but it might have more hazards, maybe a very narrow fairway with lots of trees, or designed in such a way that it is very difficult to reach the green in regulation strokes...etc.  If you are betting or competing with friends, and are giving strokes or receiving strokes, it is common to start giving strokes to the weaker player from the most difficult holes.  ie: if you generally shot 25 over par and I shot 20 over par, I might give you 5 strokes on the holes with difficulties 1 thru 5...etc. to even the match.

Answer 3

If you will note, your score card shows odd handicap numbers on one nine and the even handicap numbers of the other nine holes.The odd numbers are assigned #1 to the hardest to 17 for the easiest on that nine. The same is true for the even numbered handicap holes except that if the hardest is #18 it may be assigned a higher number so that the stroke will come into the stroke assignment in match play.Match play pits man against man. Handicap indicates a person's ability.  The lower the handicap the better the player. In order to be able to play one against the other the differential in handicaps is determined and the person who has the differential will receive strokes on those holes  indicated in the differential. Example ; Player 1 is a five handicap player. Player 2 is an 8 handicap player. Player 2 will receive a stroke deduction on the handicap holes numbered 1,2 and 3 .