Here is everything you need to know about ‘soft caps’.
politeness
A few weeks ago a golfer in California received who asked to stay unnamed what he considered a ‘badge of shame’.
It appeared on his ghin app, where he keeps track of his handicap index, in the form of something called a ‘soft cap’.
“It felt like someone didn’t trust there,” said the golfer.
That is not the intention.
“A soft cap is not intended as a punishment of any kind,” said Lee Rainwater, director of disability and outreach for the USGA. “On the contrary, it is a handicapping protection to ensure that your (handicap -index) represents your demonstrated capacity.”
How exactly does it work?
True to his name, a soft cap is a mechanism that automatically starts to limit how quickly the handicap index of a golfer can increase. It is activated when the difference between the newly calculated index of a player and their low handicap index (within 12 months after their most recent posted score) is greater than 3.0 strokes. In those cases, any increase of more than 3.0 is limited to 50 percent of that increase. For example, if your low handicap index is 10.0 and your newly calculated number jumps to 14.0, or an increase 13.5.
A soft cap is not the only kind of cap. There is also a security called a hard cap, which limits any upward movement in the handicap of a player to a maximum of 5 strokes above their low handicap index.
Due to their nature, soft caps and hard caps can scare sandbags. But the intention behind them is not to focus cheats.
They are designed with the vast majority of golfers in mind. Most golfers are not looking for the system. They want to keep their performance accurately. The fact is, however, even the best players can suffer through a piece of bad form in which they post a series of bad scores that do not faithfully reflect their underlying power.
That is where automatic caps come in. They adapt for those deviations.
In 2024, 21 percent of golfers were hit by the soft cap during their season and 1.5 percent was hit by the hard cap.
In other words, in other words, is not uncommon. If it happens to you, don’t consider a badge of shame. Think of it as the handicap system that keeps track of how you really play.
Do you not have a handicap? You can start the process here.
