NORTON, Massachusetts – While Mass Golf encourages golfers to play as long and as often as New England weather permits, here in Massachusetts there is an official end to handicap season.
That simply means that no rounds played in Massachusetts during the inactive season (November 15 through March 31) may be counted towards your handicap index.
However, you still have time to hit the links and post those scores for any rounds played on or before November 14th. That is the final day you can post scores for rounds played during the Bay State’s 2018 active season.
Once the inactive season starts on November 15th, that doesn’t mean golfers can’t continue playing in regions that are seasonal. But the playing characteristics of golf courses severely change during winter months, impacting the USGA Course Rating™ and Slope Rating® Systems used to calculate handicaps and making it inequitable for golfers to post scores.
Therefore, the only scores that are acceptable for handicap purposes during the inactive season are scores from rounds played in an area (e.g. Florida, Arizona, etc.) which is still accepting scores for handicap purposes.
The good news is that every golf association and club issuing USGA Handicap Indexes now updates their members USGA Handicap Indexes on the 1st and 15th of every month throughout the year, so your handicaps will be updated and you will still receive e-revision emails on the 1st and 15th of each month during the inactive season.
Massachusetts has a total of eight ‘off season’ revisions. The official start of the 2019 handicap season is April 1. In the next e-revision, we will discuss the best way to post those scores from those states observing an active season.
Click here to learn more about why there are ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ seasons.
If you have any questions about this issue or anything handicap related, feel free to contact Mike Wice at mwice@massgolf.org.
