Understanding Your Handicap Index on theStick
Handicaps are the part of golf betting most likely to cause an argument, and they're also the part theStick is built to handle in the background. Here's what's actually happening to your number, and why.
If you have a Handicap Index
Your Handicap Index® is calculated by the USGA, not by theStick. Connect your Handicap ID once (it's the number some golfers know as their GHIN #) and theStick pulls your current Handicap Index automatically — no manually typing in a number before every round, no "I swear I'm a 14 now" conversations. It stays current going forward, so the number applied to your rounds is always your real Handicap Index, converted to a Course Handicap™ for the tees you're actually playing that day.
If you don't have a Handicap Index
Net games — the ones where strokes are given and received — are built on a Handicap Index, because it's the one number every golfer can verify. Without one you still play: you compete at gross, straight up, with no strokes given or received, and you stay eligible for gross games, gross skins and everything else that doesn't depend on strokes. When you're ready for the full experience, a Handicap Index comes from posting rounds through an authorized golf club.
theStick can also show you a Skill Level — a personal number that tracks how you're playing from your own round history. It's for your own tracking: it isn't a Handicap Index, it isn't the USGA's number, and it isn't a substitute for one. You'll find it in Settings once you have enough rounds logged.
Your Simulator Skill Level is kept separate
If you play both outdoor rounds and simulator rounds, theStick tracks two separate Skill Levels — your regular one from outdoor rounds, and a distinct Simulator Skill Level built only from rounds you've marked as simulator play. They never mix: a hot streak on a simulator doesn't move your regular Skill Level, and vice versa. You'll see the Simulator Skill Level in Settings once you've logged enough sim rounds, and any round you mark as a simulator round gets a small "SIM" badge so it's always clear which one it's feeding.
Why you never have to do the stroke math yourself
A Course Handicap by itself doesn't tell you which holes you actually get a stroke on — that's determined by the course's stroke index, a 1-through-18 difficulty ranking printed on the scorecard. theStick applies this automatically and correctly: your Course Handicap determines how many of the hardest-rated holes you get a stroke on, and if it's over 18, the hardest holes start getting a second stroke once the first pass is used up. This is genuinely one of the easiest things to get subtly wrong doing it by hand or in a spreadsheet — a slightly-off stroke allocation is where most golf-betting arguments actually start — and it's the entire reason to let an app own this instead of a mental approximation mid-round.
Different games use your handicap differently, and that's normal
A low-net game applies your full handicap. A team format like scramble or four-ball applies a percentage of it (because pairing two handicaps together creates a statistical edge the format has to account for). A head-to-head match play game applies the *difference* between two players' handicaps rather than each one individually. If a setting looks different from the last game you played, that's the format doing its job, not an error — each game's setup screen shows exactly what percentage and basis it's using before the round starts.
The bottom line
Whether you connect a Handicap ID or play at gross while you get a Handicap Index, and whether you're playing outdoors or in a simulator, the numbers get applied correctly without you doing any of the underlying math. That's the whole point — you should be thinking about your next shot, not your stroke index.