How to Make a Golf Score Card
By James Gapinski
While the game of golf is widely popular, its highly regimented procedures are not very intuitive. Many newer players spend several golf sessions learning the sport's rules and guidelines before teeing off on a by-the-book round of golf. With the right know-how, however, a novice golfer can make strides toward a more productive round by taking the confusion out of scoring. A properly formatted scorecard makes it much easier to keep track of strokes and player progress. Making your own scorecard is not as difficult as it may appear at first glance; while the card does consist of several seemingly enigmatic rows and columns, the construction is very orderly and easy to replicate.
Instructions
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Use a pencil and ruler to draw 19 evenly spaced vertical lines on the right-hand side of a piece of cardstock. This is where strokes and vital hole information are recorded, so make sure you leave enough space between lines to fit numerals for scoring the 18 holes---the 19th line sections off the "total" score.
Draw two horizontal lines, cutting through the 19 vertical lines to create small "boxes." In the topmost set of boxes, number the boxes 1 through 18, and label the last box "total." In the boxes below these hole numbers, you'll want to indicate the "par" for each hole. The par is the average or recommended number of strokes for the hole. The very last box should indicate the total par for the entire course.
Draw more horizontal lines beneath the hole numbers and filled-in par values; sketch one line per player. Make sure these horizontal lines extend to the left-hand side of the card; by extending into the void on the left you have now created an area for marking down player names.
Mark in player strokes as the game progresses. You should record each player's strokes along her row, filling in values underneath the appropriate hole column, as indicated by Hireko Golf's "How to Read a Scorecard" article.
Use any extra space at the bottom of the card as scratch paper for calculating the final score. To get a final score, take the player totals from the 19th box and compare that number to the total course par---final golf scores are read as "under" or "over" the course par value.
About The Author
James Gapinski is a writer with numerous online contributions, including those featured on JSOnline.com, Digital-Photography-School.com and the Milwaukee City Edition of Examiner.com. He is the recipient of the Burrows Award and the Angela Peckenpaugh Writing Award. Gapinski holds a Bachelor of Science in English with a writing emphasis from the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater.
