Twelve players, three rounds, one goal: handicaps nobody can moan about. Every number is either an official England Golf index or computed from a full history of VPAR rounds — and the maths is all here to check.
Objections may be raised on the first tee and will be noted, then ignored.
Playing handicaps per round · longest handicap first
| Player | R1Pines | R2Challenge | R3Pines |
|---|
Each player's index, how confident we are, and — for the VPAR-computed players — the exact rounds and sums behind it. Open “Show the rounds & maths” to check every differential.
Two kinds of handicap, both real: an official England Golf index where a player has one, otherwise a World Handicap System calculation on their full record of VPAR rounds.
Mark McAteer, Neil & Lukas Sparkes, Chris Fleming and Paul Timms have official England Golf Handicap Indexes, so we use them directly. Mark, Neil and Lukas no longer log rounds on VPAR — which doesn't matter, because their England Golf number is the authority. The VPAR maths below does not apply to them.
The other seven have no official index, so we compute one from their full VPAR history (50–100 rounds each). For every 18-hole round: differential = (gross − course rating) × 113 ÷ slope, then take the average of the best 8 of the last 20 (the standard WHS window). 9-hole rounds are excluded. Each player's card shows every round used.
Course Rating & Slope come from the USGA National Course Rating Database (the global WHS master) for the main UK courses, and from published golf course databases for the Spanish, Portuguese and Mallorcan courses. A handful of minor venues with no listing use estimates, marked * in the tables. Averaging eight differentials keeps any single estimate from swinging the result.
Yes — the England Golf players are the control. Running this exact method on their VPAR history lands within ~0.8 of their official index (Paul Timms 11.6 vs 11.7; Chris Fleming 15.6 vs 14.8; Mark McAteer 28.4 vs 27.4). That agreement is why the seven computed indexes can be trusted.
course handicap = index × slope ÷ 113 + (CR − par), then × 95% for singles Stableford. Aroeira Pines plays off CR 71.3 / slope 131; the Challenge CR 71.6 / slope 136 — hence the extra shot or two in Round 2.
Beat 36 points and you're cut for the rounds that follow: 1 shot per 2 points over 36, accumulating. Shoot 40 in Round 1 → 2 off Rounds 2 and 3. The calculator holds a grudge.
Sources: full VPAR round history · USGA NCRDB & published course databases · England Golf indexes self-reported · to Sep 2026.