MyScorecard: the quest for an online handicap tracker (part 2)

September 29, 8:35 PMSF Golf ExaminerGreg Quiroga

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This is the second post in a series on online handicap tracking sites and software. For years now I've used Yahoo!'s free online handicap tracker, and am looking to find a service that does more with my data than simply display it.

The first new online handicap site I tried out was MyScorecard.com. The service is free to try, and costs $9.95 a year after that. Sign-up was easy enough, and within 90 seconds of opting to give the service a go I was entering scores. No up-front credit card information or pre-payments necessary.

MyScorecard makes it easy to input scores. Right off the bat I opted to fully customized my personal scorecard to track the data I normally track, and a few extra tidbits as well: 

• Fairways in Reg
• Greens in Reg
• Up & Downs Successes
• Putts
• Pars
• Bogeys
• Double-Bogeys
• Birdies and
• Missed Approaches

Once I had my scorecard customized, I set off to enter scores. The menu to find courses was a little challenging to figure out at first, but once I "got" it, I was off and running. In fact, it is easy to input courses not in the database, and easy to correct erroneous data on courses already in there. Every course you enter a score for automatically gets saved in a drop-down menu on my scorecard home page.

Once I'd entered five scores MyScorecard was able to calculate a USGA handicap, and start generating statistics. I hit the fairways 38% of the time, for example, but manage to hit only 11% of my greens in regulation while averaging 2.01 putts per hole. Interesting data, but not game-changing statistical analysis.

MyScorecard offers reports and analysis, but it doesn't really crack the whip in that regard. I only input my last 11 scores, so the trends offered little insight, and the yearly handicap data was incomplete. The  "You vs. Your Handicap" report offers lots of detailed analysis, and it is interesting to see how I stood up against other people with the same handicap. My putting and GIR are below average for a 26.7 handicap, for example. But most of the feedback seems extremely cut and paste:

"Right now, your putting average is below your handicap. Combined with an above average Greens in Regulation makes for great news. So why are you not a lower handicap? The most obvious cause is the 'blow up.' Do find that you always have the one or two holes that ruin your game? If you could just get rid of the triple(s) you'd be right on down there." Yeah, no sh1t. If I could drive the ball 300 yards I wouldn't have to use my 5-iron on every approach shot, either.

Furthermore, MyScorecard doesn't allow for hole-by-hole data input on each round. I want to know, for example, how many of my GIR are on par 3's versus par 4's. I want to know how often I double-bogey a par 5 even when I'm in the fairway. I want to know lots of stuff, and I'm not sure that the handicapping software I want exists. Online. For a reasonable fee. I do know that MyScorecard.com offers a much more comprehensive handicapping platform than Yahoo!'s, and for an extremely reasonable fee of $9.95 per year. Coupled with the fact that MyScorecard offers USGA compliant handicaps, and a print-your-own handicap card you can use for tournament play, and it is by far the most affordable of the bunch I'm checking out.

Coming up next, I check out NetHandicap. Now to find out if price translates to more detailed analysis.