Video:How to Keep Score in Golf

Transcript:How to Keep Score in Golf

I'm Todd Kolb with About.com. We're going to talk about how to keep score in golf. Keeping score in golf is relatively simple and really quite honestly very straight forward.

Information About Keeping Score in Golf

The rule is this, if you address the golf ball and you're going to attempt to hit the golf ball whether you come in contact with it or not, that counts as a stroke. Now that's different than just warming up or making practice swings away from the golf ball. Those swings or those strokes don't count toward your total score. So, when you play a hole, every time you address the golf ball and you attempt to hit the golf ball whether you do make contact or not, that counts as a stroke. So you add up those swings for that hole and that would give you the score for that particular hole.

More Instructions for Keeping Score in Golf

Now, if you're playing 9 holes you would take all of those holes, add them up together and you would have a score for 9 holes. And if you're playing 18 holes of course you would continue the process and come up with a total score for the 18. Now the only times that could change a little bit is if you happen to hit a golf ball that finishes what we call out of bounds, in a water hazard, or maybe you can't find your golf ball or even if you find the ball but it's really in a position that it's unplayable or unhittable.

Keeping Score in Golf

When those situations arise, you're going to want to refer to the rules of golf where it will explain how you proceed and how many number of strokes you need to add to your score. So once again, the rules of golf are pretty simple and straight forward in terms of scoring. When you address the golf ball, if you're attempting or trying to hit it and you make a swing that counts as a stroke. Let me reiterate, that's different than just warming up and making practice swings where you're not trying to hit the golf ball. Those swings do not count. You're going to take those total number of shots that you've hit for the hole, add them up, how many number of holes have you played, add all those up together, and you will come up with a score for that particular round of golf.