How To Calculate Handicap Bowling

Most amateur bowling leagues and tournaments utilize a bowling handicap system. Your bowling handicap allows you to compete against other bowlers with varying levels of skill and ability with an equal chance of winning. A bowling handicap is a percentage of the difference between your average and a basis average. If you’ve never bowled in a league, don’t worry. Leagues assign you an average until you establish one or apply your initial average retroactively as soon as you bowl a few games.

Step 1

Ask your league or tournament officials what basis score and percentage factor they use. The basis score is a high score intended to be more than any individual bowler’s average. Typically, basis scores range from about 200 to 220. The percentage factor is used to calculate your handicap and will usually be 90 to 100 percent.

Step 2

Find your average score. Add the scores from all of your official league games, then divide by the number of games. For example, if you have three games with scores of 140, 146 and 156, you have a total score of 442 pins. Divide by three for the average, which here is 147.3. Always drop any fraction of a pin. Your official average in this example works out to 147.

Step 3

Subtract your average score from the basis score and multiply the result by the percentage factor to calculate your bowling handicap. Suppose the basis score is 200 and the percentage factor is 90 percent. If your average is 147, you have (200-147) X 0.90=47.7. Again, drop the fraction. Your handicap in this example is 47 pins per game.

Step 4

Add the handicap to your actual score for each game. For instance, if you have a game in which you score 160 and your handicap is 47, your adjusted score is 206.

Tips and Warnings

Your handicap is updated periodically. With many leagues in which you compete weekly, your handicap may be updated and changes each week. Team scores in league play are simply the sum of all the adjusted game scores of the team members. Consequently there’s no need to calculate team handicaps for scoring purposes.