What Happens If You Don’t Complete A Round When You’re Putting In A Card?

Golf can be a slow old game at times and, occasionally, you might either run out of time before completing a round, needing to get onto the next part of your day, or, you might simply have had enough of looking at the rear-ends of the group in front!

Either way, what happens if you are forced to, or choose to walk off before completing a round? If you are putting in a card, does it still count for anything?

Well, let’s start with competition. If you are playing an 18-hole stroke play event and you do not complete each hole then you will have posted a No Return (NR) for the purposes of that competition.

However, if you were playing in another form of individual competition, say it was Stableford for example, your score will still count. In Stableford, you would accrue points for the holes you did play, but no points on the holes you didn’t. Your total Stableford score would be lower than it might have been had you finished your round, but it would still be valid and acceptable.

When it comes to handicap purposes, if you’re putting in a card through competition or General Play, the World Handicap System, (WHS) has provisions to work out and give you a comparative (adjusted) score, based on the holes you have played... with one requirement…

If you signed up before the round to play 18 holes, as long as you have completed 10 holes, the score will be acceptable for handicap purposes. WHS will allocate either a nett par or nett par plus one for the holes that you didn’t play, producing an adjusted 18-hole score.

If you signed up to play only nine holes, you will need to have completed all nine holes for the score to be acceptable for handicap purposes.

If you don’t complete an 18-hole round, but you have played 10 or more holes, you should still enter the card for WHS handicap purposes.