Fair Competition & Handicaps

More than on most tours, because we don’t rely on self-reported handicaps.

We use our own index, built only from tournament rounds. Your APT Tournament Index is calculated from your scores in APT events – not from rounds you post yourself at your home course. Casual rounds can’t be used to inflate it.

Most events are gross stroke play. The main division competition is straight lowest-score-wins. Net games exist, but they’re optional side contests you opt into, not the main event.

New players are scrutinized until the index is proven. Before you’ve posted six APT rounds you’re “unvalidated.” An unvalidated player who posts a round more than three strokes below their division cutoff – or more than three strokes below their nearest competitor – can be removed from that division’s field.

Exceptional rounds trigger review. If you shoot a round two divisions below your own, the Competition Committee can move you up. We also review partial rounds: if a player is even par through 15 holes and finishes triple-triple-triple, the Committee can treat it as an exceptional round anyway.

The Committee meets every week and can move any player at any time to protect the integrity of the competition.

Your APT Tournament Index measures your scoring ability based solely on your tournament rounds with the APT. Its only purpose is division placement – it is not a USGA Handicap Index and shouldn’t be treated as one.

It’s calculated from your 20 most recent APT rounds using a performance-based formula that draws on your best scores in that pool. Roughly half your rounds count: with 6 posted scores we use your best 3, with 12 we use your best 6, with 20 we use your best 10.

Scores are adjusted before they enter the index. Once you have an index, the maximum you can post on any hole is net double bogey. In your very first round, the maximum is par plus 3.

You become validated once you’ve posted six tournament scores to your APT index.

Before that, the Competition Committee uses whatever data is available – your USGA Handicap, its 12-month low, scores from other tours, and your Handicap Questionnaire – and has discretion to move you up or down.

Once validated, your APT Tournament Index becomes the primary factor in your division placement, and you’re exempt from being removed from a field for an out-of-division score.

Not necessarily – and that’s deliberate. We don’t want to punish players for getting better.

If your index dips below your division line, validated players enter what we call the Flight Flex: a review window rather than an automatic promotion. Players with a complete index (20 or more posted scores, 10 in the last 12 months) can go up to 0.5 below the line before a promotion is triggered; other validated players get 0.2. Either way it opens a short review period, and if your index comes back above the line, you stay put.

Players who compete often earn more room. Ten rounds in a season earns a 0.5 cushion; fifteen or more earns a full shot.

Unvalidated players – fewer than six APT rounds – are promoted immediately once their index crosses the line.

If you are promoted, you keep 100% of your points and carry them into your new division, and you earn exemptions into this season’s North American Championship and next season’s Signature Majors.

Yes. If your APT Tournament Index warrants it, you can request relegation.

All relegation requests must be submitted through the Player Change Request Form – it’s the only way a request is accepted. If you have questions about the process, email handicaps@aptgolf.org.

The Competition Committee reviews requests at its weekly meeting, currently held Wednesdays, and communicates its decision afterward. A validated player whose index goes 0.5 below the division cutoff may be relegated once per season. Approved relegations can carry conditions – playing the open tee in the new division, or completing rounds in it before championship entry – and begin a probationary review of up to six rounds.

No. A GHIN helps us place you accurately, but it isn’t required.

New members complete the APT Handicap Questionnaire, and the Competition Committee uses that alongside any other data available to place you in a division. If you have no handicap history at all, we’ll work with you to find the right starting division and adjust as your first scores come in.

Only if you choose to post the scores yourself.

Your APT Tournament Index and your USGA Handicap Index are separate. We calculate your APT index from your tournament rounds with us for division placement. Posting those rounds to your GHIN is optional and remains in your hands.

No. Your APT Tournament Index is built only from rounds played in APT events.

Outside data – your GHIN, its 12-month low, results from other tours – is used by the Competition Committee to place you correctly before you’re validated, but those scores never enter the index itself. That’s what keeps the index a clean measure of tournament performance.

Your index is visible in your member profile. You can also look up other members’ indexes through member search.