Now imagine you are relatively new to the world of golf and have a golf handicap of 30. Theoretically speaking, this means that on the St Andrews Old Course - a course par of 72 - you would be expected to take 30 additional strokes, making a total of 102 strokes to complete the game.

Your golf handicap is 14. So, you are expected to play 89 strokes or 14 over par. After scoring all 18-hole scores, your friend scored 82 and you scored 85. While your friend scored lower, once handicaps are applied you would have won this round of golf. Your friend played 7 over par as expected.