Typically, you are responsible for keeping the score of your opponent, and your opponent is responsible for keeping track of yours. After every round, you have to look over your opponent’s card, agree that he has written down your score correctly, and sign or initial it. You’ll also have to do this at the very end of the round. So if your opponent makes a mistake (even assuming it’s an honest one) that somehow makes your score even worse than it should be, you have to take the blame for it. Other players designate one person to be in charge of keeping score for all of the players before the game begins.

Each hole will have a number of strokes listed under “Par”. [4] X Research source This is the average amount of strokes it should take to get the ball in the hole. If the par is 3 and you make a 4, then your score can be viewed as 1-over. If the par for the course is 80 and you finished the course with a 95, then your score is 15-over. Though you don’t have to know them to keep score, you should know that a birdie is one stroke under par, an eagle is two under par, and a bogey is one over par. Some players decide that they can take no more strokes for each hole than a double bogey, or 2 points over par. [5] X Research source

If you hit a ball in the water, drop a new ball in the designated location and take a 1-stroke penalty. If you hit the ball out of bounds (as indicated by white stakes), re-hit from the original location and take a 2-stroke penalty. If you lose a ball, re-hit from the original location and take a 2-stroke penalty.

Some players add up the points every 9 holes so that they don’t have to do too many calculations at the end and can settle disputes over the score more easily.

If you want to get fancy with the handicap, then you can play using the Stableford method. In this scoring method, your golf score is made not of a number of strokes you get per hole, but a number of net points you get per hole. If your net score is equal to the par, you get 2 points; if you hit one over par (a bogey), you get 1 point. If you get 1 under par (a birdie), you get 3 points, and if you hit 2 under par (an eagle), you get 4 points. The player with the most points wins. [9] X Research source