A scratch golfer takes the score they shoot as their final score where as a player with a handicap will take that off their total number of shots at the end of the round. So yes someone playing off scratch is a decent golfer but still quite some way off the level of pro golfers.
Scratch is much better than "decent". I'm a 12 handicapper and I've played with scratch golfers and pros (including Erik van Rooyen). The balance, clubhead speed and ball striking ability of scratch players is in a different league to decent players (say 4 handicap upwards). The difference with pros is usually mental strength and the short game, although they can produce the miracle shots more regularly.
Surely by definition a ‘scratch golfer’ is anyone with a zero handicap - including all pros.
Pros don’t tend to have active handicaps but if they did they’d be playing off a plus handicap which would mean they’d be giving shots to even scratch golfers.
Top pros have + handicaps. Tiger Woods had a calculated handicap of + 7
Scratch is, by definition, zero handicap but both amateur and pro golfers can have plus handicaps. Ian Woosnam used to play in club tournaments at Oswestry with a +4 handicap and, famously, won a monthly medal with a gross score of 57, a net score of 61.
Some of the moaners on here would have you believe that if RDZ did try that, the bus would go under Steele.
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Depends on how old. With modern technology it is easier to get a low handicap that it used to be as it is easier to hit the ball straighter and longer, but you would still have to have a bundle of natural talent and a killer short game.
Certainly 4 or 5 have come through the junior section and some of them have gone onto US college golf and come back. Most of the others would have started young I'm sure, but we still have 4 or 5 guys aged 50+ playing off 0/1/2.
