What's "handicap" mean in bowling?

The scratch and handicap are not going to be different if you are just open bowling. It is a league settings for the score systems. Scratch means just your bowling score as it is. When you are open bowling your handicap is the same as your scratch because you have no handicap to add to it. Handicap is different depending on the league, but it typically is 80 or 90 percent of the difference between someone's average and 200. For example, if they average a 160 in league bowling, then they minus 160 from 200, get 40 and then multiply that by .8 for 80% or .9 for 90% getting either 32 or 36. The handicap score on the scoring system usually refers to the total of their handicap plus there scratch score. Thus if that 160 average league bowler bowled a 170 the scratch would say 170 and the handicap score would be 202 is 80% or 206 if 90% handicap.

Handicap is simply a way to make bowling in a league fair for everyone. One who is not that good at bowling can bowl someone who is a seasoned bowler and with handicap be 'equal'.

There are three ways I know to score handicap and they are all done in the same way.

a percentage (either 80 or 90 percent) of 180, 200, or 220.

The lower the percentage and the higher the score, the better the handicap system is for a high average bowler.

The higher the percentage and the lower the score the better it is for a low average bowler.

Let us say you have an average of 165 (an average average)

90% of 200 is 32 (200-165)*90% (31.5 bumped up to 32)
80% of 220 is 47

As you can see... handicaps can vary quite a bit depending on how you score them.

The most used is 80% of 200. You would have a 28 handicap.