Whats' easier for your handicap

[Grass Roots Tour]

You could build a handicap at any course but which type of course is easier to go low ??

I think it's actually easier to get and maintain a low handicap index at a tough course rated higher than par.

Reasoning - Let's say your home course is par 72 but rated at only 68. Now you're forced to go 4 under most of the time to be a scratch player.

On the other hand, if your home course is par 72 rated 74.5, now you've only gotta post most of your scores around 74 to 75 to attain scratch status.


Which scratch players handicap travels better ??

[The Troll]

I think it's actually easier to get and maintain a low handicap index at a tough course rated higher than par.


It is a tough question as I find newer courses are likely to have higher numbers slope/rating numbers while older courses seem to be a lot lower. While I am sure slope/rating "should" allow a course to course comparison I don't feel it does.

As new courses like to market based on a high slope I find many are higher than justified. I realize courses don't rate themselves but I feel the standards used aren't consistent.

I have played some low slope courses with wicked greens that they really don't get credit for in their ratings.

[Hombre Lefty]

but my question re: the original post... why would you WANT to artificially have a lower handicap by choosing the course where it's easiest to go low? I'd rather take the opposite approach and get my handicap down to scratch at a course that's harder than its rating suggests, then you would play scratch or better no matter where you play, rather than being a "scratch" golfer who can't shoot your normal score anywhere but your home course... it just seems to be a weird concept to me, why anyone would want to get an artificially low handicap....

[TourIQ]

You could build a handicap at any course but which type of course is easier to go low ??
I think it's actually easier to get and maintain a low handicap index at a tough course rated higher than par.
Reasoning - Let's say your home course is par 72 but rated at only 68. Now you're forced to go 4 under most of the time to be a scratch player.
On the other hand, if your home course is par 72 rated 74.5, now you've only gotta post most of your scores around 74 to 75 to attain scratch status.
Which scratch players handicap travels better ??Hi WILL

My vote is the tough course can produce the lower handicap faster. When 'fb' was a +1 three seasons ago he had to shoot 50% of the rounds on average only 2 stokes above the 50+ year course record, and that year we had our worst greens in 10 years [bumpy and putts would not run true]. Plus the harder course would of made him a better player. Our problem living in a rural area ... there are no good courses unless someone wants to drive nearly 1.5 hours one way. Its hard to get up mentally to play a cow pasture every day, with a practice facility were they don't even water, cut or fix the divots for months / season :eek: and they still don't even today.

[forgedblade]

but my question re: the original post... why would you WANT to artificially have a lower handicap by choosing the course where it's easiest to go low? I'd rather take the opposite approach and get my handicap down to scratch at a course that's harder than its rating suggests, then you would play scratch or better no matter where you play, rather than being a "scratch" golfer who can't shoot your normal score anywhere but your home course... it just seems to be a weird concept to me, why anyone would want to get an artificially low handicap....

It's not artificial at all. Will is assuming that the courses are properly rated.

The question really is, is it easier to make a lot of birdies on an easy course or is it easier to make a lot of pars on a tougher course. Handicap rating is relative to the difficulty of the course.

[Big Shooter]

Who knows, I am "programmed" to only play Hard courses beyond my capabilities
....might have to find some New partners to dumb-down my game! :$

[TourIQ]

but my question re: the original post... why would you WANT to artificially have a lower handicap by choosing the course where it's easiest to go low? Hi Hombre Lefty

I think you read the intent of GRT original question / poll wrong. I'm sure WILL will accept the handicap # that the software spits out, he is just asking a question that I too have thought about as well. I also don't think he is going to invest the $$$'s to now jump to a real hard course to get his number lower.

Consider this. Its been claimed that Tiger has a +10 handicap playing hard courses. Other guys in the Top 10 would probably be around +7 or +8. So lets say, just to pick a number, that the top 5 guys are around ~+9 handicap level. These guys would not only have to break our course record which stands at 64 [which would be real easy for them to do], plus 50% of the time [10 out of 20 rounds] they would have to shoot an average score of '59' ... I don't think so. Heck our greens don't even 'run true on line' and they are relatively flat to begin with.

[cdnputter]

It is a tough question as I find newer courses are likely to have higher numbers slope/rating numbers while older courses seem to be a lot lower. While I am sure slope/rating "should" allow a course to course comparison I don't feel it does.

As new courses like to market based on a high slope I find many are higher than justified. I realize courses don't rate themselves but I feel the standards used aren't consistent.

I have played some low slope courses with wicked greens that they really don't get credit for in their ratings.

Hi Troll, I've seen the GAO group at my course during their rating process and based on the time (3 days) they spent here I think their standards are just fine. I'll agree with you that a lot of new courses really try for a high slope rating, probably to try and capture the market of golfers that want to try the hardest tracks.

My issue is more with older courses that have never made any changes and if anything have gotten easier due to player equipment improvements. For instance a course that is 50 years didn't have to deal with titanium faced drivers when it was designed, so it probably plays easier now than when it was new. Have the older courses been re-rated? Is 115 as a slope still a fair median for the "average" course?

[landlord]

Is 115 as a slope still a fair median for the "average" course?
I think the number is 113, but whatever ... I agree.

You have "average" in quotation marks and rightly so. I'm not sure whether the governing bodies put a name to it or just call it an arbitrary base number. Either way, 113 these days is downright easy.

[cdnputter]

You're right 113 or 115, whatever their number is, it's too easy.

For me lately, if a course is rated at 120, par or close to par scores come easy. Courses sloped at 130 or higher are where I'll have more of a challenge, although if I'm having trouble putting it won't matter if it's a mini-putt, I won't score well. :cool:

[The Troll]

My issue is more with older courses that have never made any changes and if anything have gotten easier due to player equipment improvements.

Given that equipment hasn't improved handicaps I'm not sure that is as important a factor as one might think but that is another topic.

My feeling on course ratings is this....they seem to focus on tee to green difficulty/optics and very little on the green structures themselves.

Some of the old courses are beautifully designed. They may have a short par 3 but miss it on the wrong side and enjoy your double.

My course is rated at 123. We routinely see guys who shoot 85's on "tougher" courses come to our course and fail to break 100.

Harry is on to the right answer....the best course to play on is the course that gives you the most thorough number of tests everyday. Whether slope/course rating is really the best measure of that is debatable.

[Grass Roots Tour]

I would never have been able to tell you what slope number was hard or easy. I'm old school and the course rating is the only number I look at. Life was simpler when there was only one rating system and it related to par.

[Hombre Lefty]

My course is rated at 123. We routinely see guys who shoot 85's on "tougher" courses come to our course and fail to break 100.


Agree wholeheartedly. I go home for a big 3 day tournament in my home town every year, and it's on a very old (1920's design) course that was amazingly tough in its day (6400 yards back in 1924 must have been considered beastly) but now seems to be a conquerable course to those who don't know it. I couldn't break 80 there this year, and out of 121 golfers, including at least 15 scratch golfers i know of and one of the best amateur golfers in Ontario, only ONE player managed an under par round in 3 days. The greens were ultra tricky, pin placements were devious, and damn near everyone shot well over what they would expect.

On that subject, a flaw of the GAO rating system is that on the day they "rate" the course the pins might be in one location, but as soon as you move the pin placement it might make the hole play completely differently. I've experience a huge bump (4 or 5 strokes or more) in what i shoot on a course with 2 different pin placements, yet the rating - and strokes relative to par which you use to calcuate your handicap - would remain the same. Also, somce courses play much tougher than others in bad weather which i dont think is ever factored in. To use a worst case scenario, if you played 10 courses and got horribly unlucky to see all the pin placements at tough locations, you might get a certain "handicap" calculation, but if you played the same 10 courses on a more favorable day your "handicap" might work out at 5 or more shots better than the first way.

[el tigre]

An overview of course ratings vs. slope ratings can be found here:

http://www.rcga.org/innerpage.aspx?x=4jeR9bJaSQOnMMk3rnTJQhuefJLxYonl% 2bqhSClzZvmXERY9tOce6B5SAlv4yKoZY

Generally speaking, the course rating is a more accurate account of a course's difficulty rather than the slope rating - especially for a single-digit handicapper. The "average" slope rating is 113, but this number is primarily used to determine a Course Handicap for each player rather than as a measure of difficulty of the golf course.