Question:
So the tees used for the INTERNATIONAL, have a slope of 155. But it is hard enough for members to get tee times – does anybody play those tees except during the tournament? I wonder how far it is to the fairway on hole #1?
And I imagine those ratings were not designed for the conditions of the International. Do they toughen up greens for non-majors as well?
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Just a quick one on ratings and slopes … Slope. People screw this up all the time. Of course, it has nothing to do with the undulation of the green. But everything to do with how far it is to the fairway! (and many other factors). Its just an adjustment (of dubious accuracy) that attempts to take into account *how much* harder a course is for an 18 vs. a 0. Of course, its not always just 18 shots. So we have slope. The avg slope is 113. So when you see a 155 slope, this defines a factor which scales the handicap. That factor is 155/113 = 1.37 or a 37% increase in handicap. So the 18 now gets 25 shots. Even the 3 gets an extra shot! The rating comes right out of the lenght and layout of the course. I don’t really like this much either, but its the best we’ve got. A few of the guys at my club do NCGA ratings. One time I bitched about the system and ended up in a one hour conversation regarding this system. Basically, its an attempt to make scientific that which is subjective. Enough said. One Castle Pines note. If you can’t get on there, go to The Ridge next door. What a great track!
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One Castle Pines note. If you can’t get on there, go to The Ridge next door. What a great track!
My son-in-law has played there – with Avalanche players! Trouble is fees range from $75 – $120. Men’s ratings are range from 68.4/122 to 73.1/134. I have driven past there a few times, there aren’t as many trees as the older Castle Pines next door, but it looks like a wonderful place to play.
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Men’s ratings are range from 68.4/122 to 73.1/134. I have driven past there a few times, there aren’t as many trees as the older Castle Pines next door, but it looks like a wonderful place to play.
I’ve played there twice, both from the next to back tees (don’t remember the color). Great layout, great condition … certainly worth the premium fee. And the service is great too. And the range. And the putting greens! Some tough tee shots (I think we did play it all the way back, now that I think). One of the holes was a little unfair. I remember hitting 3W *trying* to hit it in a bunker. If you went down the middle, you had to carry 255 to the fairway over a lake! But most of the course was really fun. Some short, challenging holes too. Not everything is just long. Highly recommend.
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Some thoughts: 2. If the fairways are narrow and it sounds like the course is shorter, then hit 5 woods or long irons off the tee. Would you not agree that such a tee shot is easier than a driver? If you are on a 350 yard par 4 and you can get a 3 iron or 5 wood 200 yards out, then you only have a 150 yard (7 iron?) approach shot in. If so, then the course rating/slope should be lower, since you don’t have to take out the driver to make it onto longer par 4’s in two. Thus, the course is in fact easier.
Part of the problem is that this course, like a few other short courses that I’ve played, has what I call "short course disease". This is where you have things like wide open 250 yard par fours and extremely tight 415 yard par fours on the same course. It’s really tempting on this course to take driver on the 350′ish holes because the greens are so small – most are literally 15 – 20 FEET wide – that you want to hit as short of an approach shot as you can. Missing green high can be deadly because there’s usually so little green to work with. Missing short seems to be okay though. It’s all about course management and risk/reward. You don’t have to try to drive the green on every par 4…
You’re absolutely right about this one. I’m really trying to work this part out for this course – i.e. on the 280 yard hole is it better to hit long iron/wedge or try for driver/pitch shot? This will come with experience. Having played dozens of rounds at my former course I knew which holes to be aggressive with and which ones to be aggressive with. For example, there was a 400 yard par four that I’d use a 3 wood off the tee and a 340 yard par four that I used to hit driver on. The hazards were setup in different places. The long hole had a bunker that I could reach with my driver, and I would just fly the bunkers on the short one. Another poster mentioned something about how the ratings don’t take relative neglect into account. I think that this is part of what’s influencing my course management decisions – i.e. on one particular drivable hole, laying up to a full wedge means laying up onto hardpan. Keep in mind the target audience that such courses are also designed for. Not every one is a member at a private or semi-private club and not everyone can afford $70 or $100+ per round at a high end public course. Even at private clubs, there are variations in costs from a few thousand or less up front to well over 6 figures.
This place is a military course which charges civilians $475 for the year. The great part is that it doesn’t get much traffic, and you can walk all the time. I played in about two hours yesterday. Last Saturday I played in 2:30. Any "real" course in the area would have played at least 4:30 that day given the weather conditions. Now the tough part that I find on such courses (many, not all), is on the greens. They are smallish, will have goofy slopes or other features that make it difficult to keep the ball on the green on your approach shot or make putting problematic.
You must have seen these greens.:) The greens are tiny and have tons of slope to them. There aren’t any double breakers or anything like that. For the most part they’re either crowned or slope severely from back to front. One green is about 7 – 8 paces deep and probably rises about 5 feet or so. Fortuntely they’re slow. What really irks me is when I play an old course that has greens that were designed to be slow and they decide to make them as fast as modern greens. Then you end up with putts that trickle past the hole and run 20 feet. Adam
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Has anyone else encountered this?
Personally, I know that if I played my home course (that is 100 miles away) exclusively, my handicap would be probably 3 or 4 shots lower than if I played the courses around here exclusively. I’m not sure how much of that is my knowledge of the course (I played it everyday during the season from 1985-97 and sporadically since) and how much of it is that it’s rated higher than it should be. I suspect it’s more of the former. Wayne — Roll Call: http://rec-sport-golf.com/members/?rollcall=huffordw
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I’ve done some course rating and can report that the single most influencing factor in the rating is the length of the course. Other factors such as fairway width and tilt, green size and visibility, out-of-bounds, sand trap location and depth, water and trees are considered. RW
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’m beginning to wonder about this whole slope/rating system. I know in principle how they go about creating the ratings, but it seems like in practice it’s not necessarily all that accurate. I just gave up my membership at a club where I always felt like the course was rated as being more difficult than it actually was. It was about 6400 yards from the regular tees, par 72. The fairways were pretty generous, and the greens were really big. The conditioning was generally really good. If you were a moderately long hitter (250 or so off the tee – I know, that’s short by this newsgroup’s standards) and could keep the ball anywhere near the fairway you could usually get somewhere on the green. There was no OB, just a few ravines that could catch big slices. With such large greens, there were lots of safe places to hit approach shots – you learned after a while where you should and should not miss. Because of the rating of the course, you could become a six or seven handicap just by shooting a bunch of 80’s. Now I’m a member of a short course (par 65) that is generally much tighter, and the largest green is significantly smaller than the smallest green at my old course. An iron shot that used to result in a 30 foot putt now produces a chip shot. And the chip shots are no picnic – lots of bald or clumpy lies, and more often than not you have to flop it because the fringes are so clumpy and the pins are often so close to the edges that you can’t run it up. Similarly, on regular approach shots you’re just as likely to be hitting from hardpan or find your ball up against a small clump of grass (whine, whine, whine). Sure, there are some drivable par fours, but if you miss your line by 20 yards you could be OB or in the woods. At my former course you’d be in the rough and you could usually just muscle up on a wedge to get it on the green. I ran the numbers last night, and if you shoot even par all the time at my new course, you end up with about a 4 handicap. Maybe I just need a season of local knowledge to make the new course feel easier, but for right now, it looks like my handicap may take a big hit this year. I’d be willing to bet that if you took a group of low handicap golfers and had them play five rounds at both of these courses they would shoot much better adjusted scores at my old course than my new course. I’ve seen similar things with other "easy" courses. They’re usually less prestigious and therefore can’t afford to spend as much money on upkeep. Consequently, they aren’t so easy to play after a few years of relative neglect. Has anyone else encountered this? Adam
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Around these parts (Central Indiana) it seems that when they handicap a course they look at nothing but length. At most courses the Par 5’s are the lowest handicap holes and the Par 3’s the highest, regardless of the difficulty of the holes. One course has as it’s #1 handicap hole a 500 yard par 5 and a 215 yard uphill par 3 as the #14 handicap hole. Don’t they realize that even most 36 handicappers can advance the ball 285 yards in 2 shots?
High handicap players aren’t predictable. It will all balance out in the end.
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I noticed the following at Castle Pines Golf Course. Tee Yards M-18 Hole W-18 Hole 4 Bird 5427 71.1 131 3 Bird 5971 69.8 148 73.7 141 2 Bird 6753 72.7 148 1 Bird 7381 76.4 153 INTER 7594 77.4 155 So the tees used for the INTERNATIONAL, have a slope of 155. But it is hard enough for members to get tee times – does anybody play those tees except during the tournament? I wonder how far it is to the fairway on hole #1? The interesting thing is that the women have a larger course rating and a smaller slope than the men do on the 3 Bird tee.
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Around these parts (Central Indiana) it seems that when they handicap a course they look at nothing but length. At most courses the Par 5’s are the lowest handicap holes and the Par 3’s the highest, regardless of the difficulty of the holes. One course has as it’s #1 handicap hole a 500 yard par 5 and a 215 yard uphill par 3 as the #14 handicap hole. Don’t they realize that even most 36 handicappers can advance the ball 285 yards in 2 shots?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’m beginning to wonder about this whole slope/rating system. I know in principle how they go about creating the ratings, but it seems like in practice it’s not necessarily all that accurate. I just gave up my membership at a club where I always felt like the course was rated as being more difficult than it actually was. It was about 6400 yards from the regular tees, par 72. The fairways were pretty generous, and the greens were really big. The conditioning was generally really good. If you were a moderately long hitter (250 or so off the tee – I know, that’s short by this newsgroup’s standards) and could keep the ball anywhere near the fairway you could usually get somewhere on the green. There was no OB, just a few ravines that could catch big slices. With such large greens, there were lots of safe places to hit approach shots – you learned after a while where you should and should not miss. Because of the rating of the course, you could become a six or seven handicap just by shooting a bunch of 80’s. Now I’m a member of a short course (par 65) that is generally much tighter, and the largest green is significantly smaller than the smallest green at my old course. An iron shot that used to result in a 30 foot putt now produces a chip shot. And the chip shots are no picnic – lots of bald or clumpy lies, and more often than not you have to flop it because the fringes are so clumpy and the pins are often so close to the edges that you can’t run it up. Similarly, on regular approach shots you’re just as likely to be hitting from hardpan or find your ball up against a small clump of grass (whine, whine, whine). Sure, there are some drivable par fours, but if you miss your line by 20 yards you could be OB or in the woods. At my former course you’d be in the rough and you could usually just muscle up on a wedge to get it on the green. I ran the numbers last night, and if you shoot even par all the time at my new course, you end up with about a 4 handicap.
Well, aside from the fact that humans have to do the rating of courses so there is some subjectivity/variation, I think it has to do with the fact that some people’s games mesh better with certain types of courses. Take your average young guy versus a 70 year old guy who have identical 10 handicaps. The young guy is almost certainly going to be longer, wilder and have a weaker short game. The older guy isn’t hitting them far, but he’ll put them in the fairway, and get up and down reliably from reasonable misses or layups near the green. Its pretty obvious which type of courses will favor one or the other, even if their course handicaps calculate to the same value for each. There’s only so much slope can do, after all. While some people are certainly better than others at doing well on a course they’ve never seen before (mostly from experience of playing lots of unfamiliar courses, IMHO) I think the short and accurate hitters will have an advantage in this just because I think local knowledge becomes more important the wilder you hit (i.e., a higher number of possible places you might end up that you have to think about to calculate your best play) It doesn’t take as much local knowledge if your biggest problem is figuring out what side of the fairway you wish to play your next shot from! — A good friend will help you move, a true friend will help you move a body.
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’m beginning to wonder about this whole slope/rating system. I know in principle how they go about creating the ratings, but it seems like in practice it’s not necessarily all that accurate. I just gave up my membership at a club where I always felt like the course was rated as being more difficult than it actually was. It was about 6400 yards from the regular tees, par 72. The fairways were pretty generous, and the greens were really big. The conditioning was generally really good. If you were a moderately long hitter (250 or so off the tee – I know, that’s short by this newsgroup’s standards) and could keep the ball anywhere near the fairway you could usually get somewhere on the green. There was no OB, just a few ravines that could catch big slices. With such large greens, there were lots of safe places to hit approach shots – you learned after a while where you should and should not miss. Because of the rating of the course, you could become a six or seven handicap just by shooting a bunch of 80’s. Now I’m a member of a short course (par 65) that is generally much tighter, and the largest green is significantly smaller than the smallest green at my old course. An iron shot that used to result in a 30 foot putt now produces a chip shot. And the chip shots are no picnic – lots of bald or clumpy lies, and more often than not you have to flop it because the fringes are so clumpy and the pins are often so close to the edges that you can’t run it up. Similarly, on regular approach shots you’re just as likely to be hitting from hardpan or find your ball up against a small clump of grass (whine, whine, whine). Sure, there are some drivable par fours, but if you miss your line by 20 yards you could be OB or in the woods. At my former course you’d be in the rough and you could usually just muscle up on a wedge to get it on the green. I ran the numbers last night, and if you shoot even par all the time at my new course, you end up with about a 4 handicap. Maybe I just need a season of local knowledge to make the new course feel easier, but for right now, it looks like my handicap may take a big hit this year. I’d be willing to bet that if you took a group of low handicap golfers and had them play five rounds at both of these courses they would shoot much better adjusted scores at my old course than my new course. I’ve seen similar things with other "easy" courses. They’re usually less prestigious and therefore can’t afford to spend as much money on upkeep. Consequently, they aren’t so easy to play after a few years of relative neglect.
I don’t think there is any adjustment in the slope calculations for "relative neglect". Crispin Roche
Response:
Some thoughts: 1. The "easier" courses that you refer to typically make themsleves more difficult by having narrow fairways, hard gritty "sand" in the bunkers and "strange" greens. They are limited by the quality, space and layout of the land upon which they are built and of course, the budget of the owner(s). Thus, they have to do something to make them "interesting". However they will tend to be cheaper, which still enables them to be a reasonable value. This is of course a generalization, as I have seen easier courses that are very wide open and you can end up two fairways over and still get to your green in regulation…. 2. If the fairways are narrow and it sounds like the course is shorter, then hit 5 woods or long irons off the tee. Would you not agree that such a tee shot is easier than a driver? If you are on a 350 yard par 4 and you can get a 3 iron or 5 wood 200 yards out, then you only have a 150 yard (7 iron?) approach shot in. If so, then the course rating/slope should be lower, since you don’t have to take out the driver to make it onto longer par 4’s in two. Thus, the course is in fact easier. It’s all about course management and risk/reward. You don’t have to try to drive the green on every par 4… Keep in mind the target audience that such courses are also designed for. Not every one is a member at a private or semi-private club and not everyone can afford $70 or $100+ per round at a high end public course. Even at private clubs, there are variations in costs from a few thousand or less up front to well over 6 figures. Now the tough part that I find on such courses (many, not all), is on the greens. They are smallish, will have goofy slopes or other features that make it difficult to keep the ball on the green on your approach shot or make putting problematic. How that balances in the course difficulty equation with "high end" courses is not clear to me. Are these greens more difficult than Donald Ross greens? In some cases, I would say an emphatic yes, but not always. Having played on courses with ratings north of 150, I can tell you, that for me at least, there is nothing more nerve racking than the tee shot. If you don’t hit it in the fairway, you are done. Thus, you make a decision, hit a driver and risk going into the long stuff, an unplayable lie or OB, or taking a long iron or wood shot or even an extra shot to get on the green. Course management, in my mind, when you are forced to make such decisions, has much to do with the real or perceived difficulty of the course. Your comments on your first course belie the local knowledge and where you could bail if need be. You’ll figure this course out as well…and in time, recognize that with proper course management, it will be (in relative terms) easy. — Marc Schwartz