Golf in other Countries

ronjo

As the title suggests I just thought I would share how golf works in a different country.
I am living in Slovakia and am a member of course here playing generally once a week.

Golf is a pretty new game here and would "generally" be for the more well off. There are about 10 courses in the country of varying standards and green fees would vary from 25 euro for a crappy 9 to 90 euro for 18 at the new Nicklaus designed course that has just opened.

When you want to start playing here you must take lesson and apply for a green card (as a foreigner I was exempt). There are approx 5 lessons and at the end of that you are given a handicap of 54. It used to be 36 but they found a lot of people were struggling.

Most courses offer full membership (maybe also weekend or 5 day) and "academy" membership which basically allows you to enter tournaments and you might get a few free rounds thrown in.

When you have your green card and you join a club your handicap is then updated to a central database.
Almost all tournaments here are open tournaments and to enter you just click online to the central golf website and select which tournament you want to play.
The results of the tournament are entered into this database and your handicap is adjusted automatically.

The vast majority of these tournaments are singles and you will see the occasional 4 ball texas scramble.

Often there will be tournaments organised in neighbouring Austria, Hungary and Czech Republic and I believe the set up is something similar.

The prizes are never anything special but virtually everyone I have ever played with just wants to improve their handicap. I am playing here 4 years now and I have never once heard of anyone protecting their handicap except for another expat once !

We use Slope Rate/Course Rate method here which I think is USGA.
The Course rate is basically to assign what score a scratch handicap should shoot on a particular course from a particular tee box.
The Slope rate then adjusts this by a factor for higher handicaps as I will show an example of.
My handicap is 10.3 and on my course the SR/CR are as follows
Whites CR 71.5 SR 137
Yellows CR 68.7 SR 133

So my personal par is
Whites 10.3 * 137/113 + 71.5 - 72 = 12
Yellows 10.3 * 133/113 + 68.7 - 72 = 9

Generally, in these weeks tournaments the lower handicap players will play from Whites and higher from yellows.

Anyway the above is a little introduction for anyone who is interested and feel free to ask any questions about the set up.

Dr_Colossus

That's very interesting, thanks. Saw some Irish course recently had a Slope Rate listing so was wondering what it was relating to.

A few questions however:
1: Where does the 113 divisor come from when working out your personal par?
2: Presume all competitions are stroke play since your handicap performance seems to be versus the course rather than individual holes or is there hole indexes also to enable stableford competitions?
3: Starting handicaps start at 54 and you worked yours down from a starting 36 to 10.3? 54 handicap seems excessive as if I understand it correctly their personal par from the white tees on your course would be 65? (54 * 137/113 + 71.5 -72 = 64.9) so anything under 137 shoots would be playing better than handicap?
4: How do handicap cuts get calculated. Say for instance you shoot a round of 80 from the white tees on your course (gross +8 , nett -2) thereby beating your personal par by 4, is there a fixed points cut per shot. Are adjustments made to the Slope Rate/Course Rate depending on the weather and playing conditions similar to the CSS calculation here in Ireland?
5: Seems strange that low handicap golfers would play from the white tees and high handicap golfers from the yellow tees while in competition or are there separate competitions for high and low handicapers. What defines a high handicap versus a low handicap?
6: What kind of price would full membership be and how many members would a typical club have. How many entrants on average would enter a competition and what are entry fees like.

Apologies for all the questions, didn't mean to give you an inquisition but for some reason find handicap calculations interesting.

ronjo

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

That's very interesting, thanks. Saw some Irish course recently had a Slope Rate listing so was wondering what it was relating to.

A few questions however:
1: Where does the 113 divisor come from when working out your personal par?
2: Presume all competitions are stroke play since your handicap performance seems to be versus the course rather than individual holes or is there hole indexes also to enable stableford competitions?
3: Starting handicaps start at 54 and you worked yours down from a starting 36 to 10.3? 54 handicap seems excessive as if I understand it correctly their personal par from the white tees on your course would be 65? (54 * 137/113 + 71.5 -72 = 64.9) so anything under 137 shoots would be playing better than handicap?
4: How do handicap cuts get calculated. Say for instance you shoot a round of 80 from the white tees on your course (gross +8 , nett -2) thereby beating your personal par by 4, is there a fixed points cut per shot. Are adjustments made to the Slope Rate/Course Rate depending on the weather and playing conditions similar to the CSS calculation here in Ireland?
5: Seems strange that low handicap golfers would play from the white tees and high handicap golfers from the yellow tees while in competition or are there separate competitions for high and low handicapers. What defines a high handicap versus a low handicap?
6: What kind of price would full membership be and how many members would a typical club have. How many entrants on average would enter a competition and what are entry fees like.

Apologies for all the questions, didn't mean to give you an inquisition but for some reason find handicap calculations interesting.

No apologies necessary, I welcome the questions

1. not sure actually. I guess 113 is considered an average course but most are higher rated than that.
2 There are individual hole ratings just like in Ireland.
3. I started at 22.4 because my friend here spoke to "someone" and told them 54 would be ridiculous for me to have and thats what he was playing off at the time. Actually when another expat friend of mine registered here they accepted the handicap he suggested for himself which I think was 22.
Yes thats exactly right on a 54 handicapper.
4. the reductions are 0.1 with handicap under 5... 0.2 for 5.1-11.4... 0.3 for 11.5-17.9... 0.4 for 18-26.9... 0.5 for 27-35.9 and 1 for 36+. At least thats what I think. No adjustments are made to SR/CR for weather. My course extended 4 holes during winter and filled in some bunkers and the SR/CR was re-evaluated for the season.
5. There is usually separate categories alright. My course high is about 18. Another one has a weekly comp...... Under 12.0 play from whites stroke play, and then 3 seperate groups play stableford from yellow. 12-24, 24-36 and 36+
6. My course is 900 per year 7 day or 700 for Friday-Sunday. I am near Bratislava. Another one about 100km I know is 540 for 7 day. The new Nicklaus one will be 1800 per year I think.
I think we have about 400 members and average weekend comp would have 60-80 players I guess.
For a non member this would cost 80 euros and for me 20 euros which includes water at start, maybe something after 9 holes and lunch and drink after.
I have played in 30 degrees plus quite a few times this summer

mike12

Think the American system works on some sort of average for your last 10 or 20 rounds so if u are going thru a bad patch the handicap can just up quickly.
Think the GUI had a look at the slope thing here but decided it was too costly. It would basically mean if your course had a SSS of 68 and you were playing a course that had a SSS of 74 presuming both were par 72 and your home handicap was 10 you would get 16 for the comp.
Mike