WHS - Slopes

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

I'd imagine the ratings will be controversial.

Yep, we'll have a great time talking about them here.

So here are some I've collected so far:

Castlewarden (Blue/White/Yellow) = 119 / 117 / 114
Enniscrone (Blue/White/Yellow/Green) - 133 / 131 / 123 / 111
Kinsale (Blue/White) - 128 / 125
Dromoland Castle (Blue/White/Yellow) - 126 / 126 / 124
Beaufort (Blue/White/Yellow) - 137 / 133 / 129
Dooks (Blue/White/Yellow) - 122 / 121 / 117
Tulfarris (Blue/White/Green) - 129 / 125 / 122
Tipperary (Blue/White/Yellow) - 129 / 127 / 124
Mount Juliet (Blue/White) - 148 / 136
Old Head (Black/Blue/White/Yellow) - 142 / 139 / 136 / 129
Castlemartyr (Blue/White/Red) - 133 / 126 / 131

Some of these came from posters above, some from a quick Google search and some from scorecards from courses I've played lately.

I'm assuming likely landing area is on a pet day.
Where I play, our 9th us about 340 yards. Links course. Sutton. Pet day Drive, Sand Wedge. Last Saturday I couldn't reach it in two. I'm a 5 handicapper. Like Corballis on a nice day ye wouldn't know what all the fuss is about. On a more than average coastal windy day it can be soul destroying.

My point is, SSS used to work on course difficulty, length, etc and CSS used to look after all those variances of weather on any given day And your handicap was the same no matter where you teed it up. I don't know how WHS will work.

So in essence your handicap changes from course to course but the course ratings and slopes are constant.

OK this will be fun.

Seriously getting confused now.
So say I am a current 10 handicap member of Mount Juliet where the slope is (Blue/White) - 148 / 136
I'm not going to do the maths, but does that mean that after the change I'll be (as an example) a 11 of the whites and 12 off the blues?

From what I can see, each hole is assessed independently and so have an individual rating for each tee although this would not be published. The individual holes would then be aggregated into an overall course rating which would be published. Individual hole ratigns would be interesting to see too. A course could have 9 very hard rated and 9 very easy rated averaging out to a 113 or could have 18 average rated averaging out to a 113.

Would there be seperate front-9 and back-9 ratings?

billy3sheets wrote: »

From what I can see, each hole is assessed independently and so have an individual rating for each tee although this would not be published. The individual holes would then be aggregated into an overall course rating which would be published. Individual hole ratigns would be interesting to see too. A course could have 9 very hard rated and 9 very easy rated averaging out to a 113 or could have 18 average rated averaging out to a 113.

Would there be seperate front-9 and back-9 ratings?

Probably yes. A bit like SSS, you can request a rating for individual nine hole layouts so that you can run qualifying competitions on them. Our course was SSS rated for the front nine as we hold nine hole competitions in the summer time on weekday evenings. Whether they would rate them like this automatically or on request, I don't know, but I suspect (given what you're saying above about individual hole ratings) that they would.

Snotty wrote: »

Seriously getting confused now.
So say I am a current 10 handicap member of Mount Juliet where the slope is (Blue/White) - 148 / 136
I'm not going to do the maths, but does that mean that after the change I'll be (as an example) a 11 of the whites and 12 off the blues?

Well first of all your handicap index (new name for handicap) will probably change anyway. This will be calculated on a rolling basis, but also as an average depending on the number of 'qualifying' rounds played. So 96% of average of best 3 from 9, best 5 from 15 and best 8 from 20 - called 'Equitable Gross Score. And then that is entered into the equation I gave before: (EGS - CR) * 113 / SR. That's your Handicap Index.

But when you're playing a different course (either another course or another set of tees), your Handicap Index is adjusted for that set of tees using the following forumula (I left the CR-Par bit out by mistake in a previous post): (HI * SR) / 113 + (CR - Par).

It sounds hellishly complicated, but the computer will do all that work for you and there will also be tables available to check what your HI would be on any given course/set of tees.

But to take your example, I'd need to know the course rating (CR) for both sets of tees. The CR is the scratch golfer's level of difficulty and is pure strokes like SSS. For the sake of simplicity, I'll use the SSS for those tees (73 / 72), Par is 72. The second thing to note is that if you're a member, your handicap index has already been calculated on a rolling basis. Assuming you've been playing off the whites and you're just moving to the greens (Mt. Juliet don't give a SR for the blue tees), then the calculation is: (10 * 136) / 113 + (72-72) = 12.03

Hope that helps.

billy3sheets wrote: »

From what I can see, each hole is assessed independently and so have an individual rating for each tee although this would not be published. The individual holes would then be aggregated into an overall course rating which would be published. Individual hole ratings would be interesting to see too.

And isn't there a potential conflict also with hole indices?
For example, Index 1 might not turn out to have the highest slope rating.

billy3sheets wrote: »

And isn't there a potential conflict also with hole indices?
For example, Index 1 might not turn out to have the highest slope rating.

To be fair, I'm not sure that hole indices are that accurate anyway. If you look back at scores over a year (assuming you've access to the data), you'll probably find that the hardest holes often aren't the lowest index ones. Our club published the previous year's data in the calendar and although index 1 played as index 1, index 2 was 3rd, index 3 was 2nd, index 4 was 5th etc. Only five holes played to their index. I'm sure if I looked back over a few years I'd probably find them different again.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure that the indexes are based on much the same criteria as the slope rating system; how the hole plays for the average bogey golfer. If you look at your high index holes and think about how it would play for someone who can drive the ball 200 yards max, and whether they would reasonably expect to get a GIR on it, you'd probably find that they align pretty well.

spacecoyote wrote: »

Courses should be periodically reviewing & changing their indices on holes anyway.

I'm pretty sure its done annually in my place. Usually on a couple of holes actually change.

Our index 2 & 4 have flipped twice since I joined and, rather strangely, our index 13 & 17 have flipped at some point if I remember correctly

A lot of courses don't do it because of cost. Easy enough change the scorecard when it's due a new print run, but course signage should also be changed and that can cost a good bit depending on how elaborate the signs are.

billy3sheets wrote: »

From reading a bit about Stroke Index, it seems that it's intended for 2 distinct purposes:

1. designate the difficulty of holes v par for most (bogey?) golfers
2. award strokes in a matchplay according to handicap differential

The 2 would seem to conflict. For the 2nd purpose, there are a bunch of constraints, such as:

1. odd SI numbers one 9 and even the other 9
2. not having low SI numbers as the first or last hole

I had always thought about them more for the diffculty rating. I also thought they had to be agreed with or calculated by the GUI.

U will see a lot of courses with a match play index which differs from a regular one.
If index 1,2,3 are 16,17,18 the gui wont let u do that.

Russman wrote: »

I'm confused about this. I don't have any knowledge of the system so I'm not disagreeing with you, but, if your index is, in fact 8, while being a member of a Ballybunion and playing all your golf there, wouldn't that mean that it was calculated based off you playing a slope of 125-130, so you'd usually be 8 on that course ? but you might be off 6 somewhere else ?
Just genuinely curious.

Yeah, that sounds like what it should be. Although slope ratiings can range between 55 and 152 I think.

Russman wrote: »

I'm confused about this. I don't have any knowledge of the system so I'm not disagreeing with you, but, if your index is, in fact 8, while being a member of a Ballybunion and playing all your golf there, wouldn't that mean that it was calculated based off you playing a slope of 125-130, so you'd usually be 8 on that course ? but you might be off 6 somewhere else ?
Just genuinely curious.

I suppose as an extension of that point, might you argue that everyone should have their start index re-calibrated at the beginning of the changover relative to their home clubs ratings?

So assuming that the new system is introduced on 1/11/2020, if Mr Ballybunion has a handicap of 8 on the 31/10/2020, should they then have a starting handicap index of 6.9 or whatever the number works out at?

Not playing mens and womens comps at the same time is a particular bugbear of mine. Most clubs have mens comps on Sunday mornings which is extremely unfair on the women who are now generally paying the same fees. I can understand having separate comps, but play them together for God's sake. It would be better still to have an overall prize like you'd have the divisional ones, but I know that would probably not be allowed because of the different tees.