USGA Slope Rating -- Fair or not?

[warfelg]

I know a couple of things.

 

-- 99% of golfers who use the USGA handicap system consider it confusing and needlessly complicated, in not downright inexplicable.

 

-- The brilliant minds who promulgated this system don't give a s*** about whether it makes sense to those 99% or not. Just shut up and punch your numbers in the computer.

 

Describing the two parameters as "course rating" and "slope rating" and then trying to describe some linear curve fitting procedure is either deliberate obfuscation or more likely a lack of concern for whether the end user can understand it or not. Choosing "113" as the divisor just provides one more counter-intuitive, arbitrary number to reinforce the idea that mere golfers are not supposed to be able to assign intuitive meaning to the numbers.

 

Then we add the truly mastermind stroke of basing handicaps on literally any number that is typed into a computer, selling the resulting handicaps to anyone willing to buy into the system and the sheer chutzpah to say "The USGA Handicap System is built on Peer Review". At that point it's obvious we're dealing with complete bullxxxx artists here. Making up your own technical-sounding jargon and running three-decimal precision calculations does not make it valid, reasonable or nearly as precise as the assigned numbers might mislead one into believing. At its root are unattested scores being mixed together in complicated-seeming but actually very simplistic ways with "course" and "slope" ratings that are highly subjective.

 

I guarantee you the fact that "113" doesn't make sense or that "slope" doesn't mean what most golfers think it means is of no concern to Dean Knuth or the USGA. To them, any confusion is because the people they are selling handicaps to are idiots. But hey, as long as they pay to be in the system it's good.

 

I know a few things as well.

 

I know that you've been rather upset about the handicap system before.

 

I know you're not very well informed vis-a-vis handicaps.

 

I know(?) you haven't spent 20 or more years studying it.

 

I know you didn't read the info at link to the Pope of Slope - otherwise you would have know where they got the 133 and it is not a linear anything.

 

And I know, OK, make that expect, that the handicap system, as is, and with, IMO, some "faults", is most likely better than anything you can come up with.

 

I think I'll say more people don't properly know how to use handicaps properly over it having "faults".

 

Like the 10 handicap saying "I shot 85 (par 72), I dunno how that happened!" Well based on your handicap you shot a +3, which is good. I don't think enough people do that mental calculation to really gain a real understanding of how their handicap effects them. Most people think we need to dot their scorecards for everything, and unless it's match play, better ball, or ringer.....all you need is the course handicap. I've also seen a bunch of "HI and CH are the same".

 

Honestly, at my club I'm doing a "Handicap 101" night where I'll explain as much as I can and allow questions.

[North Butte]

I know a couple of things.

 

-- 99% of golfers who use the USGA handicap system consider it confusing and needlessly complicated, in not downright inexplicable.

 

-- The brilliant minds who promulgated this system don't give a s*** about whether it makes sense to those 99% or not. Just shut up and punch your numbers in the computer.

 

Describing the two parameters as "course rating" and "slope rating" and then trying to describe some linear curve fitting procedure is either deliberate obfuscation or more likely a lack of concern for whether the end user can understand it or not. Choosing "113" as the divisor just provides one more counter-intuitive, arbitrary number to reinforce the idea that mere golfers are not supposed to be able to assign intuitive meaning to the numbers.

 

Then we add the truly mastermind stroke of basing handicaps on literally any number that is typed into a computer, selling the resulting handicaps to anyone willing to buy into the system and the sheer chutzpah to say "The USGA Handicap System is built on Peer Review". At that point it's obvious we're dealing with complete bullxxxx artists here. Making up your own technical-sounding jargon and running three-decimal precision calculations does not make it valid, reasonable or nearly as precise as the assigned numbers might mislead one into believing. At its root are unattested scores being mixed together in complicated-seeming but actually very simplistic ways with "course" and "slope" ratings that are highly subjective.

 

I guarantee you the fact that "113" doesn't make sense or that "slope" doesn't mean what most golfers think it means is of no concern to Dean Knuth or the USGA. To them, any confusion is because the people they are selling handicaps to are idiots. But hey, as long as they pay to be in the system it's good.

 

I know a few things as well.

 

I know that you've been rather upset about the handicap system before.

 

I know you're not very well informed vis-a-vis handicaps.

 

I know(?) you haven't spent 20 or more years studying it.

 

I know you didn't read the info at link to the Pope of Slope - otherwise you would have know where they got the 133 and it is not a linear anything.

 

And I know, OK, make that expect, that the handicap system, as is, and with, IMO, some "faults", is most likely better than anything you can come up with.

 

The first time I exchanged E-mail with Dean Knuth on the subject of the USGA Handicap System was in 1995 or maybe early '96. So yeah, about 20 years. And I know exactly where the "113" originated, thank you.

 

At any point in the process they could have normalized the slope ratings to 100 (or 1 or 10 or 1000 or any other arbitrary number they wanted to choose) and made the system just that tiniest bit more transparent to non-number-geeks who try their best to understand it. I never received a clear answer as to why it wasn't adjusted to a round number other than that it did not (in Knuth's and USGA's thinking) matter anyway.

 

As for designing a better system, you're right. Not me you, Dean Knuth or god himself could design a decent handicapping system if it's based entirely on unattested numbers typed in as the golfer sees fit (or not) to a computer with no connection to peer review or any other form of vetting.

[nsxguy]

99% of golfers think the "slope rating" is the measure of how DIFFICULT a golf course is. The remaining 1% think "slope rating" is a measure of how GOOD a course is.

 

That's terrific news,,,,, that the 99% is right,,,,,,,, maybe the word doesn't need to "get out",,,,,,,,,,

 

Thanks.

[nsxguy]

I know a couple of things.

 

-- 99% of golfers who use the USGA handicap system consider it confusing and needlessly complicated, in not downright inexplicable.

 

-- The brilliant minds who promulgated this system don't give a s*** about whether it makes sense to those 99% or not. Just shut up and punch your numbers in the computer.

 

Describing the two parameters as "course rating" and "slope rating" and then trying to describe some linear curve fitting procedure is either deliberate obfuscation or more likely a lack of concern for whether the end user can understand it or not. Choosing "113" as the divisor just provides one more counter-intuitive, arbitrary number to reinforce the idea that mere golfers are not supposed to be able to assign intuitive meaning to the numbers.

 

Then we add the truly mastermind stroke of basing handicaps on literally any number that is typed into a computer, selling the resulting handicaps to anyone willing to buy into the system and the sheer chutzpah to say "The USGA Handicap System is built on Peer Review". At that point it's obvious we're dealing with complete bullxxxx artists here. Making up your own technical-sounding jargon and running three-decimal precision calculations does not make it valid, reasonable or nearly as precise as the assigned numbers might mislead one into believing. At its root are unattested scores being mixed together in complicated-seeming but actually very simplistic ways with "course" and "slope" ratings that are highly subjective.

 

I guarantee you the fact that "113" doesn't make sense or that "slope" doesn't mean what most golfers think it means is of no concern to Dean Knuth or the USGA. To them, any confusion is because the people they are selling handicaps to are idiots. But hey, as long as they pay to be in the system it's good.

 

I know a few things as well.

 

I know that you've been rather upset about the handicap system before.

 

I know you're not very well informed vis-a-vis handicaps.

 

I know(?) you haven't spent 20 or more years studying it.

 

I know you didn't read the info at link to the Pope of Slope - otherwise you would have know where they got the 133 and it is not a linear anything.

 

And I know, OK, make that expect, that the handicap system, as is, and with, IMO, some "faults", is most likely better than anything you can come up with.

 

The first time I exchanged E-mail with Dean Knuth on the subject of the USGA Handicap System was in 1995 or maybe early '96. So yeah, about 20 years. And I know exactly where the "113" originated, thank you.

 

At any point in the process they could have normalized the slope ratings to 100 (or 1 or 10 or 1000 or any other arbitrary number they wanted to choose) and made the system just that tiniest bit more transparent to non-number-geeks who try their best to understand it. I never received a clear answer as to why it wasn't adjusted to a round number other than that it did not (in Knuth's and USGA's thinking) matter anyway.

 

As for designing a better system, you're right. Not me you, Dean Knuth or god himself could design a decent handicapping system if it's based entirely on unattested numbers typed in as the golfer sees fit (or not) to a computer with no connection to peer review or any other form of vetting.

 

Thanks for the correction. Fat fingers on my part. Yes, 113.

 

So you're bothered by the fact that they never "normalized" the average rating to 100 so that the "numbers guys" would have an easier time calculating ? Is that it ?

 

I expect most who keep a handicap simply plug in the 1 (or 3) numbers and 1 or 2 other things (date, course) and let the app do the calculation. As on ghin.com.

 

I also expect most don't even KNOW the calculation. I further expect most, having had the calculation explained to them, would think 113 being the AVERAGE rating makes more sense that the average being "normalized" to 100 - but maybe that's just me.

 

But who knows,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[North Butte]

If you tell someone that their course is rated 110 and that means they have to multiply their handicap index by 110 percent, anyone with even the most rudimentary numerancy will understand what you mean. You can tell them their course is 10% harder than an "average" course (loosely speaking but with no loss of meaning) and therefore their course handicap is 10% higher than their handicap index.

 

But no, instead you would tell them to multiply their handicap index by 124, then divide the result by 113 to get their course handicap. And you would explain than an "average" course has a "slope rating" of 113 while their course has a "slope rating" of 124. By which point the eyes of anyone except an engineer or accountant will have glazed over and they'll have tuned you out.

 

To a numbers geek, it's six of one and the square root of thirty-six of the other. All the numbers in the system are on an arbitrary basis and a statistician couldn't care less. If the system said you had to divide by two times the square root of pi it's easily done. For a numbers geek.

 

It's not the end of the world that the USGA didn't bother to put the slope ratings on a basis with an easily understood, easily explained interpretation. It's just a sign that they had no concern whatsoever for the end user understanding their way of arriving at the results. Therefore, golfers think it's all a bunch of complicated mumbo-jumbo that is impossible for them to understand no many how many "101" lectures you care to offer.

[nsxguy]

If you tell someone that their course is rated 110 and that means they have to multiply their handicap index by 110 percent, anyone with even the most rudimentary numerancy will understand what you mean. You can tell them their course is 10% harder than an "average" course (loosely speaking but with no loss of meaning) and therefore their course handicap is 10% higher than their handicap index.

 

But no, instead you would tell them to multiply their handicap index by 124, then divide the result by 113 to get their course handicap. And you would explain than an "average" course has a "slope rating" of 113 while their course has a "slope rating" of 124. By which point the eyes of anyone except an engineer or accountant will have glazed over and they'll have tuned you out.

 

To a numbers geek, it's six of one and the square root of thirty-six of the other. All the numbers in the system are on an arbitrary basis and a statistician couldn't care less. If the system said you had to divide by two times the square root of pi it's easily done. For a numbers geek.

 

It's not the end of the world that the USGA didn't bother to put the slope ratings on a basis with an easily understood, easily explained interpretation. It's just a sign that they had no concern whatsoever for the end user understanding their way of arriving at the results. Therefore, golfers think it's all a bunch of complicated mumbo-jumbo that is impossible for them to understand no many how many "101" lectures you care to offer.

 

Ahhhhhhhh,,,,,, so it's the course handicap calculation that bothers you ?!?!?!

 

That IS a different story.

 

However, at pretty much every course my club has gone to, we take the USGA index of each player and look it up on the chart at the golf course (for the tees we're playing of course) and it gives up the course handicap for that day.

 

And if the chart's not there, it's a couple of clicks to the ghin.com page where you can enter ANY index and ANY slope and get the course handicap for that day.

 

Always a pleasure.

[North Butte]

The guys I play golf with aren't stupid. But they have to go look in their GHIN app to figure out their course handicap, even though they know their index. Just about every one of them, if the "124 divided by 113" were given to them as "110%" or "add 10%" they could do it in their head. These are small-business guys and lawyers, not exactly accountants, but they can do simple plus or minus percentages in their heads. They just have no patience with multiply by one number and divide by another number they can't quite remember what it was supposed to be.

[nsxguy]

The guys I play golf with aren't stupid. But they have to go look in their GHIN app to figure out their course handicap, even though they know their index. Just about every one of them, if the "124 divided by 113" were given to them as "110%" or "add 10%" they could do it in their head. These are small-business guys and lawyers, not exactly accountants, but they can do simple plus or minus percentages in their heads. They just have no patience with multiply by one number and divide by another number they can't quite remember what it was supposed to be.

 

#firstworldproblems

 

So a player is a 17.4 index and the slope is 112 (with your base 100 of course).

 

How many strokes does the guy get (doing it in your head of course) ?

[jpthreesticks]

2020 can't get here soon enough :swoon:

[North Butte]

The guys I play golf with aren't stupid. But they have to go look in their GHIN app to figure out their course handicap, even though they know their index. Just about every one of them, if the "124 divided by 113" were given to them as "110%" or "add 10%" they could do it in their head. These are small-business guys and lawyers, not exactly accountants, but they can do simple plus or minus percentages in their heads. They just have no patience with multiply by one number and divide by another number they can't quite remember what it was supposed to be.

 

#firstworldproblems

 

So a player is a 17.4 index and the slope is 112 (with your base 100 of course).

 

How many strokes does the guy get (doing it in your head of course) ?

 

Let's see 12% added to 17.4, doing it in my head I'd say 19 strokes.

 

I'd think of it as 17.4 plus 1.74 equals 19.14, then 19.14 plus 0.348 equals 19.488 which rounds down to 19. Close one, though.

 

But then again, I'd have no trouble doing 126 or 127 divided by 113 and applying it to the 17.4 because I'm a numbers geek. So I'm probably not a good example. Saying 12% harder than average is still more understandable than say it's 126 compared to an average course which is 113.

 

Ignoring of course the fact that 113 is not "average" of anything specific but actually just an arbitrary standardization basis with distant history origins. Which is sort of my point to start with.

[North Butte]

P.S. As I get older I find my "numbers geek" brain cells are either dying or being repurposed for more pressing concerns. I can still estimate the sine of an angle (or arc-sin) in my head by converting to radians and using the "sine alpha equals alpha for small alpha" approximation. But just a few years ago I could get to the cosine and tangent from there, as well. Now I need a pencil and paper when I get to that part.

 

P.P.S. Fortunately the sine is more often useful than the others.

[aabcuue]

Not sure how to answer your question particularly well. It seems like the courses are both fairly similar and was probably a judgment call by the usga course testers on bunker placement / green complex difficulty. However, your particular game may be better suited for one course versus another. I.e. a course may place fairway bunkers at a particular yardage consistently throughout the course which would would make it easier for someone who hits the ball shorter or longer. Maybe your game is better suited for the way the one course tests a golfer versus the other.

 

On another note... The biggest thing about golf course rating that irks me is how weather and tournament conditions are not taken into account on a particular day. I.e. when playing in a tournament where the course is set up much harder than normal (tougher pin positions, faster greens, etc) or when the wind is howling at 20+ mph, the course rating is still the same

 

The funny thing is, they are nothing alike. The Easier course (despite what the USGA tells me) is more of the classic, tree lined fairways, and dog legs and smaller greens. The other course, which is harder, while it visually looks more open because the fairways aren't as tree lined, has moguls in the fairways, faster greens, much higher rough.

 

With that said, I recently have discovered, which is to your point, that the harder course is easier for me to play from the Blue Tees, and not the whites (Blacks are the tips, I played there once for 9 holes on the front and shot a 49, and it's a par 37, and that was with a triple on the 9th, which is a par 3. I was pretty proud of myself actually).

 

The reason I think the blues might be easier than the whites, is because it be more difficult for me to reach the trouble. And oddly enough the course rating/slope actually comes out to be fairly identical. 71.4/132 from the blues, vs the 68.9/130. Although the yardage is fairly higher at 6,395 vs 5,787

 

Slope takes into account for bogey golfer, amount of trouble on the course, how reachable trouble is from given set of tees (using some assumed avg drive length), size of greens, how penal hazards are, etc.

 

I find it is fairly decent system, it's really up to people to be honest (lacking in today's society) when posting scores, etc.

 

As you mentioned, one course just might suit you better than the other, but I'm betting USGA says a tree lined course is 'harder' than one that has mounding lining the fairways.

 

Your last comment I think is where the discrepancy comes in. Course "B", the one that is harder, but rated easier, may look wide open, but it isn't. One issue I take with the people who rate courses, is that they don't play them. They just walk them, and measure things out. If they actually played the 2 courses, they would reverse the ratings.

 

Also, what if one course for that one day was set up easier for an outing or something? So for the next 10 years, the course has an easy rating based on that one day.

 

Not a perfect system, but it's the one we have. I was just curious if anyone has ever ran into this before. You're putting in your scores, you see your scoring record with your scoring differentials, and suddenly it hits you, that the 87 you shot on the harder course is a higher differential than the 92 you shot on the easier course.

Sorry, but the rating crew most definitely does play the course and multiple times over different months and years.

 

They spend all day playing & measuring every part of a hole w/ surveying equipment, lasers, etc.

 

My friend is part of the rating crew. They are men & women of mostly single to mid-handicap. There are a few high handicapers and a wide age range.

 

However, since they do notify the course, as course is closed for all day or most of the day, setup maybe a bit different. JIC, secret golfers are used throughout differet years to check setup during "normal" rounds.

 

The main idea of slope is comparing different courses to allow 2 golfers of same handicap to play together. Its not meant to be a direct comparison of course difficulty.

[aabcuue]

I know a couple of things.

 

-- 99% of golfers who use the USGA handicap system consider it confusing and needlessly complicated, in not downright inexplicable.

 

-- The brilliant minds who promulgated this system don't give a s*** about whether it makes sense to those 99% or not. Just shut up and punch your numbers in the computer.

 

Describing the two parameters as "course rating" and "slope rating" and then trying to describe some linear curve fitting procedure is either deliberate obfuscation or more likely a lack of concern for whether the end user can understand it or not. Choosing "113" as the divisor just provides one more counter-intuitive, arbitrary number to reinforce the idea that mere golfers are not supposed to be able to assign intuitive meaning to the numbers.

 

Then we add the truly mastermind stroke of basing handicaps on literally any number that is typed into a computer, selling the resulting handicaps to anyone willing to buy into the system and the sheer chutzpah to say "The USGA Handicap System is built on Peer Review". At that point it's obvious we're dealing with complete bullxxxx artists here. Making up your own technical-sounding jargon and running three-decimal precision calculations does not make it valid, reasonable or nearly as precise as the assigned numbers might mislead one into believing. At its root are unattested scores being mixed together in complicated-seeming but actually very simplistic ways with "course" and "slope" ratings that are highly subjective.

 

I guarantee you the fact that "113" doesn't make sense or that "slope" doesn't mean what most golfers think it means is of no concern to Dean Knuth or the USGA. To them, any confusion is because the people they are selling handicaps to are idiots. But hey, as long as they pay to be in the system it's good.

 

I know a few things as well.

 

I know that you've been rather upset about the handicap system before.

 

I know you're not very well informed vis-a-vis handicaps.

 

I know(?) you haven't spent 20 or more years studying it.

 

I know you didn't read the info at link to the Pope of Slope - otherwise you would have know where they got the 133 and it is not a linear anything.

 

And I know, OK, make that expect, that the handicap system, as is, and with, IMO, some "faults", is most likely better than anything you can come up with.

 

The first time I exchanged E-mail with Dean Knuth on the subject of the USGA Handicap System was in 1995 or maybe early '96. So yeah, about 20 years. And I know exactly where the "113" originated, thank you.

 

At any point in the process they could have normalized the slope ratings to 100 (or 1 or 10 or 1000 or any other arbitrary number they wanted to choose) and made the system just that tiniest bit more transparent to non-number-geeks who try their best to understand it. I never received a clear answer as to why it wasn't adjusted to a round number other than that it did not (in Knuth's and USGA's thinking) matter anyway.

 

As for designing a better system, you're right. Not me you, Dean Knuth or god himself could design a decent handicapping system if it's based entirely on unattested numbers typed in as the golfer sees fit (or not) to a computer with no connection to peer review or any other form of vetting.

This is why usga outlawed solo rounds this year. What they should check are players who don't report all rounds or sandbag a few holes to "adjust" handicap.

[North Butte]

As I've said in those earlier threads, if doing away with solo rounds was just a first step and they intend in a couple years to start only using attested rounds then I'm all for it. We will finally have a handicap system that's serious about some sort of verification or peer review.

 

But if this is the endpoint then all we have now are numbers that are *claimed* to be honest scores, submitted by golfers who *claim* they are not solo rounds. And of course no change that practical to implement is going to avoid simply not posting low rounds.

[gunmetal]

For me a lot of this is GREATLY effected by the way we see the course. For example, my favorite course happens to be our hardest: Sage Lakes: Par 70, 71.1, 126 Slope, 94.5 Bogey Rating, 6601. The course is very straighforward with very few trees but either OB or water on both sides of 16 of the holes and some green side bunkering. On the other hand, Pinecrest is a course that I can't stand and don't ever score well at but it is significantly "easier" - Par 70, 70.5, 116, 92.1 Bogey Rating, and 6491. It is lined with towering pines on every hole and has dime sized greens as it was built in the 1930's. Sandcreek is the longest at 6804 and yet it is the "easiest" having both lower ratings and Slopes than the other two.

 

For me they play opposite of how the USGA rates them and as a result I look like a reverse sandbagger because I'll post really good scores on the "harder" course and sloppy scores on the easier ones. And for whatever reason, the good scores seem to weigh more than the bad in determining handicap. Pretty annoying but I really get it when Bubba says "the course doesn't suit my eye." Ha ha.

[North Butte]

And that's the thing no system of matching handicaps to courses can possibly capture. It also applies to the differences between tee boxes. For instance at the course I played all through the 2000's the course and slope ratings combined with my index to estimate that the black tees should play 2.3 strokes easier than the whites. I moved up to the BLACKS and immediately my index started dropping. Turns out that in fact my scores are 4.5 strokes better from the blacks than the whites.

 

The reason being, there are half a dozen tee shots where my very best driver shot will bang into an upslope and pretty much stop dead leaving me a long way from the green (or with a very low second and third shot on a Par 5). On most of those holes, moving up just 15-20 yards to the black tees means when I catch one solidly I can land up on top and run down the other side of the ridge. There was also one dogleg hole where I could not get a clear shot to the green for my second from the white tees but can from the blacks (avoiding a forced layup every time).

 

No way the handicap system can capture that level of granularity. Another guy my same age and handicap index might drive the ball 15 yards longer than me and be fine from the whites while another might drive it 10 yards shorter than me and not be able to get any advantage from even the black tees. I'll bet if I had moved back from the whites (slightly too long) to the championship tees the course/slope rating prediction would have been dead on. I think it would have worked out to around 3 strokes harder for me from back there and that's probably about what I would have shot.

[nsxguy]

The guys I play golf with aren't stupid. But they have to go look in their GHIN app to figure out their course handicap, even though they know their index. Just about every one of them, if the "124 divided by 113" were given to them as "110%" or "add 10%" they could do it in their head. These are small-business guys and lawyers, not exactly accountants, but they can do simple plus or minus percentages in their heads. They just have no patience with multiply by one number and divide by another number they can't quite remember what it was supposed to be.

 

#firstworldproblems

 

So a player is a 17.4 index and the slope is 112 (with your base 100 of course).

 

How many strokes does the guy get (doing it in your head of course) ?

 

Let's see 12% added to 17.4, doing it in my head I'd say 19 strokes.

 

I'd think of it as 17.4 plus 1.74 equals 19.14, then 19.14 plus 0.348 equals 19.488 which rounds down to 19. Close one, though.

 

Excellent. That's how I would have done it too. 2 separate operations.

 

But then again, I'd have no trouble doing 126 or 127 divided by 113 and applying it to the 17.4 because I'm a numbers geek. So I'm probably not a good example.

 

I'd agree. Most wouldn't even want to multiply and add twice. That's why the charts at the courses are so handy. And an app or just the ghin website is quicker - and less prone to error than doing it yourself.

 

Ignoring of course the fact that 113 is not "average" of anything specific but actually just an arbitrary standardization basis with distant history origins. Which is sort of my point to start with.

 

Did you actually read the link I gave you ?

 

Or do you just disagree with the linked page's explanation for the 113 ?

[nsxguy]

And that's the thing no system of matching handicaps to courses can possibly capture. It also applies to the differences between tee boxes. For instance at the course I played all through the 2000's the course and slope ratings combined with my index to estimate that the black tees should play 2.3 strokes easier than the whites.

 

Would you mind clarifying this statement please ?

 

 

I moved up to the whites and immediately my index started dropping. Turns out that in fact my scores are 4.5 strokes better from the blacks than the whites.

 

 

And these as well.

 

TIA

[North Butte]

And that's the thing no system of matching handicaps to courses can possibly capture. It also applies to the differences between tee boxes. For instance at the course I played all through the 2000's the course and slope ratings combined with my index to estimate that the black tees should play 2.3 strokes easier than the whites.

 

Would you mind clarifying this statement please ?

 

 

I moved up to the whites and immediately my index started dropping. Turns out that in fact my scores are 4.5 strokes better from the blacks than the whites.

 

 

And these as well.

 

TIA

 

For my particular game on that particular course the difference in my scores was 4.5 rather than the 2.3 strokes one would expect from the difference in the course rating plus slope times index divided by 113. Just because so many holes happen to require getting the tee shot over a ridge that I can carry from the black tees but not the whites. For many other 17.1 handicappers that 2.3 estimate might be exactly how their scores from the two tees differ.

 

That doesn't mean the course and slope ratings for the two sets of tees are wrong or "unfair". Just luck of the draw for those particular tee shots and my particular game. As a result, my handicap index went down by a couple of strokes as soon as I had posted 20 scores from the up tees. I don't recall the exact index back then but the 2.3 estimate versus 4.5 difference in scores I do remember. I think I was a 17.3 index when Inquit playing the whites and a 15.6 after moving up or something along those lines. I knew other guys whose index hardly changed at all when they made the same move.

[az2au]

It seems to me that many people believe the system should be exact. That is not possible. It isn't even a desired outcome in my mind. That would be onerous or boring. The system instead works like a solid statistical model should in that it is results are more consistent when the most the largest variable is controlled for, i.e., the higher the handicap of the player the more random things they are going to do and the largest variance in style/type of ability.

 

Also, I don't think that attested rounds will mean anything. I've seen this in play when I lived in Australia and it is irrelevant other than slowing play down for some groups. Most people can barely keep up with their own scores, let alone someone else's. Monthly medals like the UK system is likely a better system but would never fly in the US.

 

[QEight]

At any point in the process they could have normalized the slope ratings to 100 (or 1 or 10 or 1000 or any other arbitrary number they wanted to choose) and made the system just that tiniest bit more transparent to non-number-geeks who try their best to understand it. I never received a clear answer as to why it wasn't adjusted to a round number other than that it did not (in Knuth's and USGA's thinking) matter anyway.

 

Sloping originated in USA where there are measurements like 7/8" or 5/16" still in use in 2016. So no wonder nobody thought about it...

[nsxguy]

For my particular game on that particular course the difference in my scores was 4.5 rather than the 2.3 strokes one would expect from the difference in the course rating plus slope times index divided by 113. Just because so many holes happen to require getting the tee shot over a ridge that I can carry from the black tees but not the whites. For many other 17.1 handicappers that 2.3 estimate might be exactly how their scores from the two tees differ.

 

OK, so you happened to be 4.5 strokes better from the Whites (further up) rather than the Blacks and the rating was 2.3 higher from the Blacks. OK, Got it. Not so unusual.

 

Personally I've found over the year that moving back from where one is comfortable to where one is not costs at least a few more strokes than the rating would indicate - but whatever.

 

I'm having trouble understanding how you can carry tee shots over a ridge from the Black (further back) but not from the Whites.

 

Also, did you read the link that described how the number 113 came to be used ?

[North Butte]

No the black tees are the shorter ones (under 6,000 yards) while the whites are longer (more than 6,000 yards). That particular course has red ladies tees, black senior tees, white men's tees and blue tournament tees.

 

The link you keep talking about, do you mean the one banging on about Dean Knuth working on submarine warfare during the Cold War? It says nothing about the origin of the arbitrary number 113. What Knuth told me in an E-mail a couple decades ago was something like they came up with a rating system, went out and rated a bunch of courses and found that the average of those initial ratings was 113. So that was as good as any other number to use as the divisor in their system.

 

He also acknowledged that as the system was widely disseminated they found that the average for all rated courses was higher than 113. So it is not an "average slope rating" in any meaningful contemporary sense. It was an original average computed during some of their developmental work.

 

Which is what I meant by "arbitrary". If they had scaled their rating process using different (again arbitrary) values to assign to various features, the average would have come out to 92 or 17 or 1492 or some other number. They just assigned what they considered useful values to the things they were using as inputs to the slope computation, ran an initial set of numbers and found that by using 113 as the divisor it made Bogey vs. Scratch scores be properly reflective.

 

At the end of that process, before publicly releasing the system, they could trivially rescaled all their arbitrarily assigned values to make them come out to a round number like 1, 10 or 100. They did not. It's their system and they can do as they like with it. But IMO it proves that they don't care enough to make even trivial, ultimately meaningless changes to their initial iteration of the system in order to simply its understanding by innumerate end-users.

 

P.S. And every time his web site refers to 113 as the "average slope rating in the USGA system" he is being sloppy, misleading and insulting the intelligence of any golfer who has ever perused a few scorecards and noticed that 90% of the slope ratings are above 113 and most of them far above 113.

[az2au]

I find this obsession with 113 interesting. Either you are perfectly capable of using it and it is no big deal or you using a chart (like 95%+ of everyone else) and it is still no big deal. Given that it seems overwhelming for many people to understand how change works and why you'd give a cashier $1.08 for something that costs $0.98 I don't think 100/10 or whatever would make an appreciable difference. Either your mind works in a way that makes math intuitive or not. It doesn't mean you are more/less intelligent. It just isn't the way people think. I'm sure there is a certain percentage that would be impacted but it is a lot less than you think. 113 is a bad number because it doesn't represent the real average, not because it makes math hard. I realize I say this as a person with software engineering and math degrees so my view is biased. I still think I'm correct.

[North Butte]

You're right. Most golfers will find it opaque and confusing no matter what you do. It's a two parameter system and that's going to buffalo most people right there.

 

Setting it to 100 or some other understandable basis number would only improve that lack of understanding the teensiest little bit. But it would have cost them nothing to do that and it would have been a tiny little sop to the eventual end users of the system.

 

I also don't expect Dean Knuth to explain to innumerate people the difference between the "average" slope rating versus the denominator used to standardize the slope rating. But it would be nice if he'd knock off calling it the "average" when it is no such thing. That's just sloppy.

[nsxguy]

And that's the thing no system of matching handicaps to courses can possibly capture. It also applies to the differences between tee boxes. For instance at the course I played all through the 2000's the course and slope ratings combined with my index to estimate that the black tees should play 2.3 strokes easier than the whites. I moved up to the whites and immediately my index started dropping. Turns out that in fact my scores are 4.5 strokes better from the blacks than the whites.

 

OK, I think I see the issue now.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

 

No the black tees are the shorter ones (under 6,000 yards) while the whites are longer (more than 6,000 yards). That particular course has red ladies tees, black senior tees, white men's tees and blue tournament tees.

 

The link you keep talking about, do you mean the one banging on about Dean Knuth working on submarine warfare during the Cold War? It says nothing about the origin of the arbitrary number 113. What Knuth told me in an E-mail a couple decades ago was something like they came up with a rating system, went out and rated a bunch of courses and found that the average of those initial ratings was 113. So that was as good as any other number to use as the divisor in their system.

 

He also acknowledged that as the system was widely disseminated they found that the average for all rated courses was higher than 113. So it is not an "average slope rating" in any meaningful contemporary sense. It was an original average computed during some of their developmental work.

 

Which is what I meant by "arbitrary". If they had scaled their rating process using different (again arbitrary) values to assign to various features, the average would have come out to 92 or 17 or 1492 or some other number. They just assigned what they considered useful values to the things they were using as inputs to the slope computation, ran an initial set of numbers and found that by using 113 as the divisor it made Bogey vs. Scratch scores be properly reflective.

 

At the end of that process, before publicly releasing the system, they could trivially rescaled all their arbitrarily assigned values to make them come out to a round number like 1, 10 or 100. They did not. It's their system and they can do as they like with it. But IMO it proves that they don't care enough to make even trivial, ultimately meaningless changes to their initial iteration of the system in order to simply its understanding by innumerate end-users.

 

P.S. And every time his web site refers to 113 as the "average slope rating in the USGA system" he is being sloppy, misleading and insulting the intelligence of any golfer who has ever perused a few scorecards and noticed that 90% of the slope ratings are above 113 and most of them far above 113.

 

I only posted ONE link. It was to the Pope of Slope where it clearly explains the 113 was the USGA average slope rating - presumably at the time the handicapping system was created/published.

 

OF COURSE the average has changed but one doesn't have to be a "numbers guy" to realize that you can't keep changing the formaula every time the average changes.

 

So while anybody stating it IS the average presently may be mistaken, for the purposes of this discussion it is good enough.

 

And since you appear to be stuck on being pedantic, it certainly isn't, or wasn't "arbitrary".

 

ar·bi·trar·y

ˈärbəˌtrerē/

adjective

based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

[az2au]

You're right. Most golfers will find it opaque and confusing no matter what you do. It's a two parameter system and that's going to buffalo most people right there.

 

Setting it to 100 or some other understandable basis number would only improve that lack of understanding the teensiest little bit. But it would have cost them nothing to do that and it would have been a tiny little sop to the eventual end users of the system.

 

I also don't expect Dean Knuth to explain to innumerate people the difference between the "average" slope rating versus the denominator used to standardize the slope rating. But it would be nice if he'd knock off calling it the "average" when it is no such thing. That's just sloppy.

Ok, I agree with all of this.

[North Butte]

And that's the thing no system of matching handicaps to courses can possibly capture. It also applies to the differences between tee boxes. For instance at the course I played all through the 2000's the course and slope ratings combined with my index to estimate that the black tees should play 2.3 strokes easier than the whites. I moved up to the whites and immediately my index started dropping. Turns out that in fact my scores are 4.5 strokes better from the blacks than the whites.

OK, I think I see the issue now.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

D'Oh! Sorry about that. I will go back and edit the mistake.

 

No the black tees are the shorter ones (under 6,000 yards) while the whites are longer (more than 6,000 yards). That particular course has red ladies tees, black senior tees, white men's tees and blue tournament tees.

 

The link you keep talking about, do you mean the one banging on about Dean Knuth working on submarine warfare during the Cold War? It says nothing about the origin of the arbitrary number 113. What Knuth told me in an E-mail a couple decades ago was something like they came up with a rating system, went out and rated a bunch of courses and found that the average of those initial ratings was 113. So that was as good as any other number to use as the divisor in their system.

 

He also acknowledged that as the system was widely disseminated they found that the average for all rated courses was higher than 113. So it is not an "average slope rating" in any meaningful contemporary sense. It was an original average computed during some of their developmental work.

 

Which is what I meant by "arbitrary". If they had scaled their rating process using different (again arbitrary) values to assign to various features, the average would have come out to 92 or 17 or 1492 or some other number. They just assigned what they considered useful values to the things they were using as inputs to the slope computation, ran an initial set of numbers and found that by using 113 as the divisor it made Bogey vs. Scratch scores be properly reflective.

 

At the end of that process, before publicly releasing the system, they could trivially rescaled all their arbitrarily assigned values to make them come out to a round number like 1, 10 or 100. They did not. It's their system and they can do as they like with it. But IMO it proves that they don't care enough to make even trivial, ultimately meaningless changes to their initial iteration of the system in order to simply its understanding by innumerate end-users.

 

P.S. And every time his web site refers to 113 as the "average slope rating in the USGA system" he is being sloppy, misleading and insulting the intelligence of any golfer who has ever perused a few scorecards and noticed that 90% of the slope ratings are above 113 and most of them far above 113.

 

I only posted ONE link. It was to the Pope of Slope where it clearly explains the 113 was the USGA average slope rating - presumably at the time the handicapping system was created/published.

 

OF COURSE the average has changed but one doesn't have to be a "numbers guy" to realize that you can't keep changing the formaula every time the average changes.

 

So while anybody stating it IS the average presently may be mistaken, for the purposes of this discussion it is good enough.

 

And since you appear to be stuck on being pedantic, it certainly isn't, or wasn't "arbitrary".

 

ar·bi·trar·y

ˈärbəˌtrerē/

adjective

based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

 

When they were assigning the values to be used in computing the slope rating, those were arbitrary choices. They could not be anything else. There is no natural numeric representation for most of the individual things they are observing during the rating process. So they put things on numerical scales, do their curve fitting to Scratch and Bogey scores and at the end 113 comes out as making it all work. The end result of a series of arbitrarily assigned values is quite proper to consider "arbitrary" itself.

[nsxguy]

And that's the thing no system of matching handicaps to courses can possibly capture. It also applies to the differences between tee boxes. For instance at the course I played all through the 2000's the course and slope ratings combined with my index to estimate that the black tees should play 2.3 strokes easier than the whites. I moved up to the whites and immediately my index started dropping. Turns out that in fact my scores are 4.5 strokes better from the blacks than the whites.

OK, I think I see the issue now.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

D'Oh! Sorry about that. I will go back and edit the mistake.

 

No the black tees are the shorter ones (under 6,000 yards) while the whites are longer (more than 6,000 yards). That particular course has red ladies tees, black senior tees, white men's tees and blue tournament tees.

 

The link you keep talking about, do you mean the one banging on about Dean Knuth working on submarine warfare during the Cold War? It says nothing about the origin of the arbitrary number 113. What Knuth told me in an E-mail a couple decades ago was something like they came up with a rating system, went out and rated a bunch of courses and found that the average of those initial ratings was 113. So that was as good as any other number to use as the divisor in their system.

 

He also acknowledged that as the system was widely disseminated they found that the average for all rated courses was higher than 113. So it is not an "average slope rating" in any meaningful contemporary sense. It was an original average computed during some of their developmental work.

 

Which is what I meant by "arbitrary". If they had scaled their rating process using different (again arbitrary) values to assign to various features, the average would have come out to 92 or 17 or 1492 or some other number. They just assigned what they considered useful values to the things they were using as inputs to the slope computation, ran an initial set of numbers and found that by using 113 as the divisor it made Bogey vs. Scratch scores be properly reflective.

 

At the end of that process, before publicly releasing the system, they could trivially rescaled all their arbitrarily assigned values to make them come out to a round number like 1, 10 or 100. They did not. It's their system and they can do as they like with it. But IMO it proves that they don't care enough to make even trivial, ultimately meaningless changes to their initial iteration of the system in order to simply its understanding by innumerate end-users.

 

P.S. And every time his web site refers to 113 as the "average slope rating in the USGA system" he is being sloppy, misleading and insulting the intelligence of any golfer who has ever perused a few scorecards and noticed that 90% of the slope ratings are above 113 and most of them far above 113.

 

I only posted ONE link. It was to the Pope of Slope where it clearly explains the 113 was the USGA average slope rating - presumably at the time the handicapping system was created/published.

 

OF COURSE the average has changed but one doesn't have to be a "numbers guy" to realize that you can't keep changing the formaula every time the average changes.

 

So while anybody stating it IS the average presently may be mistaken, for the purposes of this discussion it is good enough.

 

And since you appear to be stuck on being pedantic, it certainly isn't, or wasn't "arbitrary".

 

ar·bi·trar·y

ˈärbəˌtrerē/

adjective

based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

 

When they were assigning the values to be used in computing the slope rating, those were arbitrary choices. They could not be anything else. There is no natural numeric representation for most of the individual things they are observing during the rating process. So they put things on numerical scales, do their curve fitting to Scratch and Bogey scores and at the end 113 comes out as making it all work. The end result of a series of arbitrarily assigned values is quite proper to consider "arbitrary" itself.

 

They worked out their system, sloped all the courses (in their system at the time) and came out with an average.

 

Hardly arbitrary but have it your own way - you're the numbers guy.

 

 

BTW, since you clearly hate the current system have you figured out a new better way yet ?

[North Butte]

Exact same numeric system as today. All scores must be attested by someone else in the system. Totally better than today. No problem.