Tom P:
Like Mike, I've gone around with the state g.a. raters on two or three projects before they were officially open. The courses were kind of playable, and they wanted to be among the first to play, and the client wanted to print scorecards with the course rating and slope already on there.
When they do that, they have to guess at things like how the ball will run out, what the greens will play like when they're faster, what the rough will be maintained like, etc. Usually they come up with a fairly low slope rating that way, and it adjusts several points when they come back and re-do it once the course is mature.