Don't count penalty strokes for handicap

[Garland Bayley]

Classic courses suffer by producing lower handicap players.

A statement without the pretext of any facts. Are you running for president? 

[Jason Connor]

This is why courses shouldn't be rated by people. They should be rated by algorithms.


Many of us here play 20+ different courses per year, many more than that.  With this amount of crossover, it would amazingly easy for an algorithm to assign course and slope rating far more accurately than a person making one or two trips.


Imagine thousands of handicapped rounds submitted by a variety of golf skills. These could be turned into course ratings in near real time and also let course & slope ratings change year to year.

[A.G._Crockett]

Can anybody give me an example of a course, classic or otherwise, that suffers from a manifestly incorrect course rating or slope?  I can't say that I've ever heard this complaint, much less a problem with penalty strokes on ANY course.

Lots of complaints about hole handicapping (which most golfers don't understand AND which is done by the club rather than the golf association anyway) and about handicaps being either sandbagged or vanity.  But the course rating? 

[Pete Lavallee]

Can anybody give me an example of a course, classic or otherwise, that suffers from a manifestly incorrect course rating or slope?

I'll provide a small example. Balboa Park in SD was rerated after a renovation in 1995. The rating for the par 72 6,281 yard held close to the distance formula the rating team uses as a starting point. The rating came in around 69. The front nine is very penal with no place to miss as the course winds up through canyons to the Mesa which makes up the back nine. Essentially everyone had a couple strokes in their pocket. The course did extremely well in inter club play and had a reputation for being a home for sandbaggers. After a couple of years the course was rerated and now has a course rating of 71.1, very high for such a short course. A seemingly small adjustment, but the club hasn't cracked an egg in interplay since then and our sandbagging reputation is long gone.

[Doug Siebert]

I think it will turn a 4 or 5 into a scratch. I have a few good rounds at Oakmont and Pine Valley and the result of each was to knock my cap down significantly. If I played there a lot more, I bet my cap would be around scratch.

Whether a difficult course helps or hurts your handicap depends on how its difficulty plays to your strengths. If your strength is being fabulous on and around the greens, you will probably lower your handicap playing a lot at Oakmont because you will be able to handle that a lot better than most. If you play a super tight course with all kinds of trouble awaiting on an offline shot and you hit it as straight as Moe Norman, same thing.

On the other hand, if you are great tee to green but terrible with the putter, Oakmont would probably make you look foolish and your handicap would skyrocket.