[Garland Bayley]

BTW, when we wanted to set the stroke index numbers for our course, I thought it would be an easy task. I suggested we just ask the Oregon Golf Association for the stroke rating for each hole. Turns out they cannot provide that. Their rating system (USGA's) does not break a course down into individual holes. Their factors just go into calculating the 18 hole numbers.

I guess that is why they did not use such a method to designate how to do it in their handicap reference manual.

[Mark_Fine]

So Garland,
If you and I were going to play a match on course X, one we never played before, how would we decide who gets what strokes where?  Wouldn't each hole need to have some kind of handicap rating at a minimum?  Also how would I know your handicap and how would you know mine?  Aren't our handicaps determined by how many strokes it takes us to play a hole/course and doesn't it varies from course to course.  What am I missing? 

[Garland Bayley]

...Wouldn't each hole need to have some kind of handicap rating at a minimum?...

I just posted that the USGA doesn't have "some kind of handicap rating". The USGA doesn't need it, so why do you think it is necessary.

...Aren't our handicaps determined by how many strokes it takes us to play a hole/course and doesn't it varies from course to course.  ...

Emphasis added.

...how would we decide who gets what strokes where?...

Those who have posted a lot about handicap here have noted studies that indicate it doesn't really matter where you get the strokes. The current USGA suggested method of stroke allocation does not strictly follow hole difficulty, so they don't seem deem it that necessary.

So are you now convinced that par has nothing to do with handicapping?

Now that you have a lot of information on handicapping that you didn't know before, what would you suggest be a method for determining the handicap to play a stranger on a strange course. Think outside the par box!

[Kalen Braley]

Garland,

That's a nice song and a dance, but you didn't answer Marks question:

"If you and I were going to play a match on course X, one we never played before, how would we decide who gets what strokes where? "

[Mark_Fine]

Rule Change for 2020: Par will have an important role within the World Handicap System, requiring par values to be more precise. Golf courses fall within the jurisdiction of the Authorized Golf Association, who has the final determination of par based on the following guidelines:

Importance and Determination of Par

[/t] Par Men Women 3[/t] Up to 260 yards Up to 220 yards 4[/t] 240 to 490 yards 200 to 420 yards 5[/t] 450 to 710 yards 370 to 600 yards 6[/t] 670 yards and up 570 yards and up  When determining Par, the Authorized Golf Association will also consider how the hole is designed to be played and effective playing length factors such as elevation, doglegs and forced lay-ups. o For example, if an uphill hole falls within the par 5 yardage guidelines for men from all tees except the most forward set, which is 435 yards, that hole may also be designated as a par 5 from the forward tees. Reasons for Change:  The Course Handicap calculation will include a Course Rating minus Par adjustment, which will enable a Course Handicap to represent the number of strokes a player receives to play down to the Par of the tees being played. o As a result, as long as players are competing from tees with the same Pars, no additional adjustment is needed. o If players are competing from tees with different Pars, the player(s) competing from the tees with higher Par must add the difference in Par to their Course Handicap.   The maximum hole score for handicap purposes will be a “Net Double Bogey,” equal to Par + 2 + any handicap strokes the player receives. For this adjustment to be accurate, Par values must be correct.   When a player does not play a hole, “Net Par” must be recorded as their score for the hole. Net Par is equal to Par + any handicap strokes the player receives.

[V_Halyard]

One simple and excellent comment I heard from a forward tee player:
"If you are giving the other tees an interesting shot, give me one as well."
If all tees are elevated except for the forward tee, the experience is diminished.
"If you are teeing off from the penthouse, don't put me in the basement."
... where feasible. 

[Mark_Fine]

VH,
I agree with you.  Many forward tee players want interest and challenge as well.  However, regarding tee height; I don’t care for elevated (purposely perched tees) to begin with so I wouldn’t build them for the forward or back tees if I had my way.  Low profile tees are not meant to be demeaning in any way.  They just look better and are lower maintenance. 

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

That's a nice song and a dance, but you didn't answer Marks question:

"If you and I were going to play a match on course X, one we never played before, how would we decide who gets what strokes where? "

Kalen, Kalen, Kalen,

Which part of it doesn't matter didn't you understand?

If you are asking the what strokes part, which it didn't seem was Mark's emphasis in that question, because he asked that part separately, then perhaps you can help him out and give him some suggestions, because as you saw I threw it back to him.

Looking ahead, I see he is really struggling, so he could use your help. Seems he found the word par in the handicap manual, and not knowing the handicap index doesn't use it at all, he copied a bunch of the manual hoping one of the noodles thrown on the wall sticks.

[Garland Bayley]

...
The Course Handicap calculation will include a Course Rating minus Par adjustment, which will enable a Course Handicap to represent the number of strokes a player receives to play down to the Par of the tees being played.
...

There you go! You've discovered the difference between the WHS, and the previous USGA handicap system used up to just over a year ago.
The system Dean Knuth created for the USGA many years ago calculated a handicap index without any use of par. Now the infant new system does a "Par adjustment" so the handicap is relative to par instead of relative to the course rating like it used to be when par never entered into their calculations.

Dean of course objected to the change, because the "Par adjustment" ruined the statistical and mathematical beauty of the system he devised. In the old system, a scratch golfer had a course handicap of 0 on all courses. In the new system, defining a scratch golfer became more complicated.

So how would you devised a handicap system in the scenario you suggested?

[Mark_Fine]

Garland,
I just pulled that off the internet not giving it a lot of thought.  I still don't see how you and I play a match with equitable handicaps without a par designation or how we get equitable handicaps in the first place?  Can you explain?  And without par designations what is a handicap anyway?  What is it based on?  If a course is rated at 73.2 from a certain set of tees, what does that mean?  If the first hole is 410 yards long do you get a stroke on that hole or do I or do we play even up? 

[Garland Bayley]

Mark,

Have you never had an USGA handicap?

[Mark_Fine]

My USGA Index is +0.5

[Garland Bayley]

My USGA Index is +0.5

So +0.5 is the average of your 8 best of last 20 score differentials.
The calculation of score differentials is from your score, the course rating, the slope rating, and the constant of 113.

No par is involved.

So the question still stands, how would you handicap your match against a stranger on a strange course? Any out of the box (perhaps a little more in box once USGA handicapping is explained) ideas you would care to venture?

[Mark_Fine]

How did I get a handicap in the first place?  You need course and slope ratings to do that and that is where par comes into play or are those numbers purely distance related?  Face it Garland, you can call par something else if you don’t like that word but par is part of the game of golf. 

[Garland Bayley]

Those numbers are difficulty based. No consideration of par is made.

As an afterthought for 2019, the USGA decided to calculate course handicap using the par adjustment, instead of directly from their parless ratings.

[Mark_Fine]

The point of this thread is about the value of forward tees.  I will say again, they are one of the best things we can do for the game of golf. 


If I went into a club and said, "No need for a mix of different length tees for each hole, we will all play from the same set and we will just eliminate par"    I wouldn't be working at that club very long.  C&C built a course with no formal par but it was just a gimmick and I am not sure if they even still keep it that way.  Again if you don't like the word par, deal with it, it is part of the game.  And by the way, you can (and people do) set their own personal par on each hole and that is great.  However, the point is they have a score they set out to try to attain or beat.  Most aren't just swinging away not counting their strokes but they can do that too if it makes them happy.  I am still going to focus on making the game more fun and interesting for more players especially those who need less course vs more. 

[Garland Bayley]

The point of this thread is about the value of forward tees.  I will say again, they are one of the best things we can do for the game of golf. 
Agree to disagree?

If I went into a club and said, "No need for a mix of different length tees for each hole, we will all play from the same set and we will just eliminate par"    I wouldn't be working at that club very long. 
And, if you were Old Tom Morris, they probably would have told you that how it is already, what are you talking about?

C&C built a course with no formal par but it was just a gimmick and I am not sure if they even still keep it that way.  Again if you don't like the word par, deal with it, it is part of the game. 
It has become part of the game. Unfortunately most people (like Kalen) can't figure out how to have competitions without the medal play crutch.

And by the way, you can (and people do) set their own personal par on each hole and that is great.  However, the point is they have a score they set out to try to attain or beat. 
So, you maintain that par is irrelevant for "people" since they know how well they can do on the hole and they celebrate their best efforts.

Most aren't just swinging away not counting their strokes but they can do that too if it makes them happy.  I am still going to focus on making the game more fun and interesting for more players especially those who need less course vs more.
My point was that they don't need less course to be interested and have fun. When they played St. Andrews with a feathery, they weren't playing a course that OTM shortened to make up for their shortcomings, and if you had been around calculating a par for the course you probably would have come up with something like 85. (That of course is just a guess, but surely it would be well above 72.)

[Mark_Fine]

Like it or not no course is designed today without the concept of par in mind.  Call them one shot holes or two or three or four shot holes if you prefer but architects always have in mind how they expect a golf hole to be played. Maybe some day we will have 80 yard holes that are par fours because the green is so wild (Garland I am thinking out of the box  ) but either way there will be a basis for how holes are played by various golfing abilities as that is needed for handicap purposes.  That is the essence of what par is anyway and even though they didn’t call par par when the game was first developed, golfers understood the concept of how many shots it typically took to play different routes they set up to different holes. 

[Garland Bayley]

Like it or not no course is designed today without the concept of par in mind. 
Oh, Really?!?!
https://thegolfersjournal.libsyn.com/episode-45-the-war-on-par-ft-gil-hanse


Call them one shot holes or two or three or four shot holes if you prefer but architects always have in mind how they expect a golf hole to be played. Maybe some day we will have 80 yard holes that are par fours because the green is so wild (Garland I am thinking out of the box  )
Sorry, not out of the box. Doesn't even take 80 yards. https://www.standrewsputtingclub.com/

but either way there will be a basis for how holes are played by various golfing abilities as that is needed for handicap purposes.  That is the essence of what par is anyway and even though they didn’t call par par when the game was first developed, golfers understood the concept of how many shots it typically took to play different routes they set up to different holes.
Wrong again. They didn't even count the strokes when golf began. They did what was called playing the like. They alternated strokes. If the person who hit first holed out first, then his opponent "play the like" had to hole out on his stroke or lose the hole. If the person who hit second holed out first, then he won the hole.

[Mark_Fine]

Garland,
I stand corrected.  You found one course out of 35,000 


And nice job pointing out one of my favorite putting courses.  Thumbs up.


We can agree to disagree on whether they were counting strokes.  Did they count strokes in the British Open in 1860?  I believe they might have    I guess the game has been all messed up since that time 

[Kalen Braley]

Garland,

I'm still waiting for a response to the following question, and I will make it my question, so you don't try to deflect to Mark: 

"How would two players of varying ability play heads up on a course they've never played before without Handicaps?"

[Steve Wilson]

From Garland Bayley:[/size]

"Those who have posted a lot about handicap here have noted studies that indicate it doesn't really matter where you get the strokes. The current USGA suggested method of stroke allocation does not strictly follow hole difficulty, so they don't seem deem it that necessary."[/color][/size]


If this is true and acceptable then handicaps could be calculated on the basis of medal scores versus the par or the course rating.Then handicap strokes could be allocated on the basis of odd holes first.  Say the differential is six then the high handicap gets shots on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11.  If the differential is greater than ten then you start on the even holes.Another solution would be the first six holes, or the last six holes.  Would this work.  It might make it easier for the high handicapper to win on the "easier" holes, but almost impossible to halve or win the "harder" ones.  Once the handicaps are established, and I know of no other way to do this than with medal scores, they could be allocated by any arbitrary system if the format is match play.  For our golfing brethren who prefer Stableford, how would my proposals work?I would devote more time to thinking this through but I have a  basketball game to watch.[/size]

[Mark_Fine]

Kalen,
Don't expect a response because he doesn't have a good answer.


Steve,
How do we establish a handicap in the first place?  If you play at course X and I play at course Y and then you and I both go to course Z to play a match, what are our handicaps for the match?

[Mark_Fine]

Mike B,
The other point I want to make (I am sure you already get this) is that you should consider setting up your golf course so more golfers get to experience what a "one shot" hole is and what a "two shot" hole is and so on.  If you don't want to call for example the one shot holes par threes, so be it.  I really don't care.  Golfers will call them what they want (you can figure out handicaps on your own)     


Mark

[Steve Wilson]

Mark,


First of all I absolutely agree that forward tees are one of the very best things that can be done for the game of golf.  I started utilizing them when I turned 70 and now realize I should have started much earlier.  The game is much more enticing when you can reach greens
in regulation.



Par and Course Ratings
I'm not saying you don't have to have  "par" or an approximation thereof.  You need a course rating at least from each set of tees.  You would establish the differential between the course rating and your score.  Correct me if I'm wrong about this but isn't a course based on the length of the course and difficulty of the obstacles, hazards, etc.  Is a course rating derived from adding up the adjusted 'pars' for the eighteen separate holes? 


Handicaps
For simplicity's sake, let's say you and I both play at courses with a 72.0 rating against a slope of 113.  Your scores have established a handicap of  1 and mine a handicap of 13.  That means I get twelve strokes. Isn't this essentially how we do this now to enable handicaps to travel?  It's about course ratings, score differentials, and slope.  We adjust our indexes against the course rating.  Easy course I'll get 12 shots, really tough course I'll get 13 or 14 when playing you. 


The course rating would be the same based on its length and difficulty regardless of whether the course is a par 69, 70, 71, or 72 on the card. 


One thing won't change on the first tee, you'll say I'm getting too many shots, and I'll say I'm not getting enough. [size=78%] [/size]


Allocation of Stokes


Does it matter where strokes are allocated?  It might be slightly unfair to the better player for me to receive all of my strokes on the first twelve holes enabling me to build a big lead and putting more pressure on the better player, but would it change the results all that much.  Conversely if we counted backwards from the 18th and I didn't get my first stroke until the 7th you would be likely to have me buried and I'd never get to use all of my strokes.  Thus more equitable for the better player.
 
What I was addressing was the allocation of strokes.  Is it necessary to rate the individual holes? 

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