Even/odd Hole Handicaps

[Peter Pallotta]

I remember reading that in the years Corey Pavin was winning tournaments, he did it by holding his own (against the field) on Par 4s, losing a little ground on par 5s, but making it all up and more on the Par 3s -- by playing the Par 3s, on average, is just about exactly 3 strokes. One year (among several others, I think) he led the Tour in that stat, with a 2.96 scoring average. That has always stayed with me: even the best players in the world, including the ones with immaculate short games, aren't ever 'going low' on Par 3s.

[MKrohn]

Seems you guys are trying to come up with match and stroke indices that suit every course, good luck.


Since I started playing in Aust. we have always had separate indices and the match (common to every course) has not changed. Nobody to my knowledge complains albeit we play significantly less match than you guys.


I did the work for my club to reassign the stroke holes, pretty easy process since we have 1000s of logged rounds and its just a matter of downloading the data.


- get all the 0-6 markers data and determine their hardest holes
- 7-12 leaving aside the 0-6 determine their next 6 hardest, then 13-18
- there is a bit of subtlety at this point as there is a desire for every even handicap to have equal shots on each nine so the hard data is slightly bastardised.


We then go further to determine what holes people get double shots, so again we get the data for 19-25 markers and go through the same process above. The exception is that all the par 3s (we have four) are rated, 36,35,34 and 33. A hole may be difficult for higher but not lower guys, for example at my old course the longest Par 5 was 7/19


In Australia, the most complained about issues at golf clubs are socks, hole ratings and beer prices. 1 and 3 are unsolvable but we have the data for 2 so that's largely gone away.