Challenging 18 Handicap Hole = Great Course?

[Adam G]

In Golf Digest's new "Every Hole at Riviera" video, Ron Whitten says "when the 18th handicap hole is this challenging, you know you are playing a great golf course." Riviera is a remarkable golf course, but I don't think the difficulty of the 18th handicap hole has much to do with it, and I suspect others here agree with me and that Whitten's line may ruffle some feathers and lead to some debate. Thoughts?

[Carl Rogers]

At Riviera, what hole is the 18th handicap hole?  Hole 1?

[Andrew Harvie]

At Riviera, what hole is the 18th handicap hole?  Hole 1?

Hole 14. Hole 1 is 17

[mike_malone]

I’m fond of saying sarcastically after leaving our 13 and 16 handicap holes with my tail between my legs “ that hole is just too easy “ as I double it.

[Matthew Rose]

9 times out of 10, it's the shortest par three on the back nine.

Make of that what you will.

[Tom_Doak]

9 times out of 10, it's the shortest par three on the back nine.

Make of that what you will.

That's true, and this is not a great standard to judge by.


By coincidence, though, the 16th at Riv is shorter than the 14th, and honestly I'm not sure they are right as to which of them is easier.

[JESII]

Handicapping is a funny thing these days...I guess every club chooses their preferred method but it's not always the most to least difficult. The USGA spent years recommending the greatest delta between a low and high handicapper as the order. Not sure if they still do.  I've always felt they should be allotted for betting purposes, so most to least difficult with a wide breadth for spacing as well.


Either way, I'd guess that was the first and last time Whitten thought of that as an indicator of a great course...

[Tim Martin]

9 times out of 10, it's the shortest par three on the back nine.

Make of that what you will.

Pine Valley GC checks this box.

[corey miller]

I just received an email from my club about the new world handicapping system that uses a net double bogey (based on hole handicap) as the highest score one can post.  Seems a little weird to base a system on something so arbitrary as the hole hndicap assignements.

[JESII]

Why?


The point of that guidance is to know when to move on...


It couldn’t screw up your handicap by more than 1/18 of a stroke.

[Mark Mammel]

Corey- This seems to cause lots of consternation. Net double bogie of course changes based on your own handicap, but as an example, as a 16 I could previously post nothing higher than 7. Now, if I get a stroke on a par five, I can post an 8. Of course, on a par 3 with a stroke I can only post 6, not 7. Probably a horse apiece.


I just received an email from my club about the new world handicapping system that uses a net double bogey (based on hole handicap) as the highest score one can post.  Seems a little weird to base a system on something so arbitrary as the hole hndicap assignements.

[Michael Felton]

I just received an email from my club about the new world handicapping system that uses a net double bogey (based on hole handicap) as the highest score one can post.  Seems a little weird to base a system on something so arbitrary as the hole hndicap assignements.

For this reason I would rather get my shots on the easiest holes, not the hardest. When you get a shot you can make triple on the hole. When you don't, you can only make double. Since it's easier to make triples on holes that are harder, your handicap will tend to be lower if you get shots on easy holes and not hard.


There was some noise at some point in the UK about having the stroke indexes all the same on every course - where they'd ensure that shots fall evenly through the round and would be less likely on the last hole (where it might be wasted) or the first hole (where it would come into play in a play-off). AFAIK that got dropped. It doesn't really matter for the most part. Even in Stableford, if they're wrong it just means you get 1 point and 3 points on two holes instead of 2 and 2. Only comes into play when you start making triples and frankly at that point you're on your own.

[JLahrman]

9 times out of 10, it's the shortest par three on the back nine.

Make of that what you will.

I feel this topic has been beaten to death on this site, and I'm sure to have people disagree, but shouldn't the 18th handicap hole generally be the shortest par 3?



I believe the 18th handicap hole should be the hole where, if an x handicap player is in a match with an x+1 handicap player, that single stroke is LEAST likely to show itself. With distance being the biggest factor in how our scores accrue, the shortest hole should be the default hole on which that one-stroke gap is likely to show. Likewise, the longest hole on the course would be where the one-stroke gap is most likely to show, regardless of whether the hole is "easy" relative to its par.


Obviously there are exceptions to this, but length should be a huge determining factor in assigning handicaps to the holes.

[Michael Wolf]

As far as I know, the hole handicaps are still supposed to be assigned relative to gaps in difficulty for an 18 vs a scratch golfer. Which can be much different than just ranking easiest to hardest. Also - at least in the U.S., don't most golf courses have wide latitude to change hole handicaps if they want to avoid, for instance, having their first or final holes be the #1 or #18 handicap holes?


FWIW - Some of my friends and I enjoy playing "halfsies" with our handicaps - If you're a 6 and I'm a 4, instead of giving you a stroke on the same two lowest handicap holes every time, I give you 1/2 a stroke on 4 different holes - and you get to pick two holes and I pick two holes where they'll fall before we tee off.


Michael

[Jim Hoak]

My understanding is that in the US, Clubs have almost total discretion in putting handicap allocations wherever they want.  For example, as I recall, a recent Northern California Golf Association article recommended that, within the general procedure of putting the strokes on holes with the biggest difference between a scratch player and a bogie player, avoiding the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 9th  holes--and the 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th holes--as much as possible to reduce the impact of handicap strokes on a match.

[JMEvensky]

My understanding is that in the US, Clubs have almost total discretion in putting handicap allocations wherever they want.  For example, as I recall, a recent Northern California Golf Association article recommended that, within the general procedure of putting the strokes on holes with the biggest difference between a scratch player and a bogie player, avoiding the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 9th  holes--and the 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th holes--as much as possible to reduce the impact of handicap strokes on a match.

About 20 years ago, we used the individual hole scoring averages from a State Am. Seemed like a pretty good indicator which holes gave scratch players the most trouble. Turned out the only changes we made were to flip the 2 hardest 4-pars on each side.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

As far as I know, the hole handicaps are still supposed to be assigned relative to gaps in difficulty for an 18 vs a scratch golfer.

It's not really that way anymore.

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/roh/Content/rules/Appendix%20E%20Stroke%20Index%20Allocation.htm

It is recommended that a stroke index allocation be applied over 18-holes, split into six triads with each hole ranked on its playing difficulty relative to par. The difficulty of each hole can be determined objectively using hole-by-hole data provided from the Course Rating procedure as follows:

Basically, figure out the "relative to par" difficulty of each hole for the scratch and bogey golfers, break them into triads, and follow some basic guidelines from there.


The USGA and R&A found out that, outside of doing something dumb like putting the holes 1-18 or 18-1 in order, matches come out just about how they would any other way, regardless of where the strokes come. In other words, so long as the strokes aren't all front-loaded or back-loaded, matches work out even if you somewhat randomly assign strokes.

The above system is easier to apply as golf courses don't have to send in 400 scorecards and nobody has to manually enter them. And it's "good enough" that matches almost all work out how they would.

So now, relative to par, they almost are more about "difficulty" than what they used to be: where the higher handicap player was more likely to need strokes. Though that will still tend to hold, as bogey golfers stink at par fives, and those relative to par figures will tend to be high.


(Those are also all recommendations. Courses can do whatever they want with stroke allocation.)

[Wayne_Kozun]

This past year my club here in Canada made us enter hole by hole scores - I think that’s on recommendation of the RCGA. So the club should now have great data as we had more rounds than ever in 2020 and they should be able to analyze what holes are hardest for different types of players.

[Tom_Doak]

It is recommended that a stroke index allocation be applied over 18-holes, split into six triads with each hole ranked on its playing difficulty relative to par.

(Those are also all recommendations. Courses can do whatever they want with stroke allocation.)

What does "six triads" mean?  Is a triad holes 1-2-3, so the hardest of those holes in relation to par gets a stroke index somewhere from 1-6, the next hardest somewhere from 7-12, and the easiest from 13-18?


That's actually a pretty good way to look at it, but I have never read it before, and don't know that I've seen many scorecards that follow the guideline.


I was going to try it for Pacific Dunes, but I couldn't decide which of the first three holes was the easiest and which was the hardest, so I will leave it to the experts   

[Sean_A]

I think it should be reversed. The easiest holes relative to par should be the focus for low indexes.

Ciao

[JohnVDB]

The World Handicapping System has a new method of allocating strokes. It can be read at https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/roh/Default.html#rules/Appendix%20E%20Stroke%20Index%20Allocation.htm%3FTocPath%3DV.%2520Appendices%7C_____5

[Erik J. Barzeski]

What does "six triads" mean?  Is a triad holes 1-2-3, so the hardest of those holes in relation to par gets a stroke index somewhere from 1-6, the next hardest somewhere from 7-12, and the easiest from 13-18?

You can read more at the link I and then John provided, but basically… You break the course into three hole chunks. Holes 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and the same for the back. Then handicap holes 1 and 2 they’d like you to assign to the highest hole per course rating to par in the second triad on each nine (the middle three holes), and then work your way out from there by the guidelines/recommendations in that article.


But again, unless you drastically clump low stroke index holes early or late, it really doesn’t matter all that much.

[Peter Flory]

Even Darwin would make the distinction between a course he loved and one that he considered to be great.  And usually the ones that he considered to be great were so because of the immense difficulty (Pine Valley, Lido, etc)- as long as they were difficult and fair.  It would be sort of like- "the greatest course is X, of course it is much too difficult for me and I wouldn't want to play it every day..."  With him and many other great thinkers and critics of the time, the challenges that the courses presented were paramount.   

So I don't think that Ron's reasoning strays much from classical thought on the subject.  It's just that there has been a modern backlash to that thinking in these circles.

Tom's comment is surely true as well- that what a scratch type player finds stimulating might be a nightmare for others, and that the GD panel is heavily weighted toward low hdcp players.  And I would argue that there really isn't a single course on the planet that is so hard that it isn't fun for certain scratch players.  Even non scratch players sleep in the parking lot to play Bethpage Black. 

Think of it like skiing.  Expert skiers like to find slopes that challenge them, even though nobody is keeping score out there.  They want to test themselves, improve, and get some exercise in the process.  It's not because they are necessarily masochists.  The tough part about golf is that we have to combine the same run for those desiring triple black diamonds as those desiring blue squares... or even those learning to ski.  Some courses just decide that is impossible and they go with a harder run. 

[Kyle Harris]

The first handicap hole should be the first hole where the bogey golfer needs two (2) strokes from the scratch.

[JohnVDB]

The first handicap hole should be the first hole where the bogey golfer needs two (2) strokes from the scratch.

It can also be looked at as the hole where any player most needs a stroke from the player whose handicap is one lower than his.