Stroke Indexes

[James Boon]

I know Stroke Indexes (in the UK anyway) arent strictly speaking a measure of how difficult a hole is, but generally I would expect to find some of the hardest holes as SI 1, 2 or 3 and some of the easiest as SI 16, 17 or 18. Two recent examples and discussions have made me wonder:


The 17th at my club Notts (Hollinwell) is a 500 yard par 5 and is SI 18. When Duncan Cheslett recently played he was somewhat surprised by this as though its not a tough hole, it does essentially mean a 17 handicap golfer has to string together 5 good shots for his par without a stroke (personally I do find it one of the easiest as generally I cant get up in 2, so am not forcing my second bringing trouble into play, but can usually get close enough that a pitch and putt birdie is not uncommon)


Alternatively, I recently played Little Aston where the 4th is a 320 yard par 4 and SI 1. The green falls away from the player, so its not easy to get your wedge close, but it was very far from the hardest hole on the course!


Any other "extreme or strange" examples?


And to bring this to a GCA question, do you architects:
a, consider SI when designing what you know will be a hard or easy hole?
b, have any say in the SI for a new club that doesnt have the scoring data yet?


Cheers,


James

[Michael Whitaker]

James - the stroke index is suppose to indicate at which holes an average golfer most needs to receive a shot from the better golfer to keep things even. That's why you sometimes have holes that are difficult, but not highly ranked on the stroke index. For example, really difficult par fours (usually extra long) are often not high on the stroke ranking because they tend to be a difficult par for the better player, yet a comfortable bogie for the average player. As a result, over time, they tend to have the same score on the hole. Thus, the average player doesn't "need" a shot on this hole to stay even with the better player.

[Jon Wiggett]

Michael,


not quite right. SI is a mix of two things. Primarily, it is to ensure an even spread of shots through the round but does allow leeway for the second criteria which is to recognise the degree of difficulty of a hole for a higher handicapper. This why there is a variation in their exact positioning. In general par 3s should not be amongst the top 6 and par 5 not in the last 4 nor should the hardest 4 holes be the penultimate or last hole. Having said that these are just guidelines and there are exceptions.


James,


stunned that 17 is SI 18 as I would have thought it would be between 10 and 14.


Jon
Jon

[Thomas Dai]

See - http://www.englandgolf.org/page.aspx?sitesectionid=337 - for further details.
It's always seemed somewhat odd to me that SI is designed to ensure some level of equalness in matchplay yet amateurs are playing more and more stableford competitions where there is less of a relationship to an appropriate SI per hole.
Atb

[Sean_A]

When I last played Alwoodley with the treasurer of the club he said the SIs were based on matchplay...which of course makes 100% sense.  Which begs the question, is this the norm in the US? 

I often that that it is ass backward to use difficulty as an important element in SIs.  It seesm to me that the easiest holes for low cappers (say 0-5 cappers) should be the ones pegged for low SIs.  The reason being that the toughest holes are likely bogey holes for 0-5 cappers anyway...just as they are for the 15 capper.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

I understand some courses have two SI's. One for matchplay, one for stableford.
Atb

[Scott Warren]

Australia has a standardised match play index used across the board to evenly distribute shots across the round. Someone getting four shots will get them at 4, 8, 12, 16.


We then have an index used for stableford and par events that is, in most cases, based on competition results.


It can mean quite unbalanced indexes -- one club I play at sometimes in nine hole comps I only get two shots when the front nine is used for the comp, even though I am off eight.


NSWGC is not uncommon in having the even-rated holes on the front and the odd-numbered on the back to ensure a balanced distribution of shots on each nine, if not throughout the round -- for example my eight shots at NSWGC come at 2, 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16.

[Dave McCollum]

In the USA, as far as I am aware, the club determines the ratings--at least we did when printing our scorecards without any info from the USGA (state affiliate raters).  It seemed like a somewhat arbitrary process, although I got together with my pros and hashed out a consensus we all felt was the most fair and correct.  In reality, in my own games, we modify this when we come to a hole that can play from 135 to 215 yards over water to tricky green.  We ignore the tees of the day and make all play from longer tees where the stroke is justified.

[Tom_Doak]

At the course I played in China yesterday, Tiger Beach, six of the nine lowest-index holes are on the back nine, and if I'm giving you six shots, you get three of them on #15, 16 and 17 !  [If I don't close you out before that.]


Those are probably a fair indication of the relative difficulty to par of all those holes if you were playing a Stableford, but I'm guessing they've never heard of Stableford scoring in China.

[SL_Solow]

Dave;  The USGA has guidelines available on its website and elsewhere.  Aside from recommending that odd number handicap holes be placed on the front side and even on the back, it suggests that clubs collect 200 scorecards from 2 different groups of players (based on handicaps) as a means of determining where strokes are needed.  There are also suggestions about placement of strokes near the beginning and end of a round, presumably as a means of helping the competitiveness of matches.  I am surprised that your pro did not consult the guidelines.

[Duncan Cheslett]

While it is clear that Stroke Indices have their origin in and are still distributed according to the needs of matchplay competition, their relevance and influence these days is far more on Stableford play.


In the UK at least Stableford scoring, whether individual or 4BBB, is the predominant format at most clubs for both official competitions and for more casual play. In a social fourball at our club we will generally record the Stableford points scored by the better ball on each hole rather than use the traditional matchplay practice of calculating the number of shots each player has on the low man.


The requirements of the Stroke Indices for Stableford scoring are quite different to those for matchplay.  In Stableford, one would expect the index of a hole to have a direct correlation with its difficulty. In matchplay the criteria are different, as outlined above.


The Australian system described by Scott of universal indices for matchplay competitions, coupled with Stroke Indices for Stableford play based primarily upon difficulty as determined by past results seems to me inherently sensible.

[Duncan Cheslett]

[Carl Johnson]

For those who may be interested, here's a link to Sec. 17 of the USGA Handicap Manual, which recommends how stroke holes should be allocated.  It never hurts to actually go to the "rule book" and take a look first hand.
http://www.usga.org/Handicapping/handicap-manual.html#!rule-14403
At my home course a hole that comes in first or second in difficulty, in relation to par, is a par three, No. 3, that our committee has assigned as the 15th stroke hole.  It's pretty hard for everyone, but for low hc'rs relatively more so than for higher hc'rs.  At the other end of the spectrum, our easiest hole (relation to par) is also a par 3, and it's the 18th stroke hole -- as one might expect looking at difficulty alone.

[Michael Whitaker]

Michael,


not quite right. SI is a mix of two things. Primarily, it is to ensure an even spread of shots through the round but does allow leeway for the second criteria which is to recognise the degree of difficulty of a hole for a higher handicapper. This why there is a variation in their exact positioning. In general par 3s should not be amongst the top 6 and par 5 not in the last 4 nor should the hardest 4 holes be the penultimate or last hole. Having said that these are just guidelines and there are exceptions.


James,


stunned that 17 is SI 18 as I would have thought it would be between 10 and 14.


Jon
Jon

Jon - I was speaking strictly from a US point of view. In the US holes are ranked by the DIFFERENCE in the stroke average between the better players and the high handicap players. The ranking of these "differentials" determines the stroke index of each hole, with odds assigned to the front nine (for example) and the evens to the back (or vice versa). There are tweaks to this procedure at some clubs... for example, some clubs don't want the 18th hole to be a shot hole for matches that reach that far, so they will arbitrarily shift the ranking to make 18 the 18th ranked hole. In the U.K,, Royal North Devon has done this even though it is probably the most difficult hole on the course.

[MKrohn]

In Australia, a lot of time and effort is expended on discussing and changing stroke indexes. Certainly at my club with everything on the computer it's relatively simple to work out the most difficult holes and allocate an index in that fashion.


Unfortunately with an average playing handicap in the mid 20s, the holes that are difficult for a punter that hits in 150 metres are significantly different for the single figure playing base.


When I started playing golf in the early 80s, we had split ratings. The longest hole at my course was rated 7/19, two shots if you are off 19 and above and nothing if you are 6 or below. Seemed like a sensible and workable system but here I am some 35 years later and was sitting at a table last weekend having the same discussion.

[Scott Warren]

MKrohn,


My old club, Bonnie Doon, manages that issue quite cleverly and I wonder why all clubs wouldn't follow suit:


Holes rated 1-12 are determined by analysing A-Grade players' scores only, seeing as everyone in B & C-Grade gets a shot on those holes regardless.


Holes 13-18 are done by B-Grade scores as no one in A gets any of them and every C-Grader gets all of them.


Then 19-27 are determined using C-Grade scores as they're the only golfers who use ratings above 18.


It has produced hole ratings that make quite a lot of sense and are not really debated.

[Richard Fisher]

Thomas/Sean

Porthcawl, for one, has quite different stroke indices for matchplay, and for strokeplay. Interestingly the biggest divergence between the two comes at the 16th (430 yards, with a tough semi-blind uphill second shot), which is Stroke 17 for Matchplay, but Stroke 1 for Strokeplay. Conversely the biggest difference the other way round comes at the 17th (504 yards gently uphill par five) which is SI 6 for matchplay but SI 17 for stroke.

[Thomas Dai]

Nice one Royal Porthcawl. Very sensible. The Welsh leading the way...as usual some might say!?


Most UK folks official handicaps are medal/stableford based so basing one SI on attempted matchplay equality has always seemed somewhat odd to me. Even more so these days given that 9-hole comps and 9-hole supplementary scores are possible. Plus isn't there now some malarkey about 'turning in' scores in casual games including casual 4bbb?


atb

[Duncan Cheslett]

Nice one Royal Porthcawl. Very sensible.

Most UK folks official handicaps are medal/stableford based so basing one SI on attempted matchplay equality has always seemed somewhat odd to me.

Absolutely.


Matchplay is largely irrelevant to the majority of UK golfers. Apart from the annual club knockouts most golfers will never encounter matchplay unless they take part in inter-club matches.


Stableford scoring however, is universal and ubiquitous. For the distribution of shots in Stableford (or Bogey) competitions to be dictated by the specific requirements of a format seldom played is a little ridiculous.


For the record, my favourite format of golf by far is Matchplay.

[Sean_A]

Nice one Royal Porthcawl. Very sensible.

Most UK folks official handicaps are medal/stableford based so basing one SI on attempted matchplay equality has always seemed somewhat odd to me.

Absolutely.


Matchplay is largely irrelevant to the majority of UK golfers. Apart from the annual club knockouts most golfers will never encounter matchplay unless they take part in inter-club matches.


Stableford scoring however, is universal and ubiquitous. For the distribution of shots in Stableford (or Bogey) competitions to be dictated by the specific requirements of a format seldom played is a little ridiculous.


For the record, my favourite format of golf by far is Matchplay.

Duncan


I play far more matchplay than Stableford.  Stableford is simply a means to retain a handicap.  Perhaps you are too easily discounting the very popular 4ball betterball format for friendly games.  I think both types of indexing is important. 


Ciao

[Niall C]

Maybe this is another example of differences between Scotland/North of England and elsewhere. I’ve been a member at 4 traditional members clubs in Scotland and the north of England and I can’t recall different SI for strokeplay and matchplay events. Also contrary to what Duncan says there are generally at least as many matchplay events than stableford events and usually quite a few more. And again that’s not counting bounce matches which I bet accounts for the majority of rounds for most members.


Niall

edit - Sean responded in similar vein while I was typing

[Carl Nichols]

Thomas/Sean

Porthcawl, for one, has quite different stroke indices for matchplay, and for strokeplay. Interestingly the biggest divergence between the two comes at the 16th (430 yards, with a tough semi-blind uphill second shot), which is Stroke 17 for Matchplay, but Stroke 1 for Strokeplay. Conversely the biggest difference the other way round comes at the 17th (504 yards gently uphill par five) which is SI 6 for matchplay but SI 17 for stroke.

Are you using strokeplay to mean stableford play, rather than medal play?  Other than for playoffs, I can't see how it would matter for medal play on which holes strokes are placed. 

[Duncan Cheslett]

Ok, so even if the split between matchplay and Stableford is 50/50, there is still no logical reason why the Stroke Index requirements of matchplay should be imposed on Stableford scoring.


CONGU's recent decision that clubs may set separate SIs for Stableford and matchplay is entirely sensible and will eliminate many perceived anomalies if implemented by clubs.


It will take some time to happen though, as new scorecards will be needed. I would imagine that most clubs only  have cards printed every 2 or 3 years.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Duncan


I play far more matchplay than Stableford.  Stableford is simply a means to retain a handicap.  Perhaps you are too easily discounting the very popular 4ball betterball format for friendly games.  I think both types of indexing is important. 


Ciao

One of us is an atypical golfer then! 


I generally play in a qualifying competition every Saturday and/or Wednesday, of which around half are Stableford - the others being medal. On Sundays the Pro organises a running comp - again Stableford.


Every other day of the week there is an informal roll-up at midday. Generally between 6 and 12 guys put a couple of quid in and winner takes all. Scoring is Stableford.  4 balls usually split into 2s for a side bet but we score on Stableford points rather than matchplay, as playing two formats simultaneously is disastrous!


In addition I play on a couple of tours and with societies. Stableford scoring, whether individual, 4BBB, or 4 man team is always the case.


Matchplay is the format for our club knockouts and for inter-club matches.


If I was having a social round with one other person ( or three others) we would play matchplay. With two others however, we would almost certainly use Stableford.


Perhaps this is atypical! 

[Jon Wiggett]

I think in stableford not only is it not so important where the strokes come I would suggest that for higher handicappers it might not be desirable to have the low stroke index holes as the hardest holes. Why would I want an extra stroke on a hole where I will regularly score a quadruple bogey and end up with 0 points. Better to have those extra shots on a hole I know I will score on anyway and thus pick up the benefit. I still think the MAIN reason for SI is to evenly distribute the strokes throughout the round to help alleviate the good and bad patches most of us go through in the course of 18 holes.


Jon