[John_McMillan]

I play a bit of golf on one of the local Traverse City courses - Champion Hill.  Most of my play is from the white tees, but last week with the course very open, I went back and played the blue tees, just for variety.  The extra length changed quite a bit of the course.  The change was, in my opinion, much more than the differences between the USGA Rating and Slope numbers.  I'll give below the yardages for the holes (blue / white) -

1 - 326 / 285
2 - 347 / 320
3 - 360 / 293
4 - 419 / 403
5 - 543 / 521
6 - 207 / 196
7 - 539 / 521
8 - 205 / 195
9 - 362 / 328

10 - 423 / 386
11 - 248 / 184
12 - 386 / 329
13 - 230 / 195
14 - 367 / 329
15 - 355 / 330
16 - 415 / 371
17 - 569 / 533
18 - 583 / 541

tot - 6884 / 6250
rating - 71.9 / 69.1
slope - 121 / 118

The par 3's became MUCH tougher - all of them playing over 200 yards, with the 11'th playing an uphill all carry (over bunkers) usually into the wind 248 yards.  With a Pro V1, I can get a good drive to the green.  

Among the par 4's, the 3rd and 12th become much more difficult - with drives and mid irons replacing 3 woods and wedges.  The course is located about 10 miles from Crystal Downs - and shares the "native rough" style of Crystal Downs, with fairly long rough causing some lost balls on missed fairways.  The difference for me between playing a 3-wood off tees and a driver on this course is a big scoring difference.

The par 5's remain about the same.  The 5th hole plays downhill/downwind and with a sharp dogleg is usually reachable.  My usual play from the white tees is a drive / 7-iron, while I played drive / 5-iron from the blue tees (it's nice to play a par-5 like Tiger Woods every now and then).  The other par 5's play as 3-shot holes, with the biggest difference between the blue and white tees being how long a club is used for the lay-up shot.  

The only water hole is the 18th, with a wedge 3rd shot to the green having to carry a pond, and no OB on the course.  Additional hole comments and photos are available on the course's web-site - www.championhill.com

For those that have done course ratings - do these ratings seem within a reasonable range?  What are the rules of thumb for how much additional yardage increases Rating and Slope #'s?

[JohnV]

John,

First, there are a lot of variables that we don't know so all the following is speculation.  Second, do you have the yardage correct for #2 as you have the blues shorter than the whites?

Given a yardage of 6884, we can come up with the following.

The bogey rating is 94.3 given that Course Rating and Slope.
If the Obstacle Value was 0 and the rating was based strictly on yardage, the Course Rating would be 72.1, the Bogey Rating 93.7 and the slope 116.  There is one major error in doing thing this way as we don't know what the Effective Playing Length is.  If the course has a lot of downhill holes and the ball rolls more than normal and we are at an altitude above 2000 feet, the effective playing length could definitely be less than the measured length.  But, given that the EPL is 6884, the Scratch Obstacle Value would be -.2 and the Bogey Obstacle Value would be +.6.  While it is unusual to see a negative SOV, it is not unprecedented and since you say there is no OB and little water, it is possible.

At 6250 yards, the bogey rating is 91.0.  If we again assume EPL equals the measured length, we get a Scratch Rating of 69.0, a bogey Rating of 89.6 and a slope of 111 based strictly on yardage.  In this case, we have Scratch Obstacle Value of +.1 and a Bogey Obstacle Value of 1.4 in order to get the numbers we see in your post.  It is somewhat unlikely that the Obstacle Values would be that much higher based on a shorter yardage, but if there were a number of doglegs that the players were forced to layup on at the shorter distances, it would increase the Effective Playing Length and make things closer.

Given your comments on the holes, I can see areas where these things come into play.  For example, on #18, a bogey golfer would have a shot of 43 yards to the green for his fourth shot from the back while he would have a shot of 171 yards from the whites which would be a transition and they might lay him up.  You don't say how far the water is in front of the green so I can't say what the reality is.  Also, even though there is no OB, the long fescue rough could be classified as extreme rough which is weighted similarly.  All in all, unless a lot of yards are taken off for holes like the 5th, I think the Obstacle Values are a little low, but not unprecedented.  I can see how there might be more Obstacle Values for the shorter tees based on the length of shots into greens and the positioning of fairway bunkers etc.

[Jim_Kennedy]

John,
The course rating number sounds right, especially if the second hole yardages were reversed. Should they be?

[John_McMillan]

John V -

Thanks for the reply - that was more or less what I was looking for.  The yardages for hole 2 are reversed - it does play longer from the blue tees than from the whites.  The EPL is probably pretty close to the actual yardages - maybe 50 to 100 yards less.  There is a large ridge which runs through the middle of the property, and the 5th hole plays down from this ridge, but getting back up on the ridge is more often a cart ride than a golf shot.  There are some up-hill holes like the par-3 11'th, but the course is on balance a little more downhill than uphill.  The course is in Michigan, so it can't get that much above (or below) sea level.  

What does strike me as odd is that your calculations for obstacle values yield a higher value for the shorter tees (1.4 from the whites, .6 from the blues).  There are not a lot of doglegs, and there are a couple of back tees which bring hazards into play on the tee shot - #3 requires you to carry a valley and a bunker from the back tees while from the front tees it's a pretty easy bunt 3-wood down the fairway.

One thing that struck me while playing the back tees was that the added yardage didn't make all the holes a little bit tougher, but made just a couple of the holes a lot tougher - #3 and #11 being the biggest examples.  My guess is that the course plays maybe 4 or 5 shots harder for me from the blues than from the whites, which wasn't matching with the 2.8 difference in rating and nearly identical slopes.  A big difference, though, is that the white tees are usually further up on the par 3's than the listed yardages.  #6 usually plays about 160 yards, #8 usually plays about 150, and #12 usually plays around 150.  

I wonder how common the last practice is around courses - to rate them high then move the tees up to play easier.  It probably  helps turn the cash registers, but really screws up the handicaps across courses.

[JohnV]

Moving the tees up that much on the par 3's would definitely make a large difference in how the course plays.

Unfortunately a lot of courses really push the yardages back when they tell the raters where the tees will usually be played from and then move them up for pace of play.  This really screws players since they play a course that is easier than the rating.  It might make them feel like they are playing better, but all it really is doing is lowering their handicap.

The yardages you show on the par 3s really makes the white tees rate a lot higher than the blues for their obstacle ratings for the bogey golfer.  With the yardages just under 200 yards from the whites, the bogey golfer can just reach the green while from the blues, the are chipping onto most greens.  Obviously, it is much easier to hit a green with a chip shot than with a wood.  This effectively neutralizes the difference in yardage and is one reason obstacle rating went up from blue to white.

By the way, you left out the 14th hole in your yardages above.

[John_McMillan]

Added the 14th hole and corrected the 2nd hole yardages.

The course is fairly new, and has had a couple different maintenance approaches in the last 2 years.  The photos on the course's web-site are now dated.  Below is their photo of the 248 yard par-3 11th hole.



Last year, they kept the grass around the bunkers fairly high - maybe a foot or so - which made front pin positions very difficult.  This year, the area in front of the 3 bunkers is not closely mown - the only "fairway" is the little tongue in the front right of the green.  It's really an all-or-nothing carry, with some help if you miss the green left, right or long.  With a 3 or 4 iron from the white tees, there are some options, but from the back tee, it's launch a driver and hope it gets over the bunkers.

In developing the obstacle values, what are the guidelines?  How might you adjust up or down the estimated obstacle values based on the different maintenance practices on this hole?

[Tom Doak]

John,

I remember when we rebuilt Piping Rock years ago, we added about 300 yards with back tees, and Jim Albus (who was the club pro there for 20 years) told us the first year he thought the course was FIVE SHOTS harder for him.  The course rating only went up about 1.5.

I think a lot of the difference is psychological.  You're used to a certain hole being fairly easy, and with the longer tee you start to think twice about it, and then you hit a bad shot, and then you start to think twice about every other hole.  Albus had been playing Piping for 15 years, so it probably took him a year or two to adjust to the new reality.

[A_Clay_Man]

I am curious if playing the white tees brings bunkers or hazards into play that would not be in play from the blue tees?

I often score better from the blues, because my weak fade can't reach the bunkers and then my second weak fade can't reach the greenside bunkers and if I have good day of chipping and putting, I score. From the whites, it's all in play and if i'm not my usual consistent self(ha ha) I score horribly.

[John_McMillan]

Tom,

It could be a psychological difference - I'm not the cleverest golfer out there, so I'm pretty easily fooled.

I've also played a bit of golf at High Pointe, and hopped between the tees there.  My impression there is that the scoring difference tees is pretty much the same as the rating difference.  

Do you think there are some design features which create scoring differences like those I felt at Champion Hill?  Is that good design or bad design?

[Tom Doak]

John,

My point about Champion Hills was just that after playing the white tees all the time, you were out of your comfort zone when you moved back.  If you played it a bunch of times, you'd probably find the difference isn't much more than the rating, as you said of High Pointe.

The biggest single factor of difficulty between middle and back tees is carries from the tee.  If the carries are comfortable from the middle tees so you don't worry about them, but they're slightly uncomfortable from the back, you start gripping it tighter and screwing up big-time -- and nothing will kill your score quicker than driving it repeatedly into trouble.

The first time I played the TPC at Sawgrass (1981), I posted a 78 from the white tees and 102 from the blues on consecutive tees.  That's how intimidating it was.

[Tom Doak]

Oops -- make that "consecutive days."

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