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Scorecard yardage lol.

E

Elbow Jobertski

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Location
Shanktown, W.Va.
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I always knew that one of the two courses I grew up on had an inflated scorecard. I never much cared. However, I finally got bored and decided it was time to figure out how much:

Highland Springs (WV) vs. Google Earth (Sol System). For the title:

(I'm giving Highland credit for the physical tips, not where they usually put the tees. There are only four holes that are doglegs, and I was generous in measuring those. You could I guess call a few others doglegs but you'd be lying if you did)

Scorecard - Reality

395 - 367
359 - 328
389 - 369
405 - 388
162 - 153
517 - 515
424 - 404
166 - 115 (lol... I mean, really. It is straight uphill, like 2 clubs uphill, so not as obviously absurd were it flat)
468 - 450
3285 - 3089

503 - 473
362 - 331
418 - 367
535 - 480
241 - 222
343 - 320
447 - 430 (the last time I saw it all the way back to 430 was 1989.... realistically it plays 410 at most)
151 - 127
568 - 550
3568 - 3300

6835 - 6389 (I mean, missed by 450 yards? An average of 25 yards per hole?)

Was this a marketing ploy? Was whoever made that card on enough LSD to lose touch with spacial reality?

All I know is this course was rock hard growing up so I thought it was normal when I was 16 to go 1i/sw into a 400 yard par 4. .
 
Are the tee boxes long?
Were there old tee boxes at one point?
 
Some of the tees are long, but I'm giving them credit for the very back of the tees.

I remember the cards in the 80s being the original, and they had rough maps on them consistent with the layout. The cards have been reprinted but not the numbers.

The course design is such that having longer tees on most of these holes would be physically impossible because the tees would be in another fairway or off the property. You could build new tees on 5 and 14 that would get you to the card yardage if you really wanted to. The version of the grint on my laptop tries really hard to make the holes longer by making holes appear to dogleg in ways that would take you into rough/into the original trees and tees that couldn't realistically exist.


In fact, 15 and 16 have longer back tees than when I started. They did a little tinkering and moved some earth to push them back at the same time they put up the hole signs. They put in some new white tees, but the tips are at least as long as they were in 1983 when I first played it.

I suspect the real story is a bottle of bourbon, a survey wheel, and a guy with compensation issues.

The course than got a reputation for being really long and nobody cared enough to question it, or maybe just liked the idea that if you measured your drive by looking at the distance to the hole minus the yardage on the card... who doesn't want to hit the ball further?
 
Gotta get their members handicaps down some way or another.

I've notice the same trend on a lot of courses around here though none to as ubiquitous as this. On the flip side there's one hole around here that's listed as 410 on the scorecard that's actually more like 470.
 
If I get bored I may look at another area course I suspect is a load of crap. Eh. Sleep is for the weak.

Mountaineer Woodview vs. Reality

320 / 295
330 / 330
480 / 445
360 / 321
355 / 355
178 / 170
415 / 385
140 / 140
345 / 335
2923 / 2776

500 / 480
390 / 375
395 / 360 (old tees... tees since late 90s are 290)
375 / 350
160 / 160
320 / 305
365 / 385 (Plot twist!)
170 / 175 (Again?)
470 / 430 (ah... there it is)

3133 / 3022

6066 / 5796

So only 270 off. Not that bad I guess.

Mostly this is reasonable fudging but with the matter of trying to keep a straight face calling 7 and 18 par 5s. They had to turn #6 and #17 into par 3s, and they I guess were just fixated on par being 72.

#7 is absurd even at the official length, which to be fair was accurate until they realized they didn't own the land behind the hole. In 1988. So they've had time to correct this.

#18 used to be a par 4. With the same tees. At about 220 off the tee it goes straight downhill. This hole is driver/wedge for even a moderate hitter.
 
The whole "wildly overstate the distance of a hole to call it a par 5" practice is pretty widespread here. The course I'm playing tomorrow does it I think because par being less than 70 just looks weak. It has one that is 375 and one that is 400.

On the card they are 415 and 490.

Stop me before I... screw it.

Fairway River Links vs. The Space Time Continuum

(total overstatement)

1) Fair
2) +30 (30)
3) +10 (40)
4) +40 (80)
5) fair (80)
6) +20 (100)
7) +25 (125)
8) +10 (135)
9) fair (135)
10) +30 (165)
11) fair (165)
12) +20 (185)
13) fair (185)
14) +90 (275)
15) +45 (320)
16) +80 (400)
17) +50 (450)
18) +10 (460)

So, the same stretch as the first course. The punchline being that this course claims 5810 yds.

Really, 5350. Good grief. The place has a 67.20/113 course rating and it's inflated.
 
Lord help me but I love stupid courses. Give me a floodplain indifferently mowed course with random yardages on the card over Augusta National every day and twice on Sunday.

Especially when it is flat and $10 to walk.
 
Yikes these are quite extreme. Usually all I see are a few holes (usually par 5s) that are 20-30 yards shorter than listed on the card.
 
You got me curious, so I did one of our local courses from the white tees.

Scorecard vs. Actual (Measured w/Google Earth Pro)

400 / 391
158 / 160
136 / 135
469 / 452
123 / 123
318 / 330
485 / 473
437 / 384
386 / 366
2912 / 2814

399 / 379
134 / 135
309 / 308
260 / 257
141 / 140
363 / 364
529 / 497
92 / 93
434 / 421
2661 / 2594

5573 / 5408 (65.6 / 111)

Actual is 165 yards shorter than claimed on the scorecard - not too bad.
 
From the course I'm playing tommorow

Scorecard / Actual

380 / 373
492 / 492
131 / 128
331 / 318
400 / 404
190 / 186
476 / 469
152 / 160
363 / 363
501 / 494
332 / 331
412 / 422
476 / 472
159 / 131*
377 / 373
381 / 360
133 / 160*
414 / 396

*Seems likely that the scorecard or myself have these holes mixed up

All in all, pretty accurate. Hole 16 I have as being 21 yards shorter than the scorecard which is the biggest discrepancy. I have the course at 6036, where as they have it at 6100.
 
Perhaps when the course was built, or maybe the last time the score card was updated, those yardages on the score card were correct?

I always figured at best, those score card yardages were just a reference. Tee boxes tend to get moved around a lot.

What I see in front of me is the correct yardage.

Edit.
I just googled with "Earth" a few holes on our local course. I measured from the back edge of the tee box (tips) to the center of the green. All of them were 10-12 yards longer on the score card, than what "Earth" showed.
 
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i know my local 9 says their 1st hole is 300 but i could easily see it wasn't...lasered the pin at 267.
 
I often find discrepancies with scorecards. Some not so bad and others pretty bad. That is when range finders are nice :cool:
 
A little necro action, but it occurred to me that I also have a course where the scorecard yardage is way shorter than reality.

It is a short course, but still.

Brooke Hills Park / reality (overage)

1) 180 /180 (good start)
2) 120 / 160 (-40)
3) 200 / 225 (-65)
4) 185 / 195 (-75)
5) 120 / 115 (-70) (Another tee is at 135 but they started using it on a now defunct foot golf course and never went back to it)
6) 120 / 120 (-70)
7) 125 / 125 (-70)
8) 200 / 225 (-95)
9) 100 / 150 (-145)

10) 210 / 220 (-155)
11) 90 / 105 (-170)
12) 100 / 125 (-195) (they have a tee that plays this at 165 but it's a forced carry to a terrifying green so they've not been using it)
13) 110 / 105 (-190)
14) 80/ 105 (-215) (Has a 225 yard tee but we don't use it because it is a blind shot to a preposterous green that is hard to hold with a wedge and the shot is dangerous given the layout of the park)
15) 90 / 175 (-300) (This isn't even a new tee. A typo never corrected over 40 years and six card reprints.
16) 105 / 140 (-335) There is a tee that puts this at 170. I think they just forgot it was there, really.
17) 100/100 (-335)
18) 150 / 120 (-305) (has a tee at 300 yards but it is an even dumber and more dangerous hole than 14 so people use the short tee)



total 2385 / 2690- A par 3 that is 305 yards longer than the card.



Well that and these greens are often very firm, tiny, crowned a bit, and very fast. I almost never play it at normal business hours because some of these fools are taking 4 hours+ because the greenskeeper is a maniac who will put pins near edges of false fronts, etc. It makes missing greens terrifying even if the ball doesn't roll off a hill 40 yards into the weeds. The old guy claimed he had them stimping at 14 and then they fired him and the new guys aren't quite as sadistic. Probably more in the 11 range when at their fastest.


I know guys that play to a 18 handicap who struggle to break 100.

Catch it really earlier either before the mower or at least with a good bit of moisture and it isn't so bad. Late on a windy day it is a menace.
 
Just dropping in to note that after repeatedly teasing the owner of the first course in this thread they now have an accurate scorecard.
 
I have a friend who routinely determines her driver yardage by what the scorecard says-distance left to flag. I have warned her...repeatedly...that she will have a wildly inflated sense of how far she hits it.

On a completely unrelated note, when there is a carry she needs, she almost never succeeds and is shocked when she either comes up short of the hazard entirely or splashes into it. I point out that her method of calculating yardages directly caused it. And the next time out...she goes right back to doing it.

The shock in this thread to me is not that the scorecards are wrong...it is that anyone would think they are correct.

part of that is they measure from...the courses round here usually have a round marker where the set of tees is typically from...to the center of the green. But the tees are seldom if ever at the marker...they get moved up and back, flags get moved (which doesn't move center of green, but someone using flag for the second part gets that part off as well). Holes can vary by 50 yards in length easily day to day from tee to flag...even if the amount of ground comprising the back of the longest tees to the deepest part of the green is immovable.
 
darthweasel said:
I have a friend who routinely determines her driver yardage by what the scorecard says-distance left to flag. I have warned her...repeatedly...that she will have a wildly inflated sense of how far she hits it.

On a completely unrelated note, when there is a carry she needs, she almost never succeeds and is shocked when she either comes up short of the hazard entirely or splashes into it. I point out that her method of calculating yardages directly caused it. And the next time out...she goes right back to doing it.

The shock in this thread to me is not that the scorecards are wrong...it is that anyone would think they are correct.

part of that is they measure from...the courses round here usually have a round marker where the set of tees is typically from...to the center of the green. But the tees are seldom if ever at the marker...they get moved up and back, flags get moved (which doesn't move center of green, but someone using flag for the second part gets that part off as well). Holes can vary by 50 yards in length easily day to day from tee to flag...even if the amount of ground comprising the back of the longest tees to the deepest part of the green is immovable.
Click to expand...

The bigger issue with this is even when the scorecard is correct it can be extremely misleading. Cut the corner on a dogleg and all of a sudden you've driven the ball 50 yards further (supposedly).
 
Since I started using Arccos, i'm noticing most courses are a bit shorter than their stated yardages. Though I played one the other week that listed just under 6400 from the tips, but played at 5800. And yes the tees were on the furthest back box the day we played.
 
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