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USGA Course Rating Definitions - Need Refinement?

JB said:
Hey Canadan...Just remember these words #OutingApproved
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THP events are a big reason why I want to see this improved. To balance and allow for better 'traveling' handicaps, assuming the individual is not used to the yardages they are seeing and it's a handicapped event.

Why people wouldn't want a system like this improved to better the chances of players measuring up to one another regardless of tees continues to baffle me, but that's fine. I'm enjoying this thread immensely.
 
Canadan said:
THP events are a big reason why I want to see this improved. To balance and allow for better 'traveling' handicaps, assuming the individual is not used to the yardages they are seeing and it's a handicapped event.

Why people wouldn't want a system like this improved to better the chances of players measuring up to one another regardless of tees continues to baffle me, but that's fine. I'm enjoying this thread immensely.
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People fear change
Its fact
Look at ANYTHING that changes
#OutingApproved
 
Canadan said:
That's just not true. While it's an advantage at 6,000 yards, it's nowhere near the same advantage as it is from 6,600. You handicap reflects that as you move closer. Theirs does not reflect the change properly as they move beyond their distance threshold.

Find a course that plays at 7,500 yards, play it five times, and tell me you're anywhere close to your handicap. I'm genuinely curious to know if you can do it, as that's what you're asking of these shorter hitters.
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If I can find a 7,500 yard course near me, I will give that a try sometime. I think the only course in Nebraska that even comes close to sniffing 7,500 is an extremely private course in Mullen, NE which I have no shot of getting on at.
 
Canadan said:
you agreed with me again. Handicaps fail when a player tries to play a set of tees that is 'out of their league'

Whether you think it's an issue or not is a totally different story. I'm fine with that. I want the system improved, you think players should be locked into the tees their distances allow. I've got no issue with that.
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The difference between us is that I don't see any need for a "fix".
 
Fourputt said:
But the difference between us is that I don't see any need for a "fix".
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Because you don't depart from your tees or play in tournaments that would force you to. Call it preference, call it stubborn, call it peanut butter... It still doesn't mean the system works as it should.
 
Mulligan9111 said:
If I can find a 7,500 yard course near me, I will give that a try sometime. I think the only course in Nebraska that even comes close to sniffing 7,500 is an extremely private course in Mullen, NE which I have no shot of getting on at.
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I played a public course in Anaconda, Montana where the tips are just over 7700 yards. Of course the tees I played were 6144. :clapp:
 
Canadan said:
Because you don't depart from your tees or play in tournaments that would force you to. Call it preference, call it stubborn, call it peanut butter... It still doesn't mean the system works as it should.
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It doesn't work as YOU think it should. It does work as it was designed to work. That is a difference.
 
Canadan said:
THP events are a big reason why I want to see this improved. To balance and allow for better 'traveling' handicaps, assuming the individual is not used to the yardages they are seeing and it's a handicapped event.

Why people wouldn't want a system like this improved to better the chances of players measuring up to one another regardless of tees continues to baffle me, but that's fine. I'm enjoying this thread immensely.
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I think that traveling handicaps have more to do with familiarity of a golf course than they do the distance factor of their handicap.
 
Mulligan9111 said:
If I can find a 7,500 yard course near me, I will give that a try sometime. I think the only course in Nebraska that even comes close to sniffing 7,500 is an extremely private course in Mullen, NE which I have no shot of getting on at.
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Let's use your imagination, with simple numbers at your fingertips.

Here's Northstar in Columbus OH. As a 3 handicap, you get 3 strokes from the green tees (6,598) and oh weird... 3 strokes again from the black tees (7,516 yards)! Where you establish your handicap is irrelevant. This is what I am talking about with regards to a 'traveling' handicap.

Go ahead and run through the scorecard and tell me that makes sense for your game, and whether you could stack up against a similar 3 handicap who carries the ball 320.


Mulligan9111 said:
I think that traveling handicaps have more to do with familiarity of a golf course than they do the distance factor of their handicap.
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With this example, you still think this?
 
Canadan said:
THP events are a big reason why I want to see this improved. To balance and allow for better 'traveling' handicaps, assuming the individual is not used to the yardages they are seeing and it's a handicapped event.

Why people wouldn't want a system like this improved to better the chances of players measuring up to one another regardless of tees continues to baffle me, but that's fine. I'm enjoying this thread immensely.
Click to expand...

I've wondered why some THP events that aren't in a competitive format didn't use multiple tees, but that's probably another discussion.

I think the belief that driving distance needs to be implemented to the handicap system has been drilled into every participant in this thread. What I haven't seen is a way to implement that without adding complexity to the handicap system or cost to the game, which are 2 things that the game does not need at all.

FWIW, the USGA tee-it-forward guidelines are based on driving distance. Since the large majority of amateur golfers wildly overestimate their driving distance, it's likely that even if they follow the tee-it-forward guildlines, they are still playing tees that are too long for them. So are all those people not really establishing a "real" handicap because they are playing tees that don't allow them to show their true skills since the distance is too long?

One other thing: there have been threads on here in the past about handicaps traveling. My memory may be fuzzy, but I remember people suggesting that people should play different types of courses and work on their games so that their handicap will travel more, instead of relying on a handicap that was created by playing the same course over and over. But now we have a suggestion that the system is what's wrong and it should be fixed. It seems like a handout to me, but maybe I should go to the jerk store with Mulligan9111.
 
I personally haven't found THP events to be played from longer tees than I am used to. I maybe, maybe average 250 off the tee on a good day but have not been overwhelmed by any course distances at a THP event. I think JB and crew do a good job picking tee boxes that are fair. Of course, I do not speak for our seniors and other that may be used to playing up. They may disagree completely.


I know this isn't the main topic of the thread so I don't want to derail it but I think new courses and new faces affect my scores at THP events more than anything else. And yeah, pressure to perform as well.
 
Canadan said:
Let's use your imagination, with simple numbers at your fingertips.

Here's Northstar in Columbus OH. As a 3 handicap, you get 3 strokes from the green tees (6,598) and oh weird... 3 strokes again from the black tees (7,516 yards)! Where you establish your handicap is irrelevant. This is what I am talking about with regards to a 'traveling' handicap.

Go ahead and run through the scorecard and tell me that makes sense for your game, and whether you could stack up against a similar 3 handicap who carries the ball 320.




With this example, you still think this?
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Yes, but the one thing you aren't looking at is that it would be expected that I shoot a 79 at 7,516 with a 3 handicap versus a 75 at the 6,598 yardage. So it's essentially telling me that I'm going to shoot 4 strokes higher at 7,516 than 6,598, which may or may not be the case. It's not all about getting back to even par, it's about getting back to what a "scratch" golfer would shoot. And at 7,516 a scratch golfer would be expected to shoot a 76, or 4 over par at that golf course.

And yes I still think the same way.
 
sparksjr said:
I personally haven't found THP events to be played from longer tees than I am used to. I maybe, maybe average 250 off the tee on a good day but have not been overwhelmed by any course distances at a THP event. I think JB and crew do a good job picking tee boxes that are fair. Of course, I do not speak for our seniors and other that may be used to playing up. They may disagree completely.


I know this isn't the main topic of the thread so I don't want to derail it but I think new courses and new faces affect my scores at THP events more than anything else. And yeah, pressure to perform as well.
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In most cases I think they accommodate 250 quite well, but revisit if you carry the ball let's say 200 yards? Would it then?
 
Canadan said:
Here's Northstar in Columbus OH. As a 3 handicap, you get 3 strokes from the green tees (6,598) and oh weird... 3 strokes again from the black tees (7,516 yards)! Where you establish your handicap is irrelevant.
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7 strokes over par, not 3. You keep leaving out the course rating from the tee boxes. Par means nothing. Whether playing the course itself, another person, or a tournament field, the USGA expectation is that Mulligan9111 will shoot on average 75 from the greens and 79 from the blacks. Unless I'm completely not understanding something, in which case please enlighten me. I really want to understand this.

Edit: Along those lines, it really annoys me that scorecards list "par" for every tee box and it's typically 72. It would be so much nicer to see the course rating from those tees right there on the scorecard, so if you shot a 79 from the blacks in this example, you'd think "hey, I shot my handicap" instead of thinking "damn, what a bad round going 7 over".
 
arydolphin said:
I've wondered why some THP events that aren't in a competitive format didn't use multiple tees, but that's probably another discussion.

I think the belief that driving distance needs to be implemented to the handicap system has been drilled into every participant in this thread. What I haven't seen is a way to implement that without adding complexity to the handicap system or cost to the game, which are 2 things that the game does not need at all.

FWIW, the USGA tee-it-forward guidelines are based on driving distance. Since the large majority of amateur golfers wildly overestimate their driving distance, it's likely that even if they follow the tee-it-forward guildlines, they are still playing tees that are too long for them. So are all those people not really establishing a "real" handicap because they are playing tees that don't allow them to show their true skills since the distance is too long?

One other thing: there have been threads on here in the past about handicaps traveling. My memory may be fuzzy, but I remember people suggesting that people should play different types of courses and work on their games so that their handicap will travel more, instead of relying on a handicap that was created by playing the same course over and over. But now we have a suggestion that the system is what's wrong and it should be fixed. It seems like a handout to me, but maybe I should go to the jerk store with Mulligan9111.
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I fall in that category of a travel player, having played 33 courses last season, I feel like my handicap travels fine. It's no guarantee I'd do well in any course but I have a reasonable expectation based on the slope rating and tee distance.
 
sparksjr said:
I personally haven't found THP events to be played from longer tees than I am used to. I maybe, maybe average 250 off the tee on a good day but have not been overwhelmed by any course distances at a THP event. I think JB and crew do a good job picking tee boxes that are fair. Of course, I do not speak for our seniors and other that may be used to playing up. They may disagree completely.


I know this isn't the main topic of the thread so I don't want to derail it but I think new courses and new faces affect my scores at THP events more than anything else. And yeah, pressure to perform as well.
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We've played and no tee at a THP event will be too far for us, but I've played enough with the short guys and trust me it messes with them when they are hitting woods into greens par3's or can't get to a par 4 into without hitting a 3wd into it.

The gang here does a bang up job at setting up courses and tees by mixing them up.
 
Mulligan9111 said:
I think that traveling handicaps have more to do with familiarity of a golf course than they do the distance factor of their handicap.
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It's a big factor, especially for the average player. The better the player, the less that factors in because he hits the ball where he intends to more often.

Length is a bigger factor than I was when I first started carrying a handicap. Back then, the driving difference between an average length amateur and a big hitter was usually no more than 30 yards. Now it can be 70 or 80 yards.

Example: I am playing someone who has the same handicap as mine, only he outdrives me by 70 yards on average. If we both play from his tees, I will need not just a couple of strokes from him, but I will need a stroke on almost every hole where we play driver, because there will be many holes where I'm playing a hybrid or 3W when he's playing a short iron. There will be par 4 holes that I can't even reach in 2.

If we switch that up and play from my tees, I will still need strokes, but not as many as the other way around, because him having a wedge for his second won't be quite as telling when I'm now playing a mid to short iron from my comfort zone.

To try and figure out just how much the two scenarios are different and how much to modify handicaps depending on how much distance change is involved and in what direction, and then apply that to the formula in the system would be mostly just guesswork. It would be no more accurate than the current system, but it would be far more complex to administer. It just isn't practical.
 
arydolphin said:
I've wondered why some THP events that aren't in a competitive format didn't use multiple tees, but that's probably another discussion.
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Uhhh. Not only have we done it, its been done at multiple THP Events.
 
JB said:
Uhhh. Not only have we done it, its been done at multiple THP Events.
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Apparently enough that we were warned about it for the Legacy. :D

(please don't make us play 7500 yards!)
 
golfinFF said:
What happens when the short hitter is your girlfriend, wife, mom?

Seriously if she only drives it 200 yards do you expect her to score within 4 strokes of normal moving back 500-1,000 yds
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Bump!!!
 
JB said:
Uhhh. Not only have we done it, its been done at multiple THP Events.
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My memory isn't the greatest, but I can't remember one event that I've played in that did it. HHI Invitational would have benefited from it, but again, that's a competitive scenario so I guess it wouldn't have been allowed.
 
JB said:
Uhhh. Not only have we done it, its been done at multiple THP Events.
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Hilton Head. Blues on Par 4s, White on 3s and 5s. Being a short knocker, I would have preferred the other way around, but you can't always get what you want.
 
arydolphin said:
My memory isn't the greatest, but I can't remember one event that I've played in that did it. HHI Invitational would have benefited from it, but again, that's a competitive scenario so I guess it wouldn't have been allowed.
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Lots of events each year...
And it was done at Hilton Head Invitational.
 
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