Your New WHS Index

This sounds like the slope is incorrect

The course ratings were where I expected to see a big problem with WHS and from what I've seen there are a fair few outliers. I was a member in Bakerbhoy's club for about 15 years and it's not an easy course. It's probably the most difficult of the 10 or so in the county. But when WHS was coming in I looked at the slope ratings of loads of the courses I've played and it was up there with the most difficult of them. And it's certainly not one of the most difficult I've played.

I've said it before, if you want to correct the course ratings you should take performance on the courses into consideration. If two courses are rated identically, but the average score for 1,000 18 handicappers and 1000 scratch golfers are significantly different on one course, then the ratings don't reflect how difficult each course actually is. Rating them based on length, hazard placement, green size & speed, fairway width and whatever else they rate courses on should be the starting point for ratings. Then they should be tweaked based on how people actually perform on them.

I've learned some things about the rating system over the last couple of years. First (surprisingly) the course and slope ratings are based on data collected by course rating teams from as far back as ten years ago. Secondly, this data was then handed over to the USGA to produce the ratings that we have used since WHS came into force.

So, many courses have been rated on very old data which may have been collated in a way that doesn't properly mesh with the systems used by the USGA.

Thirdly, ratings are being carried out every year since WHS came into force, but would have been curtailed during the COVID years. The aim is to rate courses every ten years, so every course should expect to be rated again under WHS within the next one to seven or eight years. Our course is due to be rated next year, but that might slip to 2025.

My advice to clubs is to set out any changes they want to make to their courses as soon as possible. Things like moving tee boxes or permanent markers, adding or removing bunkers or trees and other changes likely to impact rating. Something else that should also be considered is creating more women's courses by getting existing forward men's tees rated for women. It's kind of mad that pretty much every golf course has only one set of tees for women when men can have up to four. Getting red tees rated for men would also be a good idea.

Finally, do the USGA look at scoring when rating courses? I have no idea, but with the kind of data that is being produced on the portals world wide, you'd think it could be incorporated.

I didn't say to make the changes, I was advising clubs to "set out" any changes they might want to make in advance of re-rating. If some of those changes require a longer lead time, they can get a temporary rating in advance of the full rating. And yes, there's a limit to what length a women's course can be. Practically speaking, 6,000 yards would be a maximum. Women's national championship courses usually don't exceed 6,000.

But that still leaves a lot of scope with many courses having tees (other than red) being less than this. Powerscourt East green tees are less than 6000 yards for example.

46 points has been the winning score in my place in 2 of the last 3 weekend comps.

On one of the days, there were 2 46 in. Must be very upsetting to shoot 46 points and not win a comp

All playing handicaps in the mid-high 20s for those scores

Was still placing everywhere, so non counting. Will be interested to see if cuts are applied

For those more knowledgeable than me, does the below scoring scream that the course rating is fairly inaccurate?

I know I talking old money here but from:

122 entrants, 58 had 36 points or better with 81 having 33 points or better.

So approximately 1/2 with 36 or better and 3/4 with 33 or better. Seems very high.

This has been fairly typical for a while now. Surely the course rating is higher than it should be?

Yip to both Space. I suppose that accounts for a fair bit, must see how it changes once counting starts.

I don't think thats a flaw. Thats exactly how its intended to work. WHS is meant to be an assessment of your current handicap/playing ability, in 2020 you were obviously a better golfer than you are now if that was your best counting round. So while you had a decent round at the weekend you are not at the level you were in 2020 hence your handicap has gone up.

Unless i'm misunderstanding your last point, you'd only have a lower handicap because that 2020 score would still be counted right? So again thats not reflective of current form.

I didn't play as much golf last year as i did in 2021 and so one of my counting scores was still from 2021 up until a couple of weeks ago, same as yourself it was my lowest score and I went up by .5. I can't argue with my current handicap though, i've played/practiced very little since last July as we had a baby in August and am not playing that well either so its only right my handicap is starting to drift up. Up to me to try rectify that.

What's odd though? It's an average of your scores and if your average goes up your handicap goes up...

We had a single Stapleford on Saturday with placing everywhere

131 entrants, 22 (17%) had 36 points or better with 48 (37%) having 33 points or better.

Pretty good day for golf. Course is rated 134 for men off blue.

I'd imagine lots of slope ratings are inaccurate. Also, I think that some courses lend themselves to higher scores when conditions are good more than others.

But you havent actually mentioned what the par, slope and rating are

Those 36 points could be increased up depending par, slope and rating

That course rating is fairly terrible, over two shots less

Also means its tougher for people to get cut around there as the score diff will be significantly worse

Got thus image from twitter which is taken from the guy who was involved in the creation of the slope/course rating system with the USGA. Shows bit of context around the expected occurrence of good scores

Not really in this case, well not for the same reasons

The higher slope 134 would indicate that higher handicaps will find the course more difficult. This should lead to greater variation in scores (particularly in higher handicap golfers) and hence might explain the scores