Slope

[Forest]

Excuse me if I'm daft, but could someone be kind enough as to explain the idea of the slope of a course?

[zeg]

It's been discussed here before, not long ago IIRC, so a search might be worthwhile.

Basically, a course has rating and a slope. The rating, aka scratch rating, is the score a scratch golfer ought to score if he plays to his handicap. The slope is a measure of how much harder the course will be for someone with a non-zero handicap. On a course with a slope of 113, you would be expected to shoot one stroke higher for each point in your handicap index. If it's greater than 113, you'll take more strokes than that, if it's less fewer.

So the short answer (TOO LATE) is that slope characterizes how much extra you're punished for not being able to hit the shots a scratch golfer is expected to hit.

[Forest]

Ahhh, thanks, that's much better. But what if the slope is 126, then how many strokes above your HCP are you supposed to shoot?

[zeg]

  Forest said:

Ahhh, thanks, that's much better. But what if the slope is 126, then how many strokes above your HCP are you supposed to shoot?

Well, the differential formula for a given score is

Differential = (Score - Rating) * 113 / Slope. Your handicap index is then 0.96 times the average of your best 10 of the last 20 differentials. If you play to your handicap then, this means that your net differential is zero, i.e., your handicap index = (Score-Rating)*113/Slope. Flipping that around, this means Net Scratch Score = Rating + Handicap Index * Slope / 113 = Rating + Course Handicap So for your 126-sloped course, you should aim for the course rating + 1.12 times your handicap index. You're only expected to play to this about one in four rounds, though, so you're not normally "supposed" to shoot this score, but I presume that's what you mean.

[Golfwolf]

Here is a site with lots of info about handicapping, course rating, slope etc.