Handicap Question

[Motown88]

I play at a 9 hole course very often but the scorecard is laid out as if it is an 18 hole course.  The 9th hole (on what the scorecard considers the front nine) has a handicap of 18, however on the back nine (9th hole again) it has a handicap rating of 13.  Why would it not be 17?  All the front nine holes are even handicaps, and the back nine are odd numbers.  Maybe I'm looking to far into this but shouldn't the same hole play the same difficulty?

[BuckeyeNut]

Very interesting......

I have no idea!   My only thought is when it was rated......that maybe a different set of tees were intended for play the 2nd time around?

[WWBDD]

Originally Posted by Motown88

All the front nine holes are even handicaps, and the back nine are odd numbers.

Should be the other way around.

[Motown88]

Originally Posted by WWBDD

Should be the other way around.

Should it?  I've never paid enough attention on 9 hole courses, and to be honest this is the only 9 hole course I play.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeNut

Very interesting......

I have no idea!   My only thought is when it was rated......that maybe a different set of tees were intended for play the 2nd time around?

That was my first thought, but the yardage for each hole is the exact same and thus why I stated it's the exact same hole.  I understand that over the course of hundred of thousands of rounds from a scratch golfer the holes may have varying average scores.  I believe this to be the reasoning that they have differing handicap ratings.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by Motown88

Should it?  I've never paid enough attention on 9 hole courses, and to be honest this is the only 9 hole course I play.

That was my first thought, but the yardage for each hole is the exact same and thus why I stated it's the exact same hole.  I understand that over the course of hundred of thousands of rounds from a scratch golfer the holes may have varying average scores.  I believe this to be the reasoning that they have differing handicap ratings.

The purpose of the handicap numbers on the holes is not to indicate the difficulty of the hole* but to apportion handicap strokes when playing a match.  Think about what would happen if the holes were given handicap numbers 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18 for both (identical) nines.  Someone playing to a 3 is playing a scratch golfer.  He should get three strokes.  What holes does he get them on?  On the front none he gets a stroke on the #2 handicap hole and on the back none he gets a stroke on the #2 hole.  And thereby gets cheated out of one of the three strokes he is entitled to.  If you play 18 holes, even if it is the same 9 twice, you need to have handicap numbers of 1-18.  Hence the workaround the 9-hole course uses.  Does that help with the reasoning?

* while we generally think of the handicap ratings as measures of difficulty, I believe that under the USGA guidelines they should ranked in order based on the difference in relative difficulty a scratch golfer would experience compared to a bogey golfer (which terms have specific meanings in the USGA HAndicap Manual) .  This frequently translates into absolute difficulty but doesn;t have to.

The following link explains how the USGA recommends that handicap strokes be allocated:

http://www.usga.org/HandicapFAQ/handicap_answer.asp?FAQidx=25

And yes, according to the USGA the front nine should be the odd numbers and the back nine should be the even numbers.  And the low number handicap holes should be allocated towards the middle of the nine, not the beginning or end.

[zeg]

Originally Posted by turtleback

The purpose of the handicap numbers on the holes is not to indicate the difficulty of the hole* but to apportion handicap strokes when playing a match.  Think about what would happen if the holes were given handicap numbers 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18 for both (identical) nines.  Someone playing to a 3 is playing a scratch golfer.  He should get three strokes.  What holes does he get them on?  On the front none he gets a stroke on the #2 handicap hole and on the back none he gets a stroke on the #2 hole.  And thereby gets cheated out of one of the three strokes he is entitled to.  If you play 18 holes, even if it is the same 9 twice, you need to have handicap numbers of 1-18.  Hence the workaround the 9-hole course uses.  Does that help with the reasoning?

I don't think the OP's issue is with the holes not having identical handicap numbers, since that's obviously problematic, but that the same hole is not in the same relative position in the two 9s. The "obvious" way to fix it would be as the OP suggested, where the 17th and 18th handicap holes would be the same. (i.e., 1st is also 2nd, 3rd is also 4th, etc.)

The strange thing is that the same hole is 13th and 18th. That means they've scrambled the ordering between the front and back 9s.

Originally Posted by turtleback

And yes, according to the USGA the front nine should be the odd numbers and the back nine should be the even numbers.  And the low number handicap holes should be allocated towards the middle of the nine, not the beginning or end

I think your last sentence here is probably the reason: putting the 9th hole as the 17th handicap hole is not consistent with the suggested ordering of the handicap numbers. While I don't completely agree with the rationale for the ordering, that is what they want, so holes near the middle of the 18 would be expected to have lower numbers.