What Slope rating do you typically play from?

[powerfade]

I'm curious as to what slope rating you typically play from which is an indication of the tees. I know that the higher the slope doesn't necessarily mean a tougher course, but as handicaps go higher, this is actually true.

List the slope and your Current Index.

My answer is based on my home course from the tees I mostly play.

Slope: 129
CI: 8.7

When I want to stretch my legs, I'll play from Slopes of 131 & 133 at nearby courses.

[Shindig]

My 'home' course is 117, and most courses I play are in that range. There is another course I love with a slope rating of 127 from the white tees. And at the few resort/high-end daily fee courses I've played, the slopes tend to be around 125 from the white tees.

[lamebums]

I'm curious as to what slope rating you

I don't care, really. I'll play from whatever length runs about 6500 yards. The courses I play at most often are 137 and 138 (two of the three courses at my place). The third is 113, and I'll be playing it more often now because it's the only one that stays open during the winter.

Cap: ~12-15 The other courses around here - the more "traditional" ones at 5500 yards with a slope ~120 are much tighter, so I end up scoring higher on them anyway.

[Fourputt]

Home course is 120 (6500 yards) from the whites and 127 (6950 yards) from the blues... since I play from both I checked "varies too much".

[allin]

Maybe I don't understand properly but I thought that slope was an indicator of course difficulty, probably a better one that just length. Doesn't slope consider a number of factors? For example higher elevation courses, hilly courses, etc yardage may not be a very good indicator of difficulty. Anyway I usuallly play courses around 120 - 125. When they get over 130 and very tight I am usually ok but if it goes over 6500 or has several par 4s in the over 430 or uphill over 420 I struggle. My second favorite local course has an 18 hole, 420 steeply uphill usually into the wind, this is from the white tees. It only plays 440 from the back, I have a young cousin who is a teaching pro in another state, 118-120 swing speed and he had to hit 1w. 5iron this summer, he said he hadn't had to do that on a 440 yard hole from the fairway since his sophmore year in high school. He carries his 5iron 195.

[powerfade]

Technically, the course rating is what reflects course difficulty. The factors you mentioned (and many more) go into the course rating which is used to obtain the slope.

The higher the slope and your Index, the more strokes you'll receive towards your course handicap which is ultimately used to figure your net score (and the pop count).

Anyway here's an explanation of slope from the SCGA website...

1. What is Slope?

Most golfers believe that the higher the slope number, the more difficult the golf course. This may or may not be true depending on the level of golfer you are. The Slope number for a golf course actually tells you how difficult the golf course is for a bogey player (17.5 - 22.4 handicap index for a male golfer) compared to a scratch player. The higher the slope number, the harder the course is for the bogey golfer relative to the difficulty of the course for the scratch golfer. Slope numbers can range anywhere between 55 and 155 with the average slope in the United States being 120.

The slope number is used to convert your Handicap Index into a Course Handicap. This allows the player to receive enough strokes from a particular set of tees, to play at an equal level of a scratch golfer from the same set of tees.

The Slope number is derived from the following mathematical formula:
(Bogey Rating - Course Rating) x 5.381 = Slope

When your course is rated, a scratch rating and bogey rating are both determined from each set of tees. (The scratch rating is the same as the course rating). From both the bogey rating and the scratch rating, we can then use the formula above to achieve our slope number.

Why do we need all of these numbers? The system was developed to allow a player to take his handicap index to almost any course in the world and be able to compete on an equal level with other golfers.



You'll see a player with a higher Index get more strokes on tees with a higher slope rating vs a player with a lower Index.

Here are two examples:

Slope 136
Player "A" - 8.7 Index - 10 Course Handicap (given 2 strokes over index)
Player "B" - 24.4 Index - 29 Course Handicap (given 5 strokes over index, and 19 strokes head to head)

Slope 123
Player "A" - 8.7 Index - 9 Course Handicap (given 1 stroke over index)
Player "B" - 24.4 Index - 27 Course Handicap (given 3 strokes over index, and 18 strokes head to head )

I think I'm understanding how slope doesn't have as much to do with figuring out the difficulty of a tee box. The course rating does that. It has more to do with allocating handicap strokes since it affects your course handicap.

The Slope is also used to figure your Index although they say the course rating has more impact than slope. It stands to reason that doing well on higher rated/higher slope courses will lower your Index.

I guess the next question would be, is one player "better" than the other...
The one who establishes a 5.0 Index on lower rated and lower sloped courses or the one who established the same 5.0 Index on higher rated and higher sloped courses? Are they playing at the same level?

[Leek]

Believe it or not, even though I play a course with a reasonably high slope, I think I am less likely to "play" to my handicap on a lower sloped course. Most of my scoring comes from short game, and for the most part slope rating seems to place a premium on ball striking (full swing). My dropped shots will either be from missed putts or poor short game shots.

On the other hand, I have played a few times on slopes in the 150 range, and the length of those courses did effect my score.

[flap]

My rule of thumb is yardage rather than slope.If I have to hit a wood to most of the par 4's then Iam at the wrong Tee box.Usually my limit is 6600 yards.

[iacas]

I'm a 2.x or 3.x index golfer, so the course rating matters a lot more to me than the slope. Technically, two courses rated 72.5 will play about the same for a scratch golfer regardless of what the slope is for each. The further you get away from scratch, the more the slope affects you.

So yeah, a combination of yardage and course rating is what I typically use. Tobacco Road is 6500 yards but a course rating of 75 from the back tees. So I played it. 75/7000 and I wouldn't have... but 72/7000 and I might have.

[artfulgolfer]

course: 73.0/137 (6810 yds)
index: 3-5

Those are the back tees. I often move up one to get to the 6400-6500 yard range (slope lowers to 135). I looked over my rounds from all courses played this year - average slope played is 133.

[ezmoney5150]

Grey Hawk plays to 132 from the blue tees and 137 from the tips. I generally play the blues. With the wind and water seems like it should be the tips.

[SirMilton]

I have found over the years that Slope ratings are almost meaningless in terms of judging difficulty. Length is one of the least good indicators of difficulty.

Course condition is a major factor. On lots of courses I have played 3 out of 4 balls in the fairway have very difficult lies and the rough is almost a guaranteed unplayable lie or lost ball. Hilly public courses are the worse; you might not get a level lie on closely cut grass in a whole round (including the greens). The rough on my home course would make the U.S. Open rough look like a cake walk.

Trees, tightness and bunker difficulty (ever played Chickasaw Country Club in Memphis?) can make a short course hell. At Chickasaw the course is kept in tournament condition, but there are huge oak treesthickly lining the narrow fairways that sometime leave you less than 50 feet of open sky down the middle; and then it also has the 8-12 foot deep pot bunkers with vertical walls that usually require a shot away from the green to get out. Carry a 1 iron and a 60 degree plus wedge.

I play on bermuda greens in my area and they aren't cut much better than the fairways the pros play from; and they are never consistent. Thick heavy greens are really hard to get the speed right and they also reduce the break tremendously. A putt of exactly the same force on level ground might go twice as far on the next green.

For me the courses that should be rated the easiest are the flat, wide open courses, with few trees, few sand traps and little water. These courses often have fairways that parallel each other with almost no out-of-bounds. And usually because they are so wide open and realitively flat, the grass grows consistently well and can be mowed low and consistent so you almost always have a pretty good lie. Finally, big greens make any course easier.

The absolute worst courses are the ones where the designers tried to get cute, expecially with par 3s. I remember one that had a thick stand of full grown pine trees (50-60+ feet high) directly between the tee and green on a 120 yard par 3; so thick you could see neither the green nor the stick from the tee. The trees started about 10 yards from the tee and extended 90-100 yards thick in a circle. You could go straight up and over, give up a birdie chance and go around either side or try the impossible and go through the trees. Two holes later on the same course was a 230 yard par 3 with a blind tee shot and the green was set recessed in deep woods like an island. And this was a public course!

[klaymon]

My home course is a 113 and my handicap is 36.4. Keep in mind I've only been at this sport since September, though.

[Ben]

134 and above for me.

My recommendations for when you feel like getting kicked in the nuts by a golf course:

PGA West Stadium Course: 140/74.60
Coto de Caza North Course : 140/73.60
Wood Ranch CC: 146/75.20
Angeles National: 140/74.4
La Purisima: 143/75.6