My Course Rating Got Changed Thread

[rkim291968]

I've just noticed that my home course ratings have changed from 71.2/128 to 70.9/127.   To maintain my handicap, I have to play about a half stroke better.    The only reason for the change I can think of is that number of trees came down in recent years.   Most of the trees were strategically located to block shot paths in some shape or form.   Some trees came down naturally after rainstorm, and others were cut down.  Otherwise, the course has not changed.    Do you have similar stories to tell about your home course? 

[DeadMan]

Happened to my course this year. It went from 71.6/135 to 71.8/137. Didn't really impact my handicap that much. It is actually a little strange it went up, because the course has been doing things like cutting down trees and covering up bunkers.

The real problem that we had with the re-rate is that all the tee boxes had slowly moved up a bit from where they were supposed to be. Supposedly*, our course was told by the re-raters that it needs to be more faithful to the yardages the course was rated at. This led to our white tee boxes being moved back 30-50 yards on a couple of holes and making a lot of senior players in our men's club mad. Not only did they have to play a longer course, but all of their handicaps went up.

*I say supposedly because I'm not sure why the course just didn't have them re-rate with where they usually set up the tee boxes. But management at this course is ... strange at times.

Edited December 19, 2018 by DeadMan

[bkuehn1952]

I believe courses are supposed to be re-rated at least every 10 years, sooner if significant changes are made.  Almost all the courses in SE Michigan were re-rated within the past two years.  My general sense is that most of the courses/tees have incrementally been increased by a point or two in Rating with the slope remaining the same and/or slightly up.The difference is so slight that I doubt it has had much impact on me or my index.

8 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

... making a lot of senior players in our men's club mad...

Yes, don't make us mad!!

Edited December 19, 2018 by bkuehn1952

[HJJ003]

Yeah at both of the courses I call "home" they have been re-rated recently. One of which is an executive course and it went from 65 to 63 CR (par 65). It actually sucked because the course is incredibly tight (like seriously people are shocked when they see some of the holes), and even though the course is short it plays really tough. Lots of water and OB. That didn't help my handicap I am sure. 

However, on the flip side my other "home" course went up about a stroke and half! My scores haven't changed so it ended up helping my index. All in all it was a wash pretty much between my two regular courses. 

[iacas]

~90% of a course's rating is the length of the course. The other ~10% is the proximity and density/size of various hazards, the width of fairways, the stimp and contours of the greens, etc.

Courses have to be re-rated every 10 years, and we often do them every 5-8 here in my golf association. I've been on the course rating team for my area for 14 years, and captain for four.

[klineka]

15 minutes ago, iacas said:

~90% of a course's rating is the length of the course. The other ~10% is the proximity and density/size of various hazards, the width of fairways, the stimp and contours of the greens, etc.

Courses have to be re-rated every 10 years, and we often do them every 5-8 here in my golf association. I've been on the course rating team for my area for 14 years, and captain for four.

Curious to hear your opinion on this, do you think that the roughly 90/10 split is fair/accurate?

There are multiple courses around me I can think of that are all ~6300 yds from the tees I play that are significantly different in fairway widths, hazards, OB, chances for lost balls, etc yet if 90% of the rating is based on distance then they'll all likely be very similar in rating when in reality some will play much harder than others

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, klineka said:

There are multiple courses around me I can think of that are all ~6300 yds from the tees I play that are significantly different in fairway widths, hazards, OB, chances for lost balls, etc yet if 90% of the rating is based on distance then they'll all likely be very similar in rating when in reality some will play much harder than others

Yes, it's fair/accurate.

Remember, slope matters more and more the farther you get from scratch, AND it's not like the formulas haven't been examined, tweaked, etc. multiple times over the past few decades.

I don't think the courses play "much" harder if their ratings and slopes are about the same. Maybe for one individual type of golfer, but not overall. Not "much" harder. Maybe a little bit.

[NM Golf]

The director of golf at my course was livid, he had just ordered like 500,000 scorecards and they showed up and changed the course rating and slope a couple years ago. 😜

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

The director of golf at my course was livid, he had just ordered like 500,000 scorecards and they showed up and changed the course rating and slope a couple years ago. 😜

Well, that's his dumb fault. It's one of the reasons they recommend not putting the rating/slope on the scorecard.

[p1n9183]

My course it´s 20 years old but it was rated just one´s at the beginning.
6500 yards, 71,2 from the tips, for me it´s easier than that. I play in harder courses with similar index and yardage.

 

[phillyk]

They re-rated my course last year. The  things I can think of that changed were the length of the rough we keep the course at and taking out 2 bunkers. Our tips dropped from a 74.9 to a 73.9 or something. I don’t remember the exact drop but it was nearly a full stroke. Seems excessive.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, phillyk said:

They re-rated my course last year. The  things I can think of that changed were the length of the rough we keep the course at and taking out 2 bunkers. Our tips dropped from a 74.9 to a 73.9 or something. I don’t remember the exact drop but it was nearly a full stroke. Seems excessive.

Some associations vastly over-rated trees using the old formulas.

74.9 is pretty high. I imagine 73.9 is likely much more accurate.

[gbogey]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

~90% of a course's rating is the length of the course. The other ~10% is the proximity and density/size of various hazards, the width of fairways, the stimp and contours of the greens, etc.

I'm confused - I thought that length was the main driver of a course's rating but that the slope portion typically varies due to other factors.  Is that correct?

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, gbogey said:

I'm confused - I thought that length was the main driver of a course's rating but that the slope portion typically varies due to other factors.  Is that correct?

Distance is a huge chunk of both.

It's not like you see many 73.5/115 courses out there.

[gbogey]

So if I’ve been playing two courses with almost the same rating of equal lengths and one is 114 slope and the other is 135 slope, is that a rating error? Curious as I think my home course is under rated (and maybe the other is over rated). 

 

[mdl]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

~90% of a course's rating is the length of the course. The other ~10% is the proximity and density/size of various hazards, the width of fairways, the stimp and contours of the greens, etc.

Courses have to be re-rated every 10 years, and we often do them every 5-8 here in my golf association. I've been on the course rating team for my area for 14 years, and captain for four.

So say we have a par 72 course with 6,000 yard and 6,600 yard tees.  6k tees start off with a rating of something like 63, and 6.7k tees with something 65, and then all the other stuff adds points up to the final ratings? 

90/10 seems maybe extreme? I know for sure that I've played different courses of the same length where my average score is more than 3-4 shots different, but that seems to be about the range of rating difference available when 90% of the rating is distance.

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, gbogey said:

So if I’ve been playing two courses with almost the same rating of equal lengths and one is 114 slope and the other is 135 slope, is that a rating error? Curious as I think my home course is under rated (and maybe the other is over rated). 

I can't really tell you based on that.

It's rare for that to be the case, but not impossible. Maybe they should be closer to one another, or maybe one course just happens to have a bunch of forced layups, or hazards that can't easily be carried by the bogey golfer, etc.

3 minutes ago, mdl said:

So say we have a par 72 course with 6,000 yard and 6,600 yard tees.  6k tees start off with a rating of something like 63, and 6.7k tees with something 65, and then all the other stuff adds points up to the final ratings? 

I am not entirely sure what you're asking there.

3 minutes ago, mdl said:

90/10 seems maybe extreme? I know for sure that I've played different courses of the same length where my average score is more than 3-4 shots different, but that seems to be about the range of rating difference available when 90% of the rating is distance.

That's for your particular game.

(83-72.5) / (135/113) = 8.8
(83-72.5) / (114/113) = 10.4

There's nearly a two-shot difference right there.

~90% of the rating is the distance, and the length is a big, big part of the slope as well.

[gbogey]

So sorry for another question but I'm fascinated by the rating system - how does course setup play into the ratings?  I use to play a course in NJ that had a very high rating - the course commonly kept US Open deep rough - but without the rough it shouldn't have been a difficult course as all.  On the other hand, my home course had a more difficult than average rating but there was a par 5 where 90% of the time the tee was moved 60 yards forward from the scorecard position.  In some regards moving the tees forward didn't help that much as it brought OB into play but with the tee forward the green was reachable in 2 without driver and otherwise it was hard to reach in 2 with driver.  And of course I always wonder about green speeds - can a course jack them up to get rated and slow them down later?