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It is the handicap system that makes golf the great competitive game it is. Any golfer with handicap strokes can play an even match with Tiger Woods. While golf handicaps are easily understood, less so is the golf course rating with which handicaps are intricately entwined. A 12-handicap earned by a golfer on a difficult course will have an advantage over a 12-handicap golfer from an easier course. Hence the golf course rating must be factored into a handicap.
Although the game of golf dates back to the 1500s it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that a reliable golf course rating system was developed. The Ladies Golf Union (LGU) in Great Britain, spearheaded by Miss Issette Pearson, culminated a decade of work in 1900 with a system of handicapping that could be confidently carried from club to club.
In the United States, the United States Golf Association (USGA) introduced its version of the golf course rating in 1911, basing its evaluation on the expected score on a course by the reigning national amateur champion. Over the decades the particulars of calculating a golf course rating have been refined, but the basic philosophy still holds. According to the USGA, a golf course rating is 'the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for scratch golfers under normal course and weather conditions. It is expressed as strokes taken to one decimal place, and is based on yardage and other obstacles to the extent that they affect the scoring ability of a scratch golfer.'
An individual course does not determine its own course rating. That is done by more than 100 district, state and regional golf associations in accordance with procedures standardized by the USGA. When a golf course rating is required, a rating team is assigned to evaluate a yardage rating based on overall course yardage and effective playing length of a course given the amount of roll received on a tee shot, elevation changes, the number of doglegs that force lay-up shots and the prevailing wind.
The rating team also scores the obstacle on a golf course on a scale of 0 to 10, given the hindrance encountered by both a scratch player and a bogey player. Some of these obstacles include the topography of a course and the difficulty of stances required, the effective width of a fairway landing area off the tee, the size, shape and slope of the greens given the expected length of the approach shot, the difficulty involved in recovering from a shot in the rough. Also evaluated are bunkers, water hazards, trees and out-of-bounds and their effect on normal play. A final ingredient factored into the course rating stew is the mental effect on the player created by the existence of such obstacles.
The course rating is the scratch yardage rating modified by the obstacle factors represented numerically. The USGA also calculates a Slope Rating from the course ratings based on the performance of a bogey golfer, defined as a male player who has a handicap between 17.5 and 22.4, can hit tee shots an average of 200 yards and can reach a 370-yard hole in two shots or a female player with a handicap between 21.5 and 26.4, can hit a tee shot 150 yards and reach a 280-yard hole in two shots. The slope of a course is then the difference between that bogey golfer's rating and the course rating. The average for that span is 21 strokes, a number then multiplied by 5.381 to get an average course rating of 113. Course around America range in slope from a low of 55 to a high of 155.
Many calculations and a lot of consideration goes into golf course ratings which serve to make golf matches as fair as possible for golfers traveling from course to course.
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