Shiny New Irons Have Arrived

I got the call I’d been waiting for this afternoon, my irons had arrived.

A quick phone call to my boss, and 15 minutes later I was standing in the pro shop of my club looking at my new clubs.

Although it was getting dark and there were heavy showers coming and going, I couldn’t resist going out for 45 minutes and hitting some balls.

I hit a few 7 irons, and then moved onto my 5 iron. I gave a spontaneous reaction when I hit my first 5 iron and felt it coming off the clubface and rising, straight as an arrow, into the February gloom. The reaction rhymed with clucking bell, I won’t go into any more detail.

I then hit 21 pitching wedges from 100 yards out, 15 of them went within 10 feet of my target. There were a couple of squiffy ones in there, however the squiffy ones all had the same cause of squiffyness, so I reckon that’s a swing mechanic I need to work on.

I feel really confident hitting these irons, a large part of that is down to the notion of having new equipment, and part is down to the equipment itself. They even look really cool sitting in my golf bag with my wedges. This is now a golfer’s golf bag, instead of just a collection of golf clubs.

I’ve put myself down for 36 holes on Sunday, I’d never normally do that in February, but I like the feeling I get when I hit these irons so I want to do it more often.

Four Seasons In One Day

This weekend has seen visits from weather from all around the year, including snow, blazing sunshine, hail, winds, and heavy rain at various points.

Due to its unpredictable nature, I decided not to play the course today, but to practice instead, giving me a quick escape route to the clubhouse should it be required.

As I’m expecting a new set of irons this week, I concentrated on hitting my 2 new wedges, and my new 3 iron. It’s difficult to tell how far I’ll hit them between April and September, as it’s currently 15 degrees Celsius (27F) colder than it will be then, but I measured my sand wedge at 79 yards, my gap wedge at 90 yards, and my 3 iron at 185 yards. Due to the saturated ground, those are about the carry distances too as the ball simply isn’t running. The 3 iron (I don’t know whether to call it a 3-iron, Fli-Hi or driving iron, it’s not a conventional 3 iron as it has a much thicker sole, but I think I’ll stick with that name for the time being) goes high and straight, which is a big change from my old 3 iron which didn’t go very high, and as a consequence I often hooked it.

The wedges have been a new lease of life for me. I now have a gap wedge for the first time, which fills a big gap (excuse the pun), as previously I didn’t have a club for shots between 70 and 110 yards. This may sound a bit straightforward, but the new wedges actually go where I’m aiming and the distance I’m trying to hit it. Maybe this is because Titleist Vokeys are some kind of super wedge, or more likely my old wedges were holding me back, due to them being 11 years old, not fitted correctly for me, with virtually no grooves left, and completely worn grips. I’ve never been in the position of having the right clubs for me in my bag, 4 months ago the entire contents of my golf bag cost £200, next week the contents will have cost £885. Money isn’t everything, but you get what you pay for, and having the right equipment will take shots off of anyone’s game.

With this in mind, and remembering that it’s been my putting letting me down over the last year, I went and chatted to the pro for 15 minutes about putting. Having done a few checks, it’s become blindingly obvious that my putter is more of a hindrance than a help. It is 36 inches long, whereas I should be fitted for a 33.5 inch putter, and the lie angle is completely wrong, meaning I often have the toe of the putter in the air when I hit the ball. The weights within the putter are not set correctly either, and although it was cutting edge when it was made, that was over 20 years ago, and time and technology has moved on considerably since then. So it looks like I could be shelling out £100 for a new putter as well. I’m not one of these people who has a bad round and decides to change their equipment, in fact I don’t get it when people go through 6 putters and 8 wedges in the course of a year. Once I get the right gear, fitted for my game, I’ll stick to it; the problem at the moment is that I have totally the wrong equipment to start with. It will be hard to say goodbye to my original Ping Zing, as it’s the only putter I’ve used for the last 14 years, but it is time to move on.

When I’ll get to use this new equipment is another story, looking at the current weather forecast it certainly won’t be within the next 5 days.................

Customer Service Kicks In

On the back of my post yesterday about the delays in receiving my new Mizuno irons, having been custom fitted over a month ago, I posted on the golfmagic forum (I'd been registered for a while without validating my account or posting) about the issues I am having.


Within 4 hours, I had an email from Mizuno wanting to look into my order to see what was causing the delay, and a post from the golfmagic editor who had spoken to Mizuno saying similar.


I hope this is a turn in fortunes, and that Mizuno can identify the problem and get me my new clubs at the earliest opportunity.


It's important for me to be balanced, so having made a negative post yesterday, it's only fair that I put it in the public domain that the response from Mizuno since then has been good, with golfmagic's help. I wasn't expecting an email directly from Mizuno, it goes to show the power of the internet. I hope that this new found service continues and they make their way back up to the top of the reputation ladder where I previously held them.

Mizuno; Get Your Act Together Please

I went to Mizuno’s National Fitting Centre on 13^th January to be custom fitted for a new set of irons.

The whole experience was very good, I learned a lot and felt it was very worthwhile, even though all of my settings came out standard, meaning there wasn’t much customisation of my clubs required compared with an off the shelf set.

The order for the irons were put in there and then. The plan was that the order would be sent to their assembly plant in Cumbernauld, who would make the set up and send it out to my club pro. I was told at the fitting that by ordering via the National Fitting Centre I could expect a turnaround of 7-10 days. I was expecting to have my new clubs by January 22^nd.

Since I left the Fitting Centre that snowy afternoon in January everything has gone pretty much wrong.

I hadn’t heard anything by January 26^th, so I arranged for my club pro to chase Mizuno up. At this point I found out that the club heads were out of stock, but new stock was due in on 8^th February and my clubs would be sent out that week. Not ideal, but these things can happen, although I would have expected them to order more clubheads when they realised they were running low on stock.

The week starting on 8^th February was met with silence, so at the end of it I asked again for Mizuno to be chased up. The outcome this time was that there was a shortage of shafts, but more shafts are due in on 26^th February, and I am ‘towards the top of the list’ so my clubs should be assembled and distributed shortly after February 26^th. One thing that has turned up is the Fli-Hi 3 iron, so I have one club, and am still awaiting another 7.

A couple of things stick out here. You would think that in an assembly plant, the number of shafts would be enough to cover the number of clubheads? Secondly, the shafts are bog standard Dynamic Gold S300 shafts, they aren’t specially crafted from the triple filtered iron ore smelted by pygmies in a rainforest somewhere. They can be picked up anywhere.

I have always thought of Mizuno as a very efficient company, and all of the stories I’ve read about other people being fitted have been very favourable, however a delay of at least 5 weeks, probably more, on top of the advertised turnaround time, with me having to do all of the chasing up, is not acceptable.

The Fitting Centre have been fine, and my club pro is merely passing on messages from Mizuno, the problem seems to lie at Mizuno itself. Do they have cashflow problems? Do they have organisational problems? Why on earth have they run out of stock of two different components within a few weeks of each other? I still think they are a great clubmaker, but their customer service and communication has been absolutely appalling.

All this means is that I’m going to have a lot less time to get comfortable with my new irons before the serious competition starts. In a vain attempt to look on the bright side, I suppose it could be worse, I could have paid up front for them and be worried about being the best part of £700 out of pocket. Small mercies.

Footnote; whilst writing this post, I went to the Mizuno website to put in a hyperlink to their fitting centres, and found that their entire European golf website is offline. I hope this is for maintenance, otherwise I will start to worry.

The Need for Competition

Having a golf handicap is one thing, but for me there needs be plenty of opportunities to adjust it to a reasonable level. Since moving to England, I have noticed a different attitude towards golf handicaps from where I grew up in Scotland.

When I play with someone in Scotland, the first question is ‘What’s your handicap?’ In England, the first question is ‘What do you do for a living?’

I was surprised, and disappointed, with the number of days in which I could play for my handicap (qualifying days) in my current club.

One thing I need to acknowledge at this point is that a lot of people play golf for different reasons, and I accept that. There are broadly 4 categories;

Status; Those who never play on qualifying days, maybe play golf rarely or only in their regular group

Social; Those who only turn out on qualifying days when it’s a social event too

Keen; Those who regularly play on qualifying days but aren’t overly bothered about their handicap

Competitive; Those who ardently play on qualifying days and want to get their handicap as low as possible

After the 2008 season I did a comparison of my new and old clubs fixture calendars. Between April and September my previous club in Scotland had 84 qualifying days, my current club had 23 qualifying days. 23 qualifying days over a 6 month period is not enough to adjust a handicap if the playing ability of someone changes.

So I put a proposal to the board of my golf club to get more qualifying days, which was approved and in 2009 there were 47 days where a card could be put in for handicap adjustment.

A key element was that there was no mandate to put a scorecard in on any of these qualifying days, for Status and Social golfers they could continue playing golf as they always had, but the Keen and Competitive golfers were catered for much better. People like myself, who fall into the Competitive category (as if you hadn’t already noticed), could turn up every week and try and get their handicap a bit lower.

There is a direct correlation between handicap and willingness to submit qualifying cards. The graph above (you can click on any of the graphs to enlarge them) shows the handicap distribution of my golf club, with the purple area of each bar showing people who submitted at least 3 qualifying cards in 2009, and the cream area of each bar showing people who submitted less than 3 qualifying cards. The lower the handicap, the higher the percentage of purple in each line.

3 qualifying cards is an important boundary, as people who submit less than 3 qualifying cards in a year will have an inactive handicap, which will bar them from many competitions. It is seen as the boundary between a purely social golfer and a golfer with an element of ‘handicap pride’.

Grouping the percentages of players playing in 3 or more, and seeing what effect the additional qualifying days in 2009 had, is shown in the graph above.

It can clearly be seen that the higher the handicap, the lower percentage of people submit at least 3 qualifying cards. However, in all 3 handicap groupings, the percentage of players submitting 3 cards increased in 2009 due to the extra qualifying days put on.

The graph above shows the number of people by the number of qualifying cards they submitted during 2009.

The highest spike on this graph is the people who did not put in a qualifying card on any of the 47 qualifying days, although it is worth noting that this figure was down on 2008. The number of people submitting 11 or more qualifying cards increased dramatically during 2009.

Taking out the group who submitted no cards, and grouping the data to make it more readable, shows that the number of people submitting 1-6 qualifying cards reduced during 2009. On face value this looks disappointing, however the reason for this is that the people who were in these categories have moved into the categories of submitting 7 or more qualifying cards.

The last 2 graphs compare the variance by player, of the number of qualifying cards submitted in 2009 compared with 2008. The graph above includes everyone who submitted at least one card over 2008 and 2009. The number of people in green (who submitted at least 3 more qualifying cards in 2009 than 2008) is considerably higher than the number of people who reduced the number of qualifying cards.

Finally, let’s not forget that the purpose of having more qualifying days was to give the Keen and Competitive groups the opportunity to submit more scorecards. So by doing the same analysis on these groups only, the variance is even more apparent on the graph above. 53% of this group submitted at least 3 more cards in 2009 than in 2008, 37% submitted around the same number, and only 10% of the 248 people in these two categories submitted at least 3 less cards in 2009.

In 2009 the Status and Social golfers continued doing what they do, the Keen and Competitive golfers submitted more qualifying cards, there was no impact on the pace of play on the course on these days, and for the first time in years the club was competitive at County level, reaching the semi-final of the County team event for the first time in years, only missing the final by virtue of a play-off.

So you would consider this a success, no? Well, evidently not everyone sees it this way, as for 2010 the number of qualifying days has been reduced back down to 37. I don’t understand this short-sighted approach, fortunately I will be able to increase this number by playing in various competitions at other courses, but for the future it’s something I’ll have to bear in mind when looking at my renewal fees.

Winter Games

The snow that blighted London in the middle of January has finally eased, and I’ve played 6 times in the last 23 days, which is 4 times more than the same period in 2009, and 2 more than my target for 2010.

A football game being unexpectedly postponed on 23^rd January meant I was able to practice for a couple of hours, and it was good to get the swing in groove again after a couple of weeks off. A 76 followed the following day, which included 11 pars in the final 12 holes, after a disappointing bogey laden start – a symptom of 2009 that I was hoping to reverse.

The following week I played a 4-ball better ball match in a new competition. It’s within my golf club, and was started for single figure players, to try and get some semblance of team spirit and camaraderie by playing against each other occasionally. I’m all for it, and I have paired up with the player who vies with me for being the lowest handicapper in the club. However in our opening group game, we both played pathetically and slumped to a 2 hole loss. We’ll just have to make sure we win our remaining 2 group games to win our group and get a place in the semi finals.

It was the first medal of the year the following Saturday, and due to a lot of water in the ground, the course was playing looooooooong. The greens were also in a bit of a mess due to being hollow tined over the previous 2 days. So I was delighted to knock it around it 74 shots, coming back in 1 under par. My net 71 was enough to win the money from the 21 of us who turned up to play at lunchtime, and it also won the Best Gross of the overall competition by a clear 6 shots. It’s very satisfying knowing that I took considerably less shots to complete the course than the other 73 people who tried on the same day. For the handicap prizes, I finished 5^th out of 74, which is pretty good considering there will always be some higher handicappers coming in with their round of the year.

Sunday 7^th was the first 1^st team match of the year, in the Daily Mail 5 man team. 935 clubs in the UK have entered a team in this competition, where 5 singles matches take place over 18 holes. I was hammered in my match without playing badly, by an 8 handicapper who was 4 over par for the 16 holes we played. He won’t be playing off 8 for much longer if he keeps that up! However, the overall match was tied 2.5 – 2.5, so I was called on to play a sudden death playoff against my original opponent (it’s decided in advance that the 5^th match will play sudden death should the game be a tie, that’s why I was chosen to tee off 5^th).

Not perturbed by my earlier beating, I went out and hit a lovely 3 iron down the fairway, followed by a 9 iron that pitched about 2 foot from the hole. My opponent missed the green having been put under pressure, and my birdie putt somehow remained above ground, despite looking destined for the centre of the hole when it was a couple of feet away. My opponent was left with a 12 putt to keep the game alive, but on hollow tined greens that was a near impossible task, and I had wrapped up a place in the last 512 teams. The adrenalin of playing in a sudden death play-off, knowing that all of your team mates are watching and relying on you, is a buzz that gets better every time it happens, and lucky for me (or maybe it’s experience now?), I’ve now won 2 out of 2 sudden death play-offs for the 1^st team.

Today was a 3 club (plus putter) competition. I’ve never played a 3 club competition before, so there was a bit of guesswork in choosing 3-wood, 7 iron and pitching wedge. Breaking 80 would have been considered an achievement, so I was delighted with a 76. Ironically, I hit 13 greens in regulation, more than any other game so far in 2010, it was my putting that was the cause of the 5 dropped shots. I finished 7^th of 45 competitors, and had the best gross score again, but today was intended as a fun game, and it was a good reminder about the need to shape shots and use my brain on the golf course. If I can go round in 76 on poor greens in winter with only 3 clubs and a putter, then surely in summer, with a full set of clubs, I should be breaking par more often than not?

On the back of those 6 games, I’m really happy with my game at the moment, and I don’t even have my new irons yet. Everything is shaping up better than I could have hoped for this time of year……..

My US Handicap

The reason I’ve spent the last 4 posts, and several thousand words, comparing handicapping systems, is that it occurred to me that I might get some readers from the US, who think “What’s the big deal about getting down to scratch?”.

I believe, having done the research on the topic now, that it is considerably more difficult to become a scratch golfer in the UK system than it is with the US system.

In order to compare my experiences of both systems, I wanted to construct my handicap using the USGA method. All courses in Scotland have been USGA rated, so I can easily convert my scores from Scotland as I have kept all of my scorecards, however almost no courses in England have been rated. So I have rated my home course myself, for which I have a database of all rounds I’ve ever played on it. The USGA people will say that this isn’t accurate as I’m not a trained course rater, however I have compared the rating of courses I have played in Scotland, with my home course, and I am very happy that the Course Rating I have ended up with is an accurate Course Rating. To get the Bogey Rating I have looked through the database of all rounds played in the last year of bogey golfers (handicap 18-22), which involves a sample size of over 1,000 rounds, and taken the average of the top half of those scores. I worked the data several different ways and a consistent Bogey Rating came out every time. All of the above gives me an accurate Course and Slope Rating for my home course.

I’ve often taken stick for keeping databases of golf related information, however without this information I wouldn’t have been able to construct my US handicap since 2007, so it’s been worth it’s weight in gold for this exercise.

The graph to the left shows my UK Handicap (blue) v my US handicap (yellow) v my Target (red), since I started playing golf seriously again in 2007.

To start with, it’s no coincidence that the last 2 weeks are the only time that my US handicap has been higher than my UK handicap. This is because I had a really good summer in 2009, and I am now losing those good scores, and am replacing them with higher scores as I am playing during the winter for the first time. This links in with their being no allowance in the US system for playing conditions, it is incredibly difficult to play to the Course Rating in a UK winter.

You may also notice that in general, my US handicap is lower than my UK handicap, this may be as I play mainly in more favourable than average conditions, although I do believe that for lower handicappers, because only the best 10 of 20 scores are being counted, it is a lot easier to reduce a handicap. In the UK system you need to be shooting sub-par rounds to be reducing your handicap by any tangible difference.

You may also notice that there is much more variance in the US handicap, the ups and downs are much sharper. I don’t think this is a bad thing at all, if anything it shows how difficult it is to adjust a UK handicap realistically when a player’s ability changes.

Last summer, under the US system, my handicap would actually have got as low as 0.9, under the UK system it didn’t get any lower than 2.5.

From now on, any handicaps that I post will contain my UK and US handicap, so that any stateside readers can compare my progress. The goal of this project, and associated blog, remains to become a scratch golfer under the UK system. When that happens, I know that I will have earned it.

UK v US - The Best of Both Worlds

Having looked at UK and US handicapping systems (see my last 3 posts), I think there is the potential to have a really good system by taking the best of each system.

If left up to me (and if given a healthy ‘consultancy fee’ for my time and effort), I would use a handicapping system based on the following;

Breadth of handicap; The US system of using the last 20 scores is a good one, but I would take it a step further by taking the last 30 scores, and averaging the best 15 from those 30. US 1-0 UK

Conditions; there HAS to be some allowance for the playing conditions on the day, and the best way of doing this is by looking at how the field perform overall, by calculating an adjusted Course Rating similar to the CSS calculation used in the UK. US 1-1 UK

Bonus for Excellence; get rid of it, taking the best scores and then multiplying by 0.96 doesn’t serve any purpose other than people having a handicap 4% lower than it actually is. US 1-2 UK

Slope Rating; Although daunting to many people, is a good leveller of golfers of all abilities, especially when playing at courses away from their home course. US 2-2 UK

Stableford Par Adjustment; the UK system of rounding to net double bogey is far fairer than using fixed numbers like 7 for 10-19 handicappers in the US, completely ignoring the difficulty of the hole. US 2-3 UK

Most Likely Score; This would have to be removed, along with the concept of playing strokeplay alongside matchplay. Strokeplay tactics may be significantly different from matchplay tactics, and there is no way on earth that a golfer should be allowed to mark down on a scorecard what score they were most likely to get, without putting out. US 2-4 UK

Count more scores; Although I have said that combining matchplay with strokeplay shouldn’t be allowed, I do believe that it shouldn’t just be tournament scores (as currently is the case in the UK) that count. If a card is marked and everything is putted out and played within the Rules of Golf, then it should be submitted for handicap adjustment. US 3-4 UK

Course Rating; Update it every 12 months by looking at actual scores submitted. If all the competition rounds are on a database somewhere then using these scores, with a large sample size, has to be more accurate than even the most objective course rater. US 3-4 UK (Me 1)

Although the UK wins more points than the US system in my proposal above, each point has a different level of importance, and some of the US points are absolutely critical to a good handicapping system, so overall, in the interests of national diplomacy, let’s call it a draw.

I’m talking in the realms of fantasy here, as I can’t see everyone getting their act together enough, but if you were to combine all of the above aspects, I believe you would have a truly fair handicapping system.

US Handicaps - The Good, The Bad and the Bizarre

Handicaps in the US are administered quite differently from in the UK. They are administered by the USGA, and the key difference between the calculating your handicap in the UK and the US is that you need a maths degree to figure out what your handicap is in the US system (see my earlier post on calculating US Handicaps). That is not meant to be necessarily a negative comment, as basic computing packages and spreadsheets can make this task a lot easier, although not as easy as the UK where your handicap is adjusted on the back of your most recent competition round (see this post on UK Handicaps).

One of the most obvious differences between UK and US handicaps is that in the US, only the last 20 scores can possibly affect a playing handicap. Any score from more than 20 rounds ago is discounted in the calculation. This means that handicaps can move up and down much more quickly than in the UK. It also means (as I am currently finding) that even after a good score, the playing handicap can increase as the 20^th round before it was even better, and has been bumped out of the equation to make way for this most recent round.

Another big difference, and is possibly a good indicator of the differences in culture between UK and US club golfers, is that all scores on measured courses should be submitted for handicapping. This includes matchplay games, whereas is the UK combining matchplay and strokeplay is strictly against the rules. There is also the utterly bizarre concept of ‘most likely’ scores being entered on a US card. For example, I’m playing in a fourball match, and on a par 4 and my partner sinks a massive putt for a 3. I’m 20 feet away in 2 shots, however I don’t need to putt as my partner has already got a 3, so I would put a 4 on my card as a 4 was my most likely score. To me, this is a ridiculous affair, and is un-golf-like. The number on your card should be the number you reach when the ball nestles in the cup, not what might have happened.

Other differences are that Course Ratings (the US equivalent of the Standard Scratch Score, although the USGA will shudder if they read that) are not always whole numbers, they are rounded to 0.1. The Slope Rating is another difference in the US, and although daunting to most golfers who don’t understand it, is a good way of allowing for the relative difficulty of a course dependant on the handicap of the player. In the UK, everyone plays against the same Standard Scratch Score, and there are some, more difficult course, where a high handicapper has no chance of playing to their handicap.

The formula for Course Ratings seems to be very prescriptive based on hazards amongst other things, and doesn’t seem to be too well adapted for links golf, which may not have many hazards in the traditional sense, but offers a different challenge to golfers.

Another major difference in the US handicapping system is that there is no consideration given to the conditions on the day. The score required to play to a handicap will be the same on a cold day, with pouring rain, strong winds and difficult pin positions, as it will be on a benign day with no wind and easy pin positions. If you play in an area that has the same weather for 12 months of the year then this isn’t a problem, however I’ve played courses in the UK that have seen all four seasons in the space of a round, never mind a day.

Finally, there are many arbitrary numbers involved in calculating a US Handicap. I can see why they are used, but to someone without a statistical background, they must appear to have been picked out of thin air. Some of the constants involved are

- 0.96. The number the average of the best 10 rounds are multiplied by. This is meant to be a “bonus for excellence”, I think it’s a load of nonsense.

- 220 and 160. The number that the Effective Length of a course is divided by when calculating the Course Rating and Bogey Rating

- 40.9 and 50.7. The number added after dividing by the constants above, to achieve the Course Rating and Bogey Rating

- 5.381. The constant required when multiplying the difference between the Course Rating and the Bogey Rating, to achieve the Slope Rating

- 113. The Slope Rating of an average course, used in the handicap differential calculation.

In my view, the US system is a combination of the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre, and it’s been quite an eye-opener researching it.

US Handicaps - How to Calculate

First of all, I’ve been a bit busy with work over the past few weeks, hence the delay in getting this post up. Normal service should now be resumed.

I have created this separate post just to detail how to calculate a US handicap, as combining it with my view on US Handicaps would have resulted in a lengthier version of War and Peace. Believe it or not, this post is an abridged version, I only cover off the basics in this post.

To get a current US handicap, you need to find the “Handicap Differentials” of the last 20 rounds. Take the best 10 of these 20 Handicap Differentials (the 10 lowest numbers), and average them. Then multiply this figure by 0.96, round up to the nearest 0.1, and you have a handicap. That is the easy part. Figuring out the handicap differential for each round is a bit more tricky, although most courses have charts that can be referenced against.

First of all, you need to figure out the Adjusted Gross score of a round. This is similar to the Stableford Par Adjustment system in the UK, where scores worse than net double bogey are reduced to net double bogey, in line with the strokes received in accordance with the stroke index of the course. However, in the US, for single figure players each score is reduced to double bogey, rather than net double bogey. Bizarrely, for 10-19 handicappers, scores worse than 7 are rounded down to a 7, 20-29 handicappers, scores worse than 8 are rounded down to 8, and so on. This gives no allowance for whether the score occurs on an easy par 3 with no hazards, or a tough-as-nails par 5 with water snaking the hole, bunkers all around the green, and alligators popping up at random intervals. However, I hope never to be in any of these handicap categories so it’s not my concern.

Once you have an Adjusted Gross score, you need to know the Course Rating and the Slope Rating. I’ll deal with each of these individually.

The Course Rating is meant to be the score a scratch golfer would be expected to go around the course in, in the average of the best half of their last 20 rounds. It is calculated by looking at the yardage of the course, then adding yards based on difficult aspects (hazards, uphill shots, into the prevailing wind, and so on), or subtracting yards based on benefits (lack of hazards, downhill, downwind, and so on). At the end of all of this, the course will have an “Effective Length”. This figure is then divided by 220, and then 40.9 is added to it, and this value (once rounded to the nearest 0.1) is the Course Rating. It is a lot more scientific than I have just detailed, however I fail to believe that every course has a completely accurate Effective Length, as even a difference of 22 yards in the Effective Length can add 0.1 to the course rating.

The Slope Rating indicates the degree of how much more difficult the course gets for non-scratch golfers. Generally, on difficult courses a 21 handicapper will take greater than 21 more shots than a scratch player, whilst on an easy course a 21 handicapper may be expected to go round in less than 21 more shots than a scratch player.

The same principle of finding the Effective Length of the course is applied for a Bogey Golfer (generally a player with a handicap of around 20). This Effective Length is then divided by 160, and then 50.7 is added to it, the value once rounded to the nearest 0.1 is the Bogey Rating.

We’re getting there, just a little bit more to go. Take the difference between the Course Rating and the Bogey Rating, multiply it by 5.381, round it to the nearest 0.1, and this result is the Slope Rating.

A course of average difficulty has a Slope Rating of 113, which indicates that a Bogey Golfer is expected to take 21 more shots than a scratch golfer. Slope Ratings can range between 55 and 155 (Carnoustie Championship is 145).

Finally, we have what we need to calculate the Handicap Differential. Take the Adjusted Gross, subtract the Course Rating, multiply it by 113, then divide by the Slope Rating.

So in short; Handicap Differential X = ROUND(AG – ((SEL / 220) + 40.9) * 113 / ((((BEL / 160) + 50.7) - ((SEL / 220) + 40.9)) * 5.381),1), where AG is the Adjusted Gross, SEL is the Scratch Effective Length, and BEL is the Bogey Effective Length.

Following on, Handicap = ROUNDUP((X(1) + X(2) + X(3) + X(4) + X(5) + X(6) + X(7) + X(8) + X(9) + X(10)) / 10 * 0.96,1), where X(N) are the 1^st to 10^th lowest handicap differentials from the last 20 rounds of golf.

Easy, isn’t it?