Course Rating & Slope Rating
What is course rating? An indication of the difficulty of a golf course for the scratch player under normal course and weather conditions. This is shown as one of the headings in the Scottish golf App – obviously so that potential players can see how difficult it might be for the scratch golfer. At Kilsyth it is 70.1 from the black tees.
What is a bogey rating? An indication of the difficulty of a golf course for the bogey player under normal course and weather conditions and it is used to contribute towards the calculation of the Slope rating.
What is a Slope Rating? A Slope Rating is the number which indicates the relative playing difficulty of a course for bogey golfers (20 to 24 Handicap)compared to scratch golfers. It is the combination of the Course Rating and the Bogey rating that allows the calculation of the Slope Rating of a set of tees. There will be different Course and Slope ratings for each of the black, silver and purple tees. A course with long carries, narrow fairways, lots of hazards and thick rough will have a high slope rating because these features are more of a challenge to bogey golfers. The calculation for the slope rating is fairly complicated and is set by Scottish Golf for the WHS
Lowest slope is 55 highest is 155 – 113 was chosen as the figure used in the above formula as this is the slope for a course where scratch and bogey players score equally relative to their handicap
The par for the course will still be on the score card and for all the Kilsyth layouts it is 71. The slope ratings are also on the scorecard.
Slope Rating can be anywhere between 55 and 155, 113 is the neutral value that is used in handicap calculations.
You can calculate your course handicap by taking your handicap index – multiplying it by the slope rating ( 131 for Kilsyth off the black tees) and dividing by 113. Remember this may then be reduced by a percentage to get the competition handicap – 95% for medal play at Kilsyth
The R&A have provided a course handicap calculator which can be found here http://www.randa.org/course-handicap-calculator
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