How do you gauge difficulty?

[barrybridges]

Sorry - lots of questions from me today!

Simple question really - how 'difficult' is your course and how do you measure difficulty?

I read on here (correct me if I'm wrong) that CSS is calculated based on the average player's first tee shot and then assessing the hole from there; why isn't the difficulty of a narrow fairway/tee shot taken into consideration?

I'm just curious having played a few different courses now (I'm a beginner as you can tell!) where some are nice and wide and you can't go wrong...whereas others are narrow and tree-lined and waiting to trip you up. Some have bunkers to trap you, others have hardly any.

How do you assess difficulty and how 'difficult' would you say your course is?

 

[USER1999]

To me, an easy course has a par of say 72, but a standard scratch of 67.

A solid course has par 72 and SSS of 72.

A stupidly difficult course has par 72, SSS of 75.

Anything in excess of 7000 yards is long too.
Anything less than 6200 is short.

 

[jammag]

my sss is 69 for a par 71 on whites and 67 off the yellows which would say its an easy course. how ever I would say my course is a very tough course if its a) your first time there b) a high handicapper. reasons being is that only 9 holes you can see the flag from the tee blocks, that includes 5 par 3s. out of the 13 tee shots there is either oob or big danger either side on 11 of the holes. So you have to be good off the tee blocks and be very good at course management.

For example a 450 yard par 5, tee shot only 150 yards to top of the hill oob down the right and 200yards in front, trees to the left, have to hit it to top of hill just over to give you a chance of going for the 2nd shot which again is another 170 yard iron shot at about a 90degree angle to land just short of a dyke which then takes another sharp turn to the right, no short cuts in this trees are too tall. white tee shot is to go between 2 trees no more than 10 yards apart.

Now for a low handicapper this is fine easy par no doubt, but if you mis hit any 3 of first shots then you will drop a shot so for high handicappers its a nightmare course. Quite small greens as well so if you cant hit good iron shots then it isnt the course and you will struggle. I have no doubt scratch players could go round very easily but others may struggle who are 18 and above.

I struggled for ages but now I have been there only now am i starting to come down in handicap, been dropped from 23.4 to 21 in past month or so. Where as there is a course bout 15 mins away players longer par 70 and I regularly go there and shoot 40+ points because it is very open and big greens.How ever I am going to stick with my current course as I believe it will help me become a better player in next couple of years.

 

[barrybridges]

I guess that was my next point...is it good to play the most difficult course you can, or should you make life easier for yourself?

The context is I'm torn between a few clubs for joining, but one I just can't play on for toffee; I find it so tough. It's 6250 on the whites and par 70 SSS 70.

I could walk down the road to a par 72, SSS 69 where I play better, but what's going to challenge me more?

 

[RGDave]

SSS is based on the "chances" (if you like) of how a scratch player would do.
Therefore, it has little bearing on me and most other players.
Our course has SSS of 1 less than par. It's short-ish and if you hit the ball straight, a piece of cake. I don't know why it doesn't have a SSS of 66 (if that was allowable).
Stray off line, and it's a killer.
Our hardest and longest holes have 17 yards wide fairways. Make them 27 and I'd be off 9 like I used to be.
Simple.

 

[Oddsocks]

i couldnt join a course that wasnt challenging, but also joining a course that beats you up on a weekly basis will only end up in you not enjoying your golf.

 

[Whereditgo]

CSS will alter dependant on how everyone else plays on the day, the course conditions, weather etc. affecting the scores.

SSS is the score a scratch golfer would be expected to shoot in neutral conditions, so if the SSS is higher than the par for the course the course can be expected to be tough. The Hotchkin at Woodall Spa is a par 71, with SSS of 73 and that is a pretty severe test of your golf IMO.

On the Continent and in the USA courses have another factor called the slope, which again reflects the difficulty of the course, not sure exactly how that one works, but I think the maximum is a slope index of 150?

Played a PGA course in Sweden that was slope index 142 or so, when given my scorecard it had been marked by the computer to give me 6 or 8 shots above my handicap!!!

Our is generally considered to be a tough course mainly owing to the number of trees, the way the wind affects the course and the rough can be punishing in summer. Most guys that join from other local clubs struggle and their handicap drifts out for a while.

 

[viscount17]

It's not CSS but SSS that you're talking about.

SSS is calculated for the whole course not just the first and takes into consideration (among others) width of fairways, positioning of hazards, length, steepness etc. It is a measure of how a Scratch golfer should score.

CSS is Competition Scratch Score and is a measure of how the course plays on the day - ie factors in wind/weather and, probably, last nights bar-b-cue

 

[Lump]

Our course on sunday played Par 71 CSS 73. Our 4th is a uphill par 3. The flag was nigh on impossible to hold. I landed my tee shot 1 foot from the flag. It ended up 30 yards back off the front. Who ever cut the pin where it was needed a slap!

 

[Oddsocks]

lump, it sounds like our green keepers may be related. 165 yard par 3, SI13, big silver berch just off the green to the front left that overhangs around 10 ft of green on the left side, big bunker to the right front. if your pitching short to roll in theres about a 15ft gap, but you need to carry the bunker if the pin is on the right. Sundays position was 4/5ft max off the left fringe at the front.... best yet with a left to right cross wind.

To go for the pin you needed to snaphook a ball over the bunker to get it around the over hanging tree to the pin. impossible shot, with nearest the pin being won from about 30 ft.

 

[pokerjoke]

i couldnt join a course that wasnt challenging, but also joining a course that beats you up on a weekly basis will only end up in you not enjoying your golf.

I agree,my course is par 66,however its so demanding,17 holes tree lined and extremely narrow fairways,if you break 70 you have had a good round.The trouble is it beats you up every week in some way and can demoralize the strongest of minds.The good thing however is when you get on open courses its generally easier to hit fairways because you just pretend there are trees either side,not always the way but more often than not.

 

[Imurg]

The easier course may be easier to play but it will not be easier to get cut on.
If your SSS is 2 below par then your handicap effectively drops 2 shots before you've begun. My place is SSS 69 on a par of 70. So to play to my handicap I have to shoot 77 gross, not 78.
If it were SSS 67 then I'd have to shoot 75 to play to it.
So to get cut I've got to play even better.....

 

[bozza]

My course is a par 71 with a sss of 71 off the whites and 70 off the yellows.

I would say thats about fair for it but the back 9 is alot harder than the front. The back 9 is 3 shots more and not as staight up and down as the front 9.

 

[Region3]

lump, it sounds like our green keepers may be related. 165 yard par 3, SI13, big silver berch just off the green to the front left that overhangs around 10 ft of green on the left side, big bunker to the right front. if your pitching short to roll in theres about a 15ft gap, but you need to carry the bunker if the pin is on the right. Sundays position was 4/5ft max off the left fringe at the front.... best yet with a left to right cross wind.

To go for the pin you needed to snaphook a ball over the bunker to get it around the over hanging tree to the pin. impossible shot, with nearest the pin being won from about 30 ft.

If it's unfair that's one thing, but they're not supposed to make it easy for you. You don't have to go for the flag at every hole, and this one sounds like a definite 'middle of the green' shot.

 

[Region3]

Regarding the OP, I read up about it a while ago, and they have tables of distance vs accuracy for a mythical scratch golfer.

For example, on a tee shot of 250yds it might say he has a 30% chance of getting within 10yds of his target, 60% of within 20yds, etc.
Then they look at the hazards within those hypothetical circles and the probabilities of the scratch golfer hitting/missing them, and do the same for approach shots etc.

I can't remember where I found it now, but it was probably on the CONGU site.

Edit : Found it. If you're really that interested, it's here

 

[MashieNiblick]

The easier course may be easier to play but it will not be easier to get cut on.
If your SSS is 2 below par then your handicap effectively drops 2 shots before you've begun. My place is SSS 69 on a par of 70. So to play to my handicap I have to shoot 77 gross, not 78.
If it were SSS 67 then I'd have to shoot 75 to play to it.
So to get cut I've got to play even better.....

I think that's the point of SSS in a way. Handicaps are based on SSS (or CSS) not par so whether your course is "easy" (SSS less than par) or "hard" (SSS more than par) you still have to play equally well to match or beat your handicap.

To quote the EGU guide to calculating SSS (see link in Region3's post)

"The Standard Scratch Score reflects the difficulty of a golf course and therefore the expected score to be achieved by the Scratch Golfer in playing the course in ideal conditions. The aim of the EGU rating system is to identify the difficulty of a hole based on how a Scratch Golfer intends to play the course.The course is assessed on a hole-by-hole basis."

So if Par is 70 and SSS is 69 a scratch golfer would be expected able to make a birdie somewhere on that course playing his normal game.

As far as handicap golfers are concerned, you could say the difference between SSS of 69 and SSS 70 is there's one more hole where you are expected to make par instead of bogey (e.g instead of a tight 460 yard par 4 there's an easy 310 yard one, or a simple 480 yard par 5 instead of a brutish 580 yard one).

The guide to calculating SSS is very detailed. It's 25 pages long and it is clearly a very comprehensive and carefully considered process. Link is here.

http://www.englishgolfunion.org/showpage.asp?code=0001000200090005

Interesting reading if you want to know how to rate the difficulty of a golf course.

 

[barrybridges]

But going back to those links posted - I guess my query was really: how come in calculating SSS they take a 'typical' scratch golfer and then only assess the hole from the perspective of their 2nd shot? Why not take the difficulty of the tee shot into consideration?

Does that make sense?

 

[upsidedown]

It's slope index here

http://www.slopeindex.com/


Having played both in UK and here in NZ feel the slope index gives an indication of course difficulty straight away .

 

[Region3]

But going back to those links posted - I guess my query was really: how come in calculating SSS they take a 'typical' scratch golfer and then only assess the hole from the perspective of their 2nd shot? Why not take the difficulty of the tee shot into consideration?

Does that make sense?

I thought all shots were assessed in the link that's been posted

 

[Oddsocks]

guaging difficulty would depend on how im swinging that day.

for exmaple, 180 yards into our par 5 first as a 2nd shot. If the drive has gone well ill tend to take it on, but if the drive was questionable strike wise, then ill lay up with a 6iron to teh right, and wedge in.

I tend to assess each shot on the merits as the round unfolds.