SSS, CSS, CR, slope, PCC... what the hell does it all mean?

[sjw]

I took up golf in 2021. I see all these acronyms on scorecards etc and while I can easily google them, it isn't clear to me which are actually a "thing" any more.

My understanding is as follows:

CR - the score a scratch golfer would be expected to score, on average, around a given course.
SSS - the same thing? Not used any more in WHS?
CSS - an adjusted version of the above for a given competition day. Also not used any more?
Slope - a factor used to calculate playing handicaps under WHS, based on the difference of perceived difficulty between a scratch golfer and a bogey golfer (around 20 HCI for a male, I believe). Was this a thing before WHS?
PCC - competition handicap correction. Has this replaced CSS? Used in conjunction?

Also, what does par actually mean for a golf course? Does it just come from the course length? Because to the layman it sounds like the score you should aim to go around in... but isn't that CR?

 

[Backache]

I think CR is the score a scratch golfer would be expected to score when playing well rather than the average. I think iN USA it is considered the average of the best 50% of his scores.
Par is the addition of the pars of each hole which relate to the individual holwe length clearly a course with a lot of par 4,2 between 270 and 300 yds you would expecta lower total score than one where they are between 430 and 470 yd everything else being equal.

 

[sjw]

Par is the addition of the pars of each hole which relate to the individual holwe length clearly a course with a lot of par 4,2 between 270 and 300 yds you would expecta lower total score than one where they are between 430 and 470 yd everything else being equal.

That's a good way of putting it. I know what par is and I understand it, but I couldn't explain it to someone else and how it differs to course rating. By taking it to the extremes like that you've highlighted the difference quite well.

 

[Swango1980]

I took up golf in 2021. I see all these acronyms on scorecards etc and while I can easily google them, it isn't clear to me which are actually a "thing" any more.

My understanding is as follows:

CR - the score a scratch golfer would be expected to score, on average, around a given course.
SSS - the same thing? Not used any more in WHS?
CSS - an adjusted version of the above for a given competition day. Also not used any more?
Slope - a factor used to calculate playing handicaps under WHS, based on the difference of perceived difficulty between a scratch golfer and a bogey golfer (around 20 HCI for a male, I believe). Was this a thing before WHS?
PCC - competition handicap correction. Has this replaced CSS? Used in conjunction?

Also, what does par actually mean for a golf course? Does it just come from the course length? Because to the layman it sounds like the score you should aim to go around in... but isn't that CR?

The Par is the value per hole, and overall for the course, in which the course is "designed" to be played. So, during design, a par 3 hole, the expectation is that a "typical" golfer is able to get on the green in one, a par 4 in 2 and a par 5 in 3, followed by 2 putts. I use typical golfer loosely, because as I will go on to discuss, holes can be vastly different, where in relation to par they can be very easy to extremely tough.

A par 4 might be 290 yards, with some bigger hitters able to get there in one, and most having a short shot in for 2. Or, it could be 450 yards, with many not able to get there in 2 at all. So, if you had 18 300 yard par 4s, and compare that to 18 450 yard par 4s, there would be no way you could just say you'd expect a golfer (say a scratch golfer) to go round in 72 shots just as easily on either course. That is where Course Rating comes in, and that tells us what the expectation would be (not the average score, but a score playing at their handicap level) for a scratch golfer. SSS was the same thing, although CR is to 1 decimal place, SSS was a whole number.

There is also a Bogey Rating, which does the same thing for a golfer with a handicap around 18-20ish. From these 2 values, a Slope is calculated, and with that the relative difficulty of the course can be accounted for between low and high handicappers. Some courses high handicappers will need more shots than the better player, others not so many. Slope did not exist pre WHS in the UK, although it was used elsewhere, such as the US.

PCC effectively replaced CSS. Worked out differently, the calculation is a secret, so many have been dubious about the outcome of what PCC ends up as each day.

 

[Bdill93]

I took up golf in 2021. I see all these acronyms on scorecards etc and while I can easily google them, it isn't clear to me which are actually a "thing" any more.

My understanding is as follows:

CR - the score a scratch golfer would be expected to score, on average, around a given course.
SSS - the same thing? Not used any more in WHS?
CSS - an adjusted version of the above for a given competition day. Also not used any more?
Slope - a factor used to calculate playing handicaps under WHS, based on the difference of perceived difficulty between a scratch golfer and a bogey golfer (around 20 HCI for a male, I believe). Was this a thing before WHS?
PCC - competition handicap correction. Has this replaced CSS? Used in conjunction?

Also, what does par actually mean for a golf course? Does it just come from the course length? Because to the layman it sounds like the score you should aim to go around in... but isn't that CR?

You're pretty much there mate!

SSS and CSS were removed when WHS came in.

CR, PCC and Slope are now features of WHS and pretty much as you describe.

 

[sjw]

You're pretty much there mate!

SSS and CSS were removed when WHS came in.

CR, PCC and Slope are now features of WHS and pretty much as you describe.

Yeah ok, that's what I thought. Our scorecards still say SSS and CSS on them, which is why I was confused. They must have just not been updated.

 

[Slab]

Yeah ok, that's what I thought. Our scorecards still say SSS and CSS on them, which is why I was confused. They must have just not been updated.

Sounds like they bought 10's of thousands extra to get the unit price down and it'll take 5 years to use them up

 

[evemccc]

Good thread

In my opinion it seems to me that CR is the best way to tell how objectively ‘hard’ a course is…(clearly aside from daily variables such as wind, temp and pin-placements) when making comparisons

Even as a mid-handicapper, I don’t see much point in Slope rating with regard to seeing how ‘hard’ a course is for a typical mid-handicapper - even though Slope is supposed to say how hard it is for someone like me, relative to a scratch golfer playing to their handicap (CR)

The reason I think this is because of our own personal golfing characteristics that differ from a ‘typical mid capper’ — I’m not good at the short game and not good at putting (even short courses with low slope ratings obvs still involve putting and short game) whereas relative for my handicap level I am reasonably long off the tee and for my irons……so i have found that I won’t tend to play as well as Slope thinks I will on a shortish course (slope approx 113) but will relatively much better on a longer course (often with a higher slope)

I kind of find Slope redundant tbh

 

[rulefan]

Yeah ok, that's what I thought. Our scorecards still say SSS and CSS on them, which is why I was confused. They must have just not been updated.

Are you sure about CSS? That was only calculated after the competition was completed by all players, so makes no sense on a card.

 

[sjw]

Are you sure about CSS? That was only calculated after the competition was completed by all players, so makes no sense on a card.

Nope, not sure at all. Going from memory.

 

[rulefan]

I think CR is the score a scratch golfer would be expected to score when playing well rather than the average. I think iN USA it is considered the average of the best 50% of his scores.
.

CR is not a rating that varies from country to country. It is exactly the same round the world.
Is based primarily on the distance and accuracy of a 'model' scratch or 'model' bogey player.
Eg for a 'model' scratch male
- tee shot - 250 yards with a tolerance of 20 yards long or short or 20 yards off centre
- 2nd shot - 220 yards with a tolerance of 20 yards long or short or 16 yards off centre
The tolerances (approximate) get smaller the shorter the shot.
For a 'model' bogey male
- tee shot - 200 yards with a tolerance of 19 yards long or short or 16 yards off centre
- 2nd shot - 170 yards with a tolerance of 14 yards long or short or 12 yards off centre

There are many other factors (ie obstacles) that are valued for each 'model'. And as handicaps increase the more the player is likely to not fit the 'model' but they will likely be good in one aspect to compensate for a poor aspect of play. eg long hitter, poor chipper.

 

[rulefan]

Nope, not sure at all. Going from memory.

Probably SSS and total Par

 

[jim8flog]

Also, what does par actually mean for a golf course? Does it just come from the course length? Because to the layman it sounds like the score you should aim to go around in... but isn't that CR?

Par does not mean anything on golf course except in (1) a competition to compare the result of one player against another (2) in a stableford competition where it may decide the number of points on hole (3) In a bogey comp.

Prior to sometime in the 80s (from memory) par was strictly based upon the length of a hole and so it meant something back then. The rules were changed so a club could change the par based upon it's difficulty as well as length (3 of our par 4s became par 5s which meant we could have a par of 72 rather 69 although one has now gone back to par 4)

 

[Alan Clifford]

Basically the World handicap System is mathematically naive and simplistic in concept but has lots of complicated arithmetic to make it seem sophisticated.

 

[Backache]

CR is not a rating that varies from country to country. It is exactly the same round the world.
Is based primarily on the distance and accuracy of a 'model' scratch or 'model' bogey player.
Eg for a 'model' scratch male
- tee shot - 250 yards with a tolerance of 20 yards long or short or 20 yards off centre
- 2nd shot - 220 yards with a tolerance of 20 yards long or short or 16 yards off centre
The tolerances (approximate) get smaller the shorter the shot.
For a 'model' bogey male
- tee shot - 200 yards with a tolerance of 19 yards long or short or 16 yards off centre
- 2nd shot - 170 yards with a tolerance of 14 yards long or short or 12 yards off centre

There are many other factors (ie obstacles) that are valued for each 'model'. And as handicaps increase the more the player is likely to not fit the 'model' but they will likely be good in one aspect to compensate for a poor aspect of play. eg long hitter, poor chipper.

My understanding was that the Americans basically invented CR and judged it as what a scratch player would get as an average of his best 50% rounds and started devising the calculations of distance difficulty obstacles etc. and eventually everyone has followed suit though the old sss was very similar.

 

[rulefan]

My understanding was that the Americans basically invented CR and judged it as what a scratch player would get as an average of his best 50% rounds and started devising the calculations of distance difficulty obstacles etc. and eventually everyone has followed suit though the old sss was very similar.

Not so. If you have ever done any formal rating you would soon see that would be a herculean task doing such a reverse calculation, apart from capturing all the data needed to calculate the average scores of all the scratch players in the USA. The SSS produced similar results to CR but I know that was not done by collecting such data.

However, the history of how the USGA Rating System came about is here https://popeofslope.com/courserating/index.html

 

[SocketRocket]

And after all these calculations your handicap gets reduced to 95% in competitions. Why?

 

[rulefan]

And after all these calculations your handicap gets reduced to 95% in competitions. Why?

This is what the US and Oz called the "bonus for excellence".

Playing Handicap - For equity purposes, the Playing Handicap calculation
determines the number of strokes each player gives or receives, to ensure
that all players can enjoy a fair and equal game when playing with or
competing against one another.

 

[Orikoru]

I can honestly say it makes no difference to your life if you never know what any of those things mean. The only one I vaguely get is PCC, which I think means if everyone plays crap you all get an extra shot taken off on your handicap record.

I'm just lucky we live in the time where apps work it out for you. I get my course/playing handicaps from the My England Golf app, or IG at my home course. CSS, SSS, CR, I couldn't give a solitary toss.

 

[jim8flog]

And after all these calculations your handicap gets reduced to 95% in competitions. Why?

It restores the difference between one players H.I and another's.

It is not a precise science but goes some way to correct it

H.I. represents a players ability

So take a 10 handicap and 30 handicap player

There is a 20 shot difference in their ability

Now apply slope and the ten becomes 11 and the 30 might become 33 there is now a 22 shot difference between the them

Apply 95% and the 11 remains 11 and the 33 becomes 31 so the difference of 20 is restored.