New World Handicaps 2020

[North Butte]

> @HatsForBats said:

> > @"North Butte" said:

> > By telling people they are supposed to include a magic number of 113 as a divisor, you imply that 113 has some actual meaning. Which it does not, it is simply an artifact a curve-fitting exercise Knuth did with a convenience sample decades ago.

>

> http://popeofslope.com/magazine/aver_rating.html

>

 

Yes, I have read that and pretty much everything else Knuth has on his website.

 

My point stands. There is no meaning to the 113, it is a historical artifact of the system development process that gets misinterpreted by generation after generation of golfers.

[davep043]

> @HatsForBats said:

> > @"North Butte" said:

> > By telling people they are supposed to include a magic number of 113 as a divisor, you imply that 113 has some actual meaning. Which it does not, it is simply an artifact a curve-fitting exercise Knuth did with a convenience sample decades ago.

>

> http://popeofslope.com/magazine/aver_rating.html

>

 

Yeah, its not as if anyone who was actually interested couldn't get information on the origin of the Slope system. I actually HAVE read a few reports that suggest that the average is 113, but you shouldn't blame the USGA or Dean Knuth for the reporter's inaccuracy.

[North Butte]

No, I can only blame Dean Knuth for putting a magic number in the system in order to open it up for speculative (and wrong) assumptions. The dude just loves to bang on about graphs and slopes and all that other geeky nonsense (that he likes to pretend is rocket science). Leaving that 113 hanging about in every single explanation of the handicap system for decades is a symptom of his caring more about sounding like a math whiz than about making the system as clear and understandable as possible for its intended users.

[davep043]

> @"North Butte" said:

> No, I can only blame Dean Knuth for putting a magic number in the system in order to open it up for speculative (and wrong) assumptions. The dude just loves to bang on about graphs and slopes and all that other geeky nonsense (that he likes to pretend is rocket science). Leaving that 113 hanging about in every single explanation of the handicap system for decades is a symptom of his caring more about sounding like a math whiz than about making the system as clear and understandable as possible for its intended users.

What would you change? Is there a way to account for varying levels of difficulty that is any simpler than the current system?

[North Butte]

 

> @davep043 said:

> > @"North Butte" said:

> > No, I can only blame Dean Knuth for putting a magic number in the system in order to open it up for speculative (and wrong) assumptions. The dude just loves to bang on about graphs and slopes and all that other geeky nonsense (that he likes to pretend is rocket science). Leaving that 113 hanging about in every single explanation of the handicap system for decades is a symptom of his caring more about sounding like a math whiz than about making the system as clear and understandable as possible for its intended users.

> What would you change? Is there a way to account for varying levels of difficulty that is any simpler than the current system?

 

If you want a two-parameter system based on "scratch" and "bogey" expected scores, that's fine by me. It's as sensible as any two parameter approach could be. But once you've decided that and once you picked the arbitrary scale of the second parameter (the scale of course rating is fixed as it must be in strokes expected for a scratch golfer) then simply publish the "thing" that is to be multiplied by the handicap index. Don't publish the multiplier on a scale that must be divided by an "average difficulty" or "average slope" of 113.

 

Factoring out that magic 113 once the system was designed, then simply presenting the simplest possible computation is human factors 101 stuff. Not that an organization like USGA cares a whit about mundane issues like transparency and clarity of communication with their customers.

[North Butte]

> @davep043 said:

> Yeah, its not as if anyone who was actually interested couldn't get information on the origin of the Slope system.

 

Let me revisit this comment for a minute to point out that, as I've said throughout the thread, golfers just want to know their handicap. They don't care about graphs or curve fitting or the entire history of the system. They want to be able to take their "index" and get "how many strokes do I get". The process to get from index to strokes is somewhat convoluted (to a typical golfer) but why make it more convoluted by insisting they need to remember to divide by "113". That number never changes, it is baked into the system. But when someone sees it, they are naturally confused about what it means. And therefore some people will impute spurious interpretations to it (including magazine writers and people trying to post helpful explanations online).

[davep043]

> @"North Butte" said:

>

> > @davep043 said:

> > What would you change? Is there a way to account for varying levels of difficulty that is any simpler than the current system?

>

> But once you've decided that and once you picked the arbitrary scale of the second parameter (the scale of course rating is fixed as it must be in strokes expected for a scratch golfer) then simply publish the "thing" that is to be multiplied by the handicap index. Don't publish the multiplier on a scale that must be divided by an "average difficulty" or "average slope" of 113.

>

> Factoring out that magic 113 once the system was designed, then simply presenting the simplest possible computation is human factors 101 stuff. Not that an organization like USGA cares a whit about mundane issues like transparency and clarity of communication with their customers.

 

You're saying that they could publish the "second number" as the result of Slope/113, rather than making you do that calculation for yourself. Actually, that could work. On the other hand, you can use the Ghin Course Handicap Calculator that is built into Ghin (which is owned and run by the USGA, and makes the calculation completely unnecessary), or a similar calculator that is in every free handicap app. Or they could look at the Course Handicap Table that's probably posted on the wall in the pro shop. You're kind of ignoring how simple the USGA has made it to post your scores, maintain your handicap, and determine your on-course handicap using the app, or the website. or the Handicap Tables.

 

As to how Knuth sounds, if you ask a statistician to explain a statistics-based system, you'll get a lot of statistics-based responses. If you ask him how to calculate your course handicap, he'd probably just tell you to use the app.

 

[North Butte]

> @"Colin L" said:

> Thanks Dave, I do understand slope. Just haven't had to think about it on a single hole basis.

> I'm sure there is good reason for the norm being 113, but I'm not going to find it easy to explain the reason for it and may, when asked, just use the easy cop-out of "It is what it is."

 

Dave,

 

Here's the post from Colin L that got this whole tangent started. Of course it's easy to punch a Slope Rating into the GHIN app and get your Course Handicap. Yet people do encounter the question of what's actually going on with all these confusing numbers, etc.

 

There is not a "good reason" for that 113 number any more than there's a good reason lawyers occasionally communicate using Latin or Greek phrases. It's geeks being geeks and if it confuses mere normals, the geeks aren't much inclined to care.

[davep043]

> @"North Butte" said:

> > @"Colin L" said:

> > Thanks Dave, I do understand slope. Just haven't had to think about it on a single hole basis.

> > I'm sure there is good reason for the norm being 113, but I'm not going to find it easy to explain the reason for it and may, when asked, just use the easy cop-out of "It is what it is."

>

> Dave,

>

> Here's the post from Colin L that got this whole tangent started. Of course it's easy to punch a Slope Rating into the GHIN app and get your Course Handicap. Yet people do encounter the question of what's actually going on with all these confusing numbers, etc.

>

> There is not a "good reason" for that 113 number any more than there's a good reason lawyers occasionally communicate using Latin or Greek phrases. It's geeks being geeks and if it confuses mere normals, the geeks aren't much inclined to care.

You've wanted two different things. One one hand, you say that players simply want to know their Course Handicap. That's simple, with many ways to get it without doing long division on the back of an envelope.

On the other hand, you say people want to know where 113 came from, what's going on with all these confusing numbers (if 2 numbers counts as "all these"). For those people, you say that this is to equalize a game between a guy who is a 17 at Cypress Point and a guy who is a 17 at Mudd Flats. If they need more, you point them to the published explanations that by their very nature have to delve at least a little into the statistics involved in calculating the 113 in the first place. You cannot explain 113 without talking about the statistics. And from what I've read, the use of 113 is absolutely a logical reasonable choice, and the logic seems very clear to me. Once they crunched the statistics, coming up with 113 is nothing more than high-school algebra. Could they have chosen to present it differently, sure, but right from the very beginning they've made it extremely simple to get your handicap. And if you're explaining all this to the guys who don't care or don't understand something as simple as ESC, you're not going to get through to them anyway!

 

[North Butte]

> @davep043 said:

> > @"North Butte" said:

> > > @"Colin L" said:

> > > Thanks Dave, I do understand slope. Just haven't had to think about it on a single hole basis.

> > > I'm sure there is good reason for the norm being 113, but I'm not going to find it easy to explain the reason for it and may, when asked, just use the easy cop-out of "It is what it is."

> >

> > Dave,

> >

> > Here's the post from Colin L that got this whole tangent started. Of course it's easy to punch a Slope Rating into the GHIN app and get your Course Handicap. Yet people do encounter the question of what's actually going on with all these confusing numbers, etc.

> >

> > There is not a "good reason" for that 113 number any more than there's a good reason lawyers occasionally communicate using Latin or Greek phrases. It's geeks being geeks and if it confuses mere normals, the geeks aren't much inclined to care.

> You've wanted two different things. One one hand, you say that players simply want to know their Course Handicap. That's simple, with many ways to get it without doing long division on the back of an envelope.

> On the other hand, you say people want to know where 113 came from, what's going on with all these confusing numbers (if 2 numbers counts as "all these"). For those people, you say that this is to equalize a game between a guy who is a 17 at Cypress Point and a guy who is a 17 at Mudd Flats. If they need more, you point them to the published explanations that by their very nature have to delve at least a little into the statistics involved in calculating the 113 in the first place. You cannot explain 113 without talking about the statistics. And from what I've read, the use of 113 is absolutely a logical reasonable choice, and the logic seems very clear to me. Once they crunched the statistics, coming up with 113 is nothing more than high-school algebra. Could they have chosen to present it differently, sure, but right from the very beginning they've made it extremely simple to get your handicap. And if you're explaining all this to the guys who don't care or don't understand something as simple as ESC, you're not going to get through to them anyway!

>

 

But they don't actually USE the 113 for anything at all. That number is identically 113 for every handicap index, every course rating, every slope rating, every course handicap ever computed. Its only USE was in an intermediate stage of computation that these guys did back in 1980-whatever. It should have never made it into the final, published system in the first place.

 

And it is just human nature when you say, "This course is rated 69.9/127" to ask what that means. Yeah, they're going to just ask their app to figure their handicap. But people are curious and explanation will be offered. Because of the 113 thing, those explanations will be more confusing than necessary and will actually be wrong (i.e. 113 being "average difficulty").

 

This is like a recap of the hole by hole thing. You guys couldn't for the life of you understand the likelihood that entering more numbers leads to more data entry mistakes. And now you seem not to be able to process the notion that explaining something by reference to a totally meaningless yet precise sounding number leads to people making wrong interpretations. It's the same principle. Needless obfuscation with no benefit whatsoever.

[davep043]

> @"North Butte" said:

 

> This is like a recap of the hole by hole thing. You guys couldn't for the life of you understand the likelihood that entering more numbers leads to more data entry mistakes. And now you seem not to be able to process the notion that explaining something by reference to a totally meaningless yet precise sounding number leads to people making wrong interpretations. It's the same principle. Needless obfuscation with no benefit whatsoever.

So at my home club, Slope of 135, we'd multiply our index by 1.19. How would you explain 1.19 to them?

[North Butte]

I'd tell them it's the thing they multiply their index by to get their course handicap. If it were up to me I'd ditch the name "slope" (which connotes something to do with terrain when used in conjunction with golf course ratings) and call it the "multiplier":

 

Course Rating: 71.2

Course Multiplier: 1.19

 

And if someone asked me what is the correct interpretation of the Course Multiplier I'd say it like this:

 

"It's how many strokes you actually receive on this course for each stroke in your Handicap Index".

 

That is a much more direct and common sense meaning than Knuth's choice:

 

Course Rating: 71.2

Slope Rating: 135

 

What does the 135 mean? The best anyone seems to come up with is something like:

 

"It's a rating of the relative difficulty of the course for a bogey golfer versus a scratch golfer, compared to an average difficulty of 113".

[davep043]

> @"North Butte" said:

> And if someone asked me what is the correct interpretation of the Course Multiplier I'd say it like this:

>

> "It's how many strokes you actually receive on this course for each stroke in your Handicap Index".

>

> That is a much more direct and common sense meaning than Knuth's choice:

 

The next question is logically "Well how the h3ll did they come up with that??" And you could go into the scratch golfer and the bogey golfer and the slope of the line (back to high school algebra) and watch their eyes glaze over. If someone wants to understand it, they will. If they just want to know their handicap, they can get that too. To me, you're making a mountain out of next-to-nothing.

 

[Deceptively Short]

I’m with NB here, as we are currently having to explain the slope system to everyone here in CONGU Land. Having to explain why 113 is the base number is tricky and tends to get the whole discussion into ‘too complicated to bother to get your head round’ territory pretty quickly. I have often been asked why 113 and there is no easy reply apart from ‘it just is but that’s not important now’ is my usual reply.

[DaveLeeNC]

The alternative here would seem to me to be to replace SLOPE with something that could logically be called "the multiplier" (M for short). For a course/tee currently sloped at 113, M would be 1.0. For a course/tee sloped at 130, M would be 1.15.

 

I guess that approach would be marginally helpful in understanding.

 

dave

[Newby]

> @"Deceptively Short" said:

> I’m with NB here, as we are currently having to explain the slope system to everyone here in CONGU Land. Having to explain why 113 is the base number is tricky and tends to get the whole discussion into ‘too complicated to bother to get your head round’ territory pretty quickly. I have often been asked why 113 and there is no easy reply apart from ‘it just is but that’s not important now’ is my usual reply.

 

I've had no problems explaining slope to members of many clubs here. Once I have got the point of relative difficulty over - there are no issues. I just tell them they can get their 'playing handicap' from an app, off the club website or a chart by the proshop. Thumbs up. If I tell them there is a calculation they really don't want to know.

Much the same when they have to calculate 90% or 60% etc. As soon as they realise there is a table on the back of the card, that will do.

[Deceptively Short]

> @Newby said:

> > @"Deceptively Short" said:

> > I’m with NB here, as we are currently having to explain the slope system to everyone here in CONGU Land. Having to explain why 113 is the base number is tricky and tends to get the whole discussion into ‘too complicated to bother to get your head round’ territory pretty quickly. I have often been asked why 113 and there is no easy reply apart from ‘it just is but that’s not important now’ is my usual reply.

>

> I've had no problems explaining slope to members of many clubs here. Once I have got the point of relative difficulty over - there are no issues. I just tell them they can get their 'playing handicap' from an app, off the club website or a chart by the proshop. Thumbs up. If I tell them there is a calculation they really don't want to know.

> Much the same when they have to calculate 90% or 60% etc. As soon as they realise there is a table on the back of the card, that will do.

 

So no one has ever asked you what the new slope number means? Why is it, they ask for example, 130 from that tee and only 125 from the other one? I have almost always been asked what does the number represent, there is an easy explanation for the course rating number which everyone grasps its significance immediately, certainly that cannot be said for the slope number - which for most here is the new concept in the forthcoming system.

 

[rogolf]

> @"Deceptively Short" said:

> > @Newby said:

> > > @"Deceptively Short" said:

> > > I’m with NB here, as we are currently having to explain the slope system to everyone here in CONGU Land. Having to explain why 113 is the base number is tricky and tends to get the whole discussion into ‘too complicated to bother to get your head round’ territory pretty quickly. I have often been asked why 113 and there is no easy reply apart from ‘it just is but that’s not important now’ is my usual reply.

> >

> > I've had no problems explaining slope to members of many clubs here. Once I have got the point of relative difficulty over - there are no issues. I just tell them they can get their 'playing handicap' from an app, off the club website or a chart by the proshop. Thumbs up. If I tell them there is a calculation they really don't want to know.

> > Much the same when they have to calculate 90% or 60% etc. As soon as they realise there is a table on the back of the card, that will do.

>

> So no one has ever asked you what the new slope number means? Why is it, they ask for example, 130 from that tee and only 125 from the other one? I have almost always been asked what does the number represent, there is an easy explanation for the course rating number which everyone grasps its significance immediately, certainly that cannot be said for the slope number - **which for most here is the new concept in the forthcoming system**.

>

Based on experience, it will quickly disappear. It's really just a number that is used in calculating your course handicap from the tees you are playing - look at the table to determine your course handicap.

 

[Colin L]

113 is just the reference point of a scale which extends above and below it. Any scale has to start somewhere and there may be those who like to know why it starts where it does and those, probably more numerous, who just want to know what the measurements mean. The Celsius scale has 0 to 100 as its reference points , using the freezing and boiling points of water. You guys are still using Fahrenheit where the same reference points are 32 and 212. The separation points of one scale are 100 units apart while those of the other are 180 apart. Both the slope rating scale and the Fahrenheit scale have this in common: they look odd because 113, 32 and 212 look eccentric. Numbers ending with a zero like 10, 50, 100 and so on look more "normal". That's all. I assume that since the US still uses Fahrenheit, you are comfortable with its eccentricity (though I wonder what your scientists, engineers, meteorologists etc use). Why not be comfortable with the eccentricity of slope as you seem to be with Fahrenheit? Being used to metrical measurements, I would find a slope scale from 0 to 100 more familiar, but maybe for Americans its separation points should be 32 and 212?

 

Big fuss over very little, I'd say. You quickly learn what things mean. 38C outside tells me it's uncomfortably hot out there while 100.4F tells our American friends the same; -10C outside tells me to get the merino wool undies on while 14F tells them the same. We'll get familiar with what we are getting and soon enough we'll all know that a slope rating of 145 means a ~~rather~~ relatively tough golf course.

 

[Newby]

> @"Colin L" said:

 

> We'll get familiar with what we are getting and soon enough we'll all know that a slope rating of 145 means a rather tough golf course.

>

It only tells us that it gets relatively very difficult the higher your handicap.

A course of 62/145 is likely to be pretty easy for all

 

[Colin L]

Of course slope describes relative difficulty the higher your handicap and I've amended my remark. But a course of 62/145, if such exists anywhere, is not going to be pretty easy for all. It also sounds quite unrealistic. At a quick glance, the highest slope rating of those courses in Scotland with a course rating below 64 is 112. The course is Tarbert, a Par 33, 9 hole West Highland course rated at 62.5/112. It's quirky to say the least. Again at a quick glance, we have 6 Scottish course with a slope rating of 140 and above. All of these have a course rating of 72 or over. The highest slope rating is for the course with the highest course rating at 75/145.

 

Is it not the case that the relationship between course and slope rating is such that it limits overall the degree to which a lowish course rating will have an uncommonly high slope rating and vice versa?

 

[Newby]

Yes, I agree.

I was only pointing out the principle, not necessarily real life.

[North Butte]

> @"Deceptively Short" said:

> I’m with NB here, as we are currently having to explain the slope system to everyone here in CONGU Land. Having to explain why 113 is the base number is tricky and tends to get the whole discussion into ‘too complicated to bother to get your head round’ territory pretty quickly. I have often been asked why 113 and there is no easy reply apart from ‘it just is but that’s not important now’ is my usual reply.

 

> @Newby said:

> > @"Colin L" said:

>

> > We'll get familiar with what we are getting and soon enough we'll all know that a slope rating of 145 means a rather tough golf course.

> >

> It only tells us that it gets relatively very difficult the higher your handicap.

> A course of 62/145 is likely to be pretty easy for all

>

 

See, we keep recapitulating the problem. That number is UNIVERSALLY believed to describe "the difficulty of the course". The fact is actually means something different can be explained until the cows come home but that's how people interpret it.

 

And no, there does not need to be a "base number" because "slope" is not a quantity that needs to be known by golfers at all. The only number that matter in converting a Handicap Index to a Course Handicap is the unnamed quantity "Slope divided by 113" which is multiplied by the Handicap Index to get the Course Handicap.

 

That's the idiocy of this entire Knuthian runaround. Instead of simply providing the number needed to compute your Course Handicap, you're giving a number that you need to divide by 113. And the "Slope Rating" number itself implies (to every single golfer who has ever been exposed to it) that it quantifies course difficulty, requiring an elaborate explanation of how it really quantifies something different.

 

The dude pranked the entire world of USGA Handicap holders with this crap. After 25 years of pondering the whole hot mess the only conclusion I can come up with is Dean Knuth wanted the system to look more elaborate than it actually is and he wanted it to be confusing to everyday golfers. There's no other reason it would be presented this way.

 

[QEight]

Average player does not really care as he gets his course HC easily anyway.

[dcmidnight]

When I played the Old Course last year, they were hosting a couple groups of guys from the US in a corporate tournament of some kind - I only know this because my spot as a single came in the wives group that followed them lol. Anyway - the caddie said they used a calculator to match the handicaps so their group could have a match with a group of R&A members from what I would consider in the US a chamber of commerce type thing. I didnt really care enough to ask more questions so I couldnt tell if he meant a calculator like an app - or an actual calculator - but the point was they made it work.

 

So whats easier? Doing that for the very very very few people this actually affects every year - or actually creating a WHS type translator app? Or putting the entire system through complete upheavel for relatively no real reason?

 

Honest to God, I really dont care that the systems are different. I'm going to simplify here a little but but the UK handicap system is based on the fact that you play most golf rounds as matches at your club. The US system is NOT based on that. So who cares if the systems are different? I think their survey got results from 1% of people they sent it out to?

 

I think we get so lost in our little bubble here that guys forget, this change is literally going to "benefit" a percentage of a percentage of a percentage of golfers. Guys who need a handicap that travels from the US to other countries for official matches? Guys who live in the US and have member clubs in Scotland? Please. I mean thats great, thats *awesome* for you - but out of 25 million golfers in the US there are maybe a relative handful of you.

 

> @"North Butte" said:

> I have a hard time granting it that much importance. Seems to me the future of golf is hardly going to come down to whether ex-pats from UK or USA can cross-post their rounds from both sides of the Atlantic. **That's such a niche problem it doesn't even register on the "future of golf" radar. **

 

This is where I'm at.

[HatsForBats]

> @"North Butte" said:

> I'd tell them it's the thing they multiply their index by to get their course handicap. If it were up to me I'd ditch the name "slope" (which connotes something to do with terrain when used in conjunction with golf course ratings) and call it the "multiplier":

 

> @"North Butte" said:

> That's the idiocy of this entire Knuthian runaround. Instead of simply providing the number needed to compute your Course Handicap, you're giving a number that you need to divide by 113. And the "Slope Rating" number itself implies (to every single golfer who has ever been exposed to it) that it quantifies course difficulty, requiring an elaborate explanation of how it really quantifies something different.

>

> The dude pranked the entire world of USGA Handicap holders with this crap. After 25 years of pondering the whole hot mess the only conclusion I can come up with is Dean Knuth wanted the system to look more elaborate than it actually is and he wanted it to be confusing to everyday golfers. There's no other reason it would be presented this way.

>

 

I think you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill but agree that having the number presented to players wouldn't be a bad thing. Something that I have thought could be covered on the scorecard end in addition to the course rating and slope. Calling it a Multiplier may get you some wrath from someone overly dramatic since it is also a divisor to get the differential after a round is complete.

[Newby]

> @dcmidnight said:

> the caddie said they used a calculator to match the handicaps so their group could have a match with a group of R&A members from what I would consider in the US a chamber of commerce type thing. I didnt really care enough to ask more questions so I couldnt tell if he meant a calculator like an app - or an actual calculator - but the point was they made it work.

>

They may have applied a formula but it must have been one they invented themselves. Neither CONGU nor the USGA have got or ever produced such a formula or conversion tool.

 

 

 

[davep043]

> @"North Butte" said:

> The dude pranked the entire world of USGA Handicap holders with this crap. After 25 years of pondering the whole hot mess the only conclusion I can come up with is Dean Knuth wanted the system to look more elaborate than it actually is and he wanted it to be confusing to everyday golfers. There's no other reason it would be presented this way.

>

OK, so you don't like Knuth, you don't like the sway the Slope System is implemented, and no explanation will make you reconsider your opinions. I don't see much reason to continue any of that discussion. You don't care at all about having a worldwide system, its a complete waste of time and resources, and 99% of all players don't keep accurate handicaps anyway. For better or worse, organizations around the entire world are now accepting the Slope System, and are accepting some initial movement towards unifying handicaps. And at least at some clubs, the HUMANS are doing their best to make the handicaps accurate.

 

[North Butte]

Dave,

 

Yes I think that just about sums it up.

 

Knuth’s “prank” will now finally be forced onto the rest of the world and things will muddle along worldwide much as they have these past 30 years.

[Colin L]

> @"North Butte" said:

> Dave,

>

> Yes I think that just about sums it up.

>

> Knuth’s “prank” will now finally be forced onto the rest of the world and things will muddle along worldwide much as they have these past 30 years.

 

Forced? An emotive word. Perhaps the WHS will actually be embraced by some.