Lower differentials on tougher courses?

[Titleist84]

Trying to wrap my brain around this. Course rating and slope should take into account diffuculty of the course. But it seems like it is easier to obtain a lower differential on tougher courses. Why is this?

For example one course I play has a course rating of 66.3 and slope of 116. Another one has a course rating of 74.1 and slope of 136. Shooting par of 72 on both courses would result in differentials of 5.5 and -1.74. Seems like it is easier to play the tougher course and try to make par on every hole than it is to try and shoot 7 or 8 under par on the easier course.

[rogolf]

That's just the way the system works. Differentials are the difference between the gross score and course rating normalized to a slope of 113.

Differential = (gross score - course rating) x 113/slope rating

(ignoring a course playing condition adjustment)

We used to say that we could lower our handicap index by playing from the blues (longer, tougher) than the whites, which is the same as what you're saying.

[DaveLeeNC]

It depends on who you are. The pretty long but kind of inconsistent golfer will probably fare better on the 74.1/136 course (which is probably around 7200 yards). The very consistent and very senior golfer who struggles to maintain his 12 index because he can only hit his driver 190 yards will fare better on the shorter course. But each course only gets one set of #'s.

dave

[Shilgy]

I have heard that bit about playing back lowers your cap from some before as well. It depends on your game I would think. If you tend to reach but miss greens when playing from either set of tees you will likely score the same playing from either tee and thus lower your handicap playing back. If you struggle to reach greens from the further back tee and have more OB and lost balls trying to hit driver too far the opposite could happen.

[LeoLeo99]

I agree with your observation. My local dinky course is pretty easy. It's 5000 yds and a par 68. Not the best greens and they are tiny. Its rating is 61. That's a tall order to get down that low. That's a lot of birdies. I shoot 4 over par and my differential is 11 strokes!

[Augster]

Here is the easiest way to think about it. The course rating is what a scratch player is “supposed” to shoot 8/20 times to stay scratch.

On your first course, to be scratch, a player would have to shoot 66, which is -6, 8/20 rounds. Not many scratch players I know can do that. It’s just too many birdies.

On your other course the course rating is 74. So a scratch player would have to shoot 74, or +2, 8/20 rounds to be scratch. This is easier to do. You can have a bad putting day and shoot +2. You can’t have a bad putting day and shoot -6 in nearly all cases.

In conclusion, if you want your cap to go up, play forward tees for a while. If you want it to go down, play all the way back. If you have a decent short game, you’ll drop your cap much quicker playing further back. Getting up and down to save pars won’t really lower your cap when the CR is 66.

[DaveLeeNC]

I recall playing a Myrtle Beach area course at least a decade ago as a single. I ended up paired with a nice guy and it turned out that we had identical indexes (including the decimal place). So we had to play a match. My game was steady but (as compared to my index) I was a short hitter. He was pretty much the opposite as it turned out. So the question was which tees and the relevant choices were 6300 and 6800 yards. His statement was that both were 'in his range' but he was unlikely to be able to shoot his index from the shorter tees. And my statement was the opposite - I was unlikely to be able to shoot my index from the longer tees.

We played at 6800 and I lost.

dave

[SNIPERBBB]

A way to remember it is that your punished for playing poorly on easy ratings and rewarded for playing well on tougher ratings.

 

Lot of it is based on length, especially on par 5s . If you look at the mythical usga scratch golfer distances then look at the par 5s for each tee you can see where the strokes add up on the ratings.

[klebs01]

What course? At 5000y every hole is reachable in 1 on average. I would like to look at the course to see how doable 61 seems.

[SNIPERBBB]

Has to be an executive course/pitch n putt

[James the Hogan Fan]

My home course is 6850 from the tips and rated at 74.5/146. (And from the next set up 6400-72.4/141). Goes to show you can build an incredibly hard course without length, namely via small, rock hard elevated greens made of broccoli that if you miss you're dead.

That course is an excellent example of one where I personally should play the tips for handicap because length isn't much of a problem, but if my irons are off I'm in a fight to break 90. Teaches good wedge play though.

[Rapatt95]

I have this problem right now, the course I started my handicap at was 71.1/131 from the whites and 72.8/139 from the tips. My home course now is 70.6/121 from the whites where I generally play since that’s where my friends play from when we go together. No matter how tough or easy a course is, within reason, I shoot around 80. Because of this, when I started at the new course, my handicap was 4.4. Now it’s at 5.0 and is going to end up around 7 or 8 once I have a full 20 scores in at the new course.

 

Its sucks from a vanity perspective, but should help my handicap travel better so there’s at least that