Day 88 - No Slope

The golf handicapping system in the UK is administered by the Council of Golf Unions, commonly called CONGU. Most of the rest of the world operates under a different American system, under the USGA.  There are a number of differences between the two models. One of them is that in the UK, only scores that are recorded in competitions qualify for handicap purposes, whereas under the USGA version every score played is logged and the best 10 of the last 20 are used for the calculation.

Another major difference is that, under the USGA system, every tee position on every course has a separately calculated difficulty rating, whereas in the UK there is essentially no difference at all between a handicap gained on an easy or more difficult course.  The system the US uses compares how the courses play for scratch and bogey golfers and then draws a line between them, called a "slope" - hence the Slope System.

This Slope system uses a whole range of measurements for its calculation, including: size of greens, length of carry, tree cover and even psychological factors. I have read the (inch-thick) manual and it is remarkably sophisticated.  The UK plan to adopt the same system as the rest of the world by 2020, as it will takes this long to get the 2,500+ courses properly mapped.

Being in possession of a US handicap in addition to my UK one, I have always been interested in the two systems and was very pleased when invited to attend a training seminar for course evaluators which was held at Burhill today.

Unfortunately, it was not to be: I wasn't feeling 100% today and instead spent the morning under medical supervision.  I shall have to sign up for the next course...