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Fishman Dan
29th December 2005, 09:10 PM
Some of you might have read my rant about Ballina GC. Basically, who determines hole rating, and how?

At Ballina the index 18, 17 and 16 are all par 5's. My understanding was that it was rare for par 5's to be rated as the easiest (let alone the 3 easiest), because it basically requires 3 accurate shots.

The 10th is a very short par 5, granted. The 4th is longer, but would still require most hackers to play a PW in at least, and even then there's plenty of tree's to upset you.

Factor in there is a 300m downhill par 4 (17th) guarded by a single bunker (front-left) with a slight right-to-left (a 3w to the bend still only leaves 120m to the green), a 125m uphill par 3 (8th) guarded by 2 bunkers, among other fairly straight-forward holes.

markTHEblake
29th December 2005, 09:41 PM
It will be the match committee that makes this decision, and there is no formal rule how to do it. Despite what people have told me, The AGU does not privide a guide for this.

I have seen a few of different ways to do the Stroke Index. One was to take 20 golfers from each grade, load their hole by hole scores into a computer over a 3 month period, press a button and Voila! there you have a true index of easiest to hardest holes.

Other ways i have seen are either one or a combination of these,

- a dead reckoning of hardest hole to the easiest.

- even holes on the front, odd on the back.

- par 3's are always the easiest holes; ie automatically 15-18. (that way they dont have to do double indexing, like 2/22 to avoid players getting 2 shots on par 3's)

My Club has just done a combo of these three, and i dont agree with their reckoning at all. I get 3 of my 5 shots on Par 5's, which annoys me because it really hurts me in a Bogey event. On top of that a 200m par 3 i dont get a shot on, yet it rates #1 on my personal stroke index.

Par 5's are by far the easiest holes for a single figure golfer, long par 3's the hardest. Yet for the 20+ handicap it is more likely the exact opposite. Somewhere in all that you have to find a happy medium. at the end of the day its not going to make much difference if you play off 18.


The long and the short of it - Rafferty's Rules.

Courty
29th December 2005, 10:43 PM
I can only speak for my home course. The stroke indexes are based on  averaged scores (I have a feeling it is only A Grade scores  :? ).
It is definitely not odds & evens, because when I am playing off 5, I get 4 shots on the front 9, and 1 shot on the back. At Cairns, index 18 is a 467m par 5, 17 is the shortest par 3 (140m) on the course. The lowest ranked par 5 comes in at 11 on the index. I'm like Blakey though: I have more trouble on some of the holes I don't get shots on, than the ones I do. The index 1 hole is a longish par 4 but with little trouble to be found. I don't get it.  :?

3oneday
30th December 2005, 04:39 AM
I'm with Blakey, how the commitee at the time rated the difficulty of each hole is basically how it works.

There are always holes you feel you should get a shot on but don't, but then other golfers would feel they don't need a shot on that hole.

Did you par all the ones you rated easier ???

AndyP
30th December 2005, 03:35 PM
I wonder how often stroke indexes get re-analysed. Probably never.

Courty
30th December 2005, 03:58 PM
I wonder how often stroke indexes get re-analysed.  Probably never.

Whenever alterations are made to the course (at a minimum). :?

markTHEblake
1st January 2006, 08:11 AM
At emerald lakes, they have changed them 3 times in the last 4 years. But that's cos its a new course and they are trying to get em right.

once the course is established i see no reason to ever change them

drunken
2nd January 2006, 06:57 AM
Factor in there is a 300m downhill par 4 (17th) guarded by a single bunker (front-left) with a slight right-to-left (a 3w to the bend still only leaves 120m to the green).

Fish you might want to dig your brain a little deeper for that one. For starters it's about 380-290m. It's also UPHILL & has two bunkers, one on each side of the green. A 3w to the corner actually leaves you 150m in, the 150m marker is at the end of the corner. Oh and it's rated the 2nd hardest hole on the course. I would never argue with it's rating after playing the course for a few years.

Granted the Par 5's are all rated high, but I think it's approraite as none of them are very difficult. The 4th needs only a drive, a PW past the corner & you're left with about 90m in to the green.

The 10th is 450m downhill with only a slight bend at the very end, a simple & easy hole.

The 13th is rated as the 4th hardest, it's a pretty tough hole.

The 15th is fairly simple as well, it's only about 470m. Driver, 5 iron will get you past the corner and leave a PW in to the green.

After playing the course ALOT you will realise that the close to 400m par 4's are harder than 450-470m Par 5.


because it basically requires 3 accurate shots.

I don't actually agree with that. When you have short Par 5's with only slight bends and no fairway bunkers you don't need 3 great shots to get on or right next to the GIR.

Jarro
2nd January 2006, 07:11 AM
at my course we play the 5th hole par 4 411 meters as Index 2 .... then the 6th ... a par 4 414 meter as Index 1 .... 2 pretty tough holes back to back, then the 7th hole is a par 5 450 meter dead straight hole. Looks easy from the tee, but after playing 2 tough holes before it, the hole can easily eat you up because you think it's going to be an easy par (or birdie)

I'm sure hole ratings run together in some kind of order ..... with index 1 usually not far away from index 18  :-k

AndyP
2nd January 2006, 07:43 AM
I'm sure hole ratings run together in some kind of order ..... with index 1 usually not far away from index 18 :-k
I'm not sure why they would do that, jarro. I would think that each hole would be rated on it's own toughness, and not based on it's position relative to other indexes.

Having said that, Nambour GC has the 5th as index 1, and 6th as index 18.

Jarro
2nd January 2006, 07:45 AM
makes you wonder doesn't it

AndyP
2nd January 2006, 07:49 AM
makes you wonder doesn't it
Could be more because it was intentially designed that way, backing up a tough hole, with an easy hole?? Perhaps an architecture guru could tell us if this is common in design.

I can't argue with either of those indexes at Nambour. The 5th is a 400m+ par 4, with an uphill approach, that I always play as a par 5. The 6th is a 110m par 3.

Jarro
2nd January 2006, 07:54 AM
that 6th is pretty tricky if you miss the green though isn't it :wink:

i would've thought the 9th might have been a candidate for index 18 :?

Andrew
2nd January 2006, 08:12 AM
My old course did a survey of scores over a period of 3 months worth of comp rounds. The hole that averaged the hardest in comparison to par was rated #1, and so on down to #18. There was no consideration given to what order they fall, just how hard they were.

AndyP
3rd January 2006, 09:32 AM
that 6th is pretty tricky if you miss the green though isn't it  :wink:
If you miss it to the wrong side or by far enough, which I do way too often.
How bloody hard is it to hit a nine iron relatively straight? :(


i would've thought the 9th might have been a candidate for index 18  :?If you can hit your drives 250m and straight, then yes. There is OOB down the left though, bunkers to the right and nastiness over the back of the green.
I can't recall what index it is, but I know that it is not index 16, 17 or 18.

Jarro
3rd January 2006, 05:17 PM
i would've thought the 9th might have been a candidate for index 18  :?If you can hit your drives 250m and straight, then yes.  There is OOB down the left though, bunkers to the right and nastiness over the back of the green.
I can't recall what index it is, but I know that it is not index 16, 17 or 18.

i recall hitting my 19* rescue club on that tee to just past the big tree on the right. From there it was a little flop with my gap wedge for an easy 2 putt par.

Fishman Dan
3rd January 2006, 05:48 PM
Drunky, i'm not trying to bash Ballina, but you need to think again - the 17th is a downhill short par 4. You are thinking about the 16th - the uphill long-ish par 4. Sorry to correct you about your own course ;) Your 18th is a 160m par 3.

The 13th is a good hole, that water gets me every time. Good Risk/Reward with trying to lay up as close as you can to the water for 2. I would rate the the 14th as one of the easiest holes - 130m straight, bunker left/right front. Big open gap to run the ball in, no trouble except for OB 10-15 metres behind the hole.

I dislike the 16th intensely because i can never find my ball looking uphill into the sun with a billion overturned leaves. They all look like friggin' golf balls!! :roll:

...and the near 400m par 4's (there are several) do make this course tough. But it's more about the easier holes, no argument with the tougher ones.

drunken
3rd January 2006, 08:10 PM
HAHHAHAH

That'll teach me to try & respond intelligently to a post at 8am   :lol:

However I will suggest that you think about how many bunkers there are on the 17th....Front left, back left. It's shocker for lefties with a slice too as it tends to go straight into the trees on the left.

After thinking about it some more though, I do agree with you. It's one of the easier holes on the course. The four Par 3's are only a challange if you leave it short (particularly 3 & 8 as the bunkers can be difficult to get it close).

I would think that 17 is by far the easiest par 4 on the course, followed by the 2nd & 1st.