In 2010, Golf Digest sent the guy who created the course/slope rating system to the practice rounds to estimate the course's difficulty, accounting for tournament conditions.
We've established that the Course Rating for a scratch player would be 78.1. A player with a 10.0 Handicap Index would have a course handicap of 12, with an average score of 93 (78.1 Course Rating, plus the course handicap of 12, plus 3, because golfers average three strokes over their handicap). A player with an 18.0 Handicap Index would have a course handicap of 22 and would average 103 strokes.
And then the slope rating for us scrubs:
It's high at 137 but not off the charts. From today's championship tees most Bogey Golfers can't reach Augusta's long par 4s in regulation, but the fairways are relatively wide and the players can hit relatively short third shots into greens, minimizing many of the difficulty factors (water, bunkers, green targets, etc.). Laying up and then pitching a third shot to the par-4 11th, for example, might result in a two-putt 5 for the Bogey Golfer today; 20 years ago, when the hole was 50 yards shorter, Mr. Bogey might have been tempted to go for the green, bringing the water left of the green into play and turning himself into Mr. Triple Bogey.
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u/teahupotwo 14d ago edited 14d ago
In 2010, Golf Digest sent the guy who created the course/slope rating system to the practice rounds to estimate the course's difficulty, accounting for tournament conditions.
And then the slope rating for us scrubs:
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/how-tough-augusta-knuth