Course and Slope Rating
Course Rating
Course Rating represents the difficulty of a golf course for a scratch golfer (0 handicap), calculated to the nearest 0.1.
Worfield's Course Ratings are :-
Teeing Area Scratch Golfer Bogey Golfer
White tees (Gents) 72.5 97.3
Yellow tees (Gents) 71.6 95.8
Red tees (Ladies) 74.4 105.1
Slope Rating
Slope Rating represents the relative difficulty of a course for a bogey golfer (approx 22 handicap) compared to a scratch golfer (0 handicap).
A course with long carries, narrow fairways, lots of hazards and thick rough will have a high slope rating because these features are more of a challenge to bogey golfers. Slope Rating can be anywhere between 55 and 155. The neutral value that is used in handicap calculations is fixed at 113. The GB&I average Slope Rating is around 125.
Worfield's Slope Ratings are :-
White tees (Gents) 134
Yellow tees (Gents) 130
Red tees (Ladies) 130
A golfer's handicap for a specific course is determined by multiplying their Handicap Index by the Slope Rating of the course/tees and dividing by the Neutral Slope Rating of 113. For actual examples using Worfield slope ratings, see image #9 on this page for various handicaps playing on the White, Yellow & Red tees.
There will be conversion charts available at each golf club and Apps for your phone, so the good news is that you won't need to do the calculations yourself !!!
Click here to see a video about Course & Slope Rating
For the inquisitive and the technically minded there is more information about how the Slope Ratings for Worfield were calculated see the next section below, otherise skip over it.
How the Worfield Slope Ratings were calculated
A male scratch golfer is defined as someone who hits the ball about 250 yards with a driver and 230 yards with a fairway wood. The England Golf course assessors calculated that a male scratch golfer should average 73 strokes from the white tees at Worfield. This is the Course Rating for White tees.
A male bogey golfer is defined as a typical 20 handicapper who hits the ball about 200 yards with a driver and 170 yards with a fairway wood. The assessors calculated that the average score for a male bogey golfer would be 98 strokes. This is the Bogey Rating for White tees.
Subtracting the Scratch Rating from the Bogey Rating and multiplying by a Constant of 5.381 gives the Slope Rating of 134 for White tees.
A female scratch golfer is defined as someone who hits the ball about 210 yards with a driver and 170 yards with a fairway wood. The England Golf course assessors calculated that a female scratch golfer should average 75 strokes from the red tees at Worfield. This is the Course Rating for Red tees.
A female bogey golfer is defined as a typical 24 handicapper who hits the ball about 150 yards with a driver and 130 yards with a fairway wood. The assessors calculated that the average score for a female bogey golfer would be 106 strokes. This is the Bogey Rating for Red tees.
Subtracting the scratch rating from the bogey rating and multiplying by a Constant of 4.240 gives the Slope Rating of 130.
The eagle eyed amongst you may do the maths, note that the exact figures are used and the result is always rounded up to produce the slope rating for each teeing area..