What's your club slope?

One of my playing group was talking about the new handicap system and the fact that the "slope" of the course will be used. Don't ask me to explain what that is. But I found a website that shows the slope of a number of courses in the UK. HERE. I would suggest just putting a value in the country and then in the State box. Don't type it in, there are drop down boxes.
The range is from 55 (easy) through 113 (average) to 155 (tough). My course came out at 125 off the whites. Wentworth Championship is 153. Not all courses are listed and I don't know how up to date it is, as a lot of courses were re rated recently.

My Suffolk course is 135 off the back tees. My Essex course is 131

Interesting. My place is at 133 (back) and 126 (front).

The slope rating is a total joke.
I looked up a number of course which are much harder than The Old Course and none were ose to the slope rating of the immensely easy TOC.

I will nominate it as a supplementary round next time I play TOC, handicap will come down loads.

Super

What is the situation for visitors like on TOC at the moment? I am thinking of playing it in the next month.

Any chance you could get me and a mate on?

super_realist wrote:The slope rating is a total joke.
I looked up a number of course which are much harder than The Old Course and none were ose to the slope rating of the immensely easy TOC.

To be fair, they aren't talking Tour Pro ratings and you're a regular, know the do's and don'ts and playing to very low single figures. I've played it twice in my time, both in a breeze, and didn't find it that easy. Sure, not absurdly penal, but definitely not easy.

navyblueshorts wrote:

super_realist wrote:The slope rating is a total joke.
I looked up a number of course which are much harder than The Old Course and none were ose to the slope rating of the immensely easy TOC.

To be fair, they aren't talking Tour Pro ratings and you're a regular, know the do's and don'ts and playing to very low single figures. I've played it twice in my time, both in a breeze, and didn't find it that easy. Sure, not absurdly penal, but definitely not easy.

I've seen someone shank it off the 8th tee and still hit the green.
On many other courses if you miss the fairway, you're in trouble, on TOC you can not only miss the fairway, but you can actually miss the adjacent fairway and miss the course and end up on one of the others.
It's not a difficult course under any measure, and I don't believe that weather (it's only defence) is a constituent of the slope rating.

McLaren wrote:Super

What is the situation for visitors like on TOC at the moment? I am thinking of playing it in the next month.

Any chance you could get me and a mate on?

Judging by the ballot and the people on it from abroad and other clubs you can visit it.
It's actually great at the moment because there's no Yanks slowing the place up or Japanese golfers running out of balls.

And what about you getting me on as a members guest?

McLaren wrote:And what about you getting me on as a members guest?

We shall see Mac. Would you not get a nosebleed going that far north?

I can make an exception for the best course in the world.

McLaren wrote:I can make an exception for the best course in the world.

You mean you would abandon you principles and play golf with someone who didn't share your political views?

super_realist wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

super_realist wrote:The slope rating is a total joke.
I looked up a number of course which are much harder than The Old Course and none were ose to the slope rating of the immensely easy TOC.

To be fair, they aren't talking Tour Pro ratings and you're a regular, know the do's and don'ts and playing to very low single figures. I've played it twice in my time, both in a breeze, and didn't find it that easy. Sure, not absurdly penal, but definitely not easy.

I've seen someone shank it off the  8th tee and still hit the green.
On many other courses if you miss the fairway, you're in trouble, on TOC you can not only miss the fairway, but you can actually miss the adjacent fairway and miss the course and end up on one of the others.
It's not a difficult course under any measure, and I don't believe that weather (it's only defence) is a constituent of the slope rating.

Your view. I've been Cat 1 for quite some time and was on both times I played it, and they weren't off any comp blocks. I can only state what I felt on those two days. To be fair, can't recall what state my game was in on either occasion!

To get back to the subject matter, our course Slope rating is 115 so at last when visitors come to play matches or at Opens they will be penalised and when we go away, we’ll get shots back!

Super

The whole point of TOC is that it offers a strategic puzzle, in terms of finding the best angles to approach the greens. Based on your shot type and what putts you want to leave yourself. You have probably played it enough times now that the puzzle of TOC is second nature to you. The subtleties of the course are embedded in your mind. For the rest of us we still have to plot our way around and with the wrong choice of shots can make the day pretty hard for us.

It is all very well saying you can go way wide and still hit the ball but often that leaves you with a shot that is impossible to get onto the green, even if you are playing the EA Tiger woods game.

McLaren wrote:Super

The whole point of TOC is that it offers a strategic puzzle, in terms of finding the best angles to approach the greens. Based on your shot type and what putts you want to leave yourself. You have probably played it enough times now that the puzzle of TOC is second nature to you. The subtleties of the course are embedded in your mind. For the rest of us we still have to plot our way around and with the wrong choice of shots can make the day pretty hard for us.

It is all very well saying you can go way wide and still hit the ball but often that leaves you with a shot that is impossible to get onto the green, even if you are playing the EA Tiger woods game.

The "subtleties" of the course as you put it are no longer a relevant part of the course and haven't been for a very long time.

There is virtually nothing challenging about any hole. I played it quite recently and the longest club I hit was a six iron into 17. There are simply too many holes where you hit driver or even a three wood and the flick of a wedge (1,3,4,6,7,9,10,12,16,18) and that's me as someone of average length.  
It simply doesn't test your whole bag of clubs the way that other Fife course do, even on the rare occasion you miss a TOC green, you are mostly still putting. It's why the majority of St Andrews players have such weak short games and get shown up elsewhere because chips and pitches are shots they simply don't have to play much.

If TOC has a slope rating of 132 as it does than places like Lundin, Crail, Ladybank, Elie, Scotscraig, Leven, Kingsbarns, Castle etc should be much higher. I think that it would be detrimental to the reputation of The Old Course to give it the much lower slope rating that it actually merits which is probably why it is high rather than how difficult it actually is.

You need to look at both slope rating & the course rating.