Handicaps & Course Rating | Oregon Golf Association

Handicap Hub: Real Handicap Indexes vs. Other Creative Calculations

08/15/18 —

By Kelly Neely, Sr. Director, Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Handicap Hub Archives While never really surprised at most folks’ reluctance to embrace math when discussing handicapping (or really any time, for that matter), I’m always a bit surprised why anyone would want to deviate from USGA Handicap Indexes and manufacture other types of handicaps for league play or tournaments. Usually this will come up in phone conversations when I’m asked for recommendations about handicaps for various formats, or otherwise engaged in philosophical discussions regarding sandbagging (it’s...

08/01/18 —

By Gretchen Yoder, Manager of Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Most Interesting Holes Series Archives Seventeenth in our OGA series about the Most Interesting Holes is the 15th hole at Brasada Canyons. Brasada Canyon’s 15th hole is a par 4 with tees at 377, 333, 292 and 260. Take a moment to breath in the beautiful view, and then get to work. If I was ever asked to define the term “risk/reward” I might put up a picture of this golf hole. Each tee has its own set of challenges. Golfers could choose to lay up to nice wide fairway landing zones or hit long shots over the native...

07/15/18 —

Part III: The USGA Handicap System and (vs.?) the Rules of Golf By Kelly Neely, Sr. Director, Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Handicap Hub Archives This is article No. 3 in a series of Handicapping Head-Scratchers – procedures within the USGA Handicap System that puzzle and perplex. Looking for clarity? We can help. Forgive me if I’m about to use a poor philosophical analogy, but if the Handicap System and the Rules of Golf are roads, are they in completely different locations, many miles apart? Or are they running parallel; sometimes merging, sometimes veering off from each...

07/01/18 —

By Gretchen Yoder, Manager of Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Most Interesting Holes Series Archives Tied for fifteenth in our OGA series about the Most Interesting Holes is the 16th hole at Forest Hills Golf Course. The 16th hole is a slight dogleg right par 4, over water, with tees at 376, 348 and 315 yards. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. The drive off every tee is to a blind landing zone for anyone who can hit more than 150 yards. A slight dip in the fairway becomes a sharp downhill lie, to the nice flat landing area that is not much deeper than your average green. Longer...

06/15/18 —

Part II: Golfers Playing From Different Tees By Kelly Neely, Sr. Director, Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Handicap Hub Archives This is article No. 2 in a series of Handicapping Head-Scratchers – procedures within the USGA Handicap System that puzzle and perplex. Looking for clarity? We can help. Not sure what the driving reasons are – whether concurring with the USGA and PGA of America’s “Tee it Forward” campaign, or realizing that shorter distance equals more success and smiling on the course – but I’m thankful that more golfers are gladly moving up to a forward tee. There...

06/01/18 —

By Gretchen Yoder, Manager of Handicapping & Course Rating Tied for fifteenth in our OGA series about the Most Interesting Holes is the 15th hole at Old Macdonald. The 15th hole is a slight right dogleg par 5 with tees at 535, 482, 424, 340 and 313 yards. Playing from elevated tees one can see the bunker trouble and difficult rough on the right side. Designed by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina, Bandon’s fourth 18-hole course is meant to pay homage to Charles Blair Macdonald. Hole 15 is planned with a nod to #18 at Southampton New York’s National Golf Links. As with many of the holes on Old Mac,...

05/14/18 —

Part I: Reduction of Indexes Due to Exceptional T-Scores By Kelly Neely, Sr. Director, Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Handicap Hub Archives This is article No. 1 in a series of Handicapping Head-Scratchers – procedures within the USGA Handicap System that puzzle and perplex. Looking for clarity? We can help. Ah, spring at the Oregon Golf Association; the air is full of the heavy hum of mowers and the satisfying crack of golf balls being hit. But there’s another familiar sound ringing in my ears, and that is the phone – especially on the 1st and the 15th (Happy Handicap...

05/01/18 —

By Gretchen Yoder, Manager of Handicapping & Course Rating Fourteenth in the OGA's series about the Most Interesting Holes is the 13th hole at Ocean Dunes Golf Links. The 13th hole is a dogleg par 4 with tees at 341, 364 and 384 yards. It sure looks tempting from the elevated tees to hit over the dunes and go for a shorter shot to the green, but there is a reason this hole is called “Deception”. A quick search for a ball hit left of the fairway would find only OB. A ball hit straight at the green from the tee would have to carry about 285 yards just to reach grass. That’s not even...

04/13/18 —

By Kelly Neely, Sr. Director, Handicapping & Course Rating Click Here for Handicap Hub Archives If you’re a curious person – which I assume most golfers are, since this game is nothing if not complex – you’re going to want to know how your handicap is calculated. Notice I didn’t say that you’re going to want to calculate it yourself. Thankfully those days are long past, and we’ve got clever, modern processes to take care of the number crunching. But if you’re a nuts and bolts golfer and like details, it helps to know the method behind the madness of a USGA Handicap Index. Besides, you can...

04/01/18 —

By Gretchen Yoder, Manager of Handicapping & Course Rating Thirteenth in our OGA series about the Most Interesting Holes is the No. 9 hole at Broken Top Club. The ninth hole at Broken Top is a short dogleg par 4 with tees at 356/332/298/268 yards, but don’t let the lack of length fool you. For those of you who follow golf course designers, this hole is the epitome of a Tom Weiskopf “risk/reward” hole. When he left the tour to go into course design, Tom decided he would implement at least one reachable par 4 on each golf course he designed. The concept of the drivable par 4 is appealing...