Course Rating

We are lucky for a small County, to have an excellent Rating Team with three fully qualified and experienced Lead Raters, four other newly qualified Lead Raters and five additional volunteers. We use the USGA Course Rating System which is the standard upon which WHS is built and has been in operation for both men and women for over 10 years.

The System is based on an accurate evaluation of the degree of difficulty of a course for both the scratch and bogey golfer so that a slope rating can be derived from the comparative difficulty of the course for the bogey golfer compared to the scratch golfer.

For Men a scratch player is defined as one with a zero handicap index who can hit a tee shot 250 yards and reach a 470 yard hole in two shots. A male bogey golfer is someone with a handicap index of approximately 20 who can hit a tee shot 200 yards and reach a 370 yard hole in two shots. For Women a scratch player is one with a zero handicap index who can hit a tee shot 210 yards and reach a 400 yard hole in two shots. A female bogey golfer is someone with a handicap index of 24 who can hit a tee shot 150 yards and reach a 280 yard hole in two shots.

Before a course can be visited by the County Team for a rating, the Club must ensure that they have all the necessary requirements in place. The Club will be notified and sent details of these requirements. They include an up-to-date measurement certificate provided by a reputable company and having fixed distance points in place at the Teeing Area.

After these criteria have been met, the Rating Team will spend a morning or afternoon at the Club evaluating and recording a mass of data gathered at each hole’s Teeing Area and Putting Green and at all landing zones for scratch and bogey golfers for both genders between these two points. This gives information on the effective playing length of each hole determined by such things as roll, lay-ups and elevation as well as the difficulty imposed by various obstacle factors in the landing zones such as penalty areas, extreme rough and bunkers. In all, five effective playing length corrections and ten obstacle factors are considered.

Once the information is gathered, it is uploaded into a software programme by the County Lead Raters, carefully checked by a County Regional Advisor and then sent to England Golf for input into a world-wide database and WHS. Clubs will then be sent an official Rating Certificate and can start using their new ratings on a date they specify.

At present, courses must be re-rated at least every ten years and the County will notify the Club when it is due a re-rate. This is a free service to Clubs as part of their ‘Affiliation Fee’. However, increasingly, Clubs are requesting new ratings for both genders from additional tee sets and this is placing an extra workload on our volunteers. In some cases this could be simply a desk-based exercise incurring no extra cost but, more often than not, it does require an extra visit for the team which needs to be funded by the Club.

In addition, Clubs should always notify the County Course Rating Lead when they make changes to their course. Many will have little or no effect on their ratings (adding or subtracting a few bunkers here and there) but some could make a notable difference like changing rough height alongside the fairway or significantly changing the length of one or more holes (particularly if these holes involve a lay-up or a dog-leg).

For more detailed information, particularly about a Club’s responsibilities, our recommendations for positioning of permanent fixed distance points and things to consider before having multiple tees rated, please contact Linda Brown: courserating@wiltshiregolf.org.

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