applescrap
Be the ball!
Yep, long and straight! For us, we usually get one or the other. I will be sending gratuitous golf pics soon! Playing an easy going Nicklaus course manana.

Played at Gullane recently ( they have three courses, we only played on the second course, the first course is a bit pricier ) , first time playing in about two years. I only usually play with my dad and his knees have been bad for quite a while
It's a very good club, and if anyone visits scotland for golf I can recommend it, it's an easy trip out of edinburgh. Thanks to winter greens I managed 12+ which I was very pleased with as I tended to play 15+ on a good day when playing regularly lul . All three are links
here's a flyover
Taking a half day tomorrow to take advantage of the warm temps here in NYC and fit 18 in before the courses are overrun. Here’s hoping the rest of the city didn’t have the same idea!Hit a bucket this morning. Playing 18 8am tomorrow. Woot.
Bethpage?Taking a half day tomorrow to take advantage of the warm temps here in NYC and fit 18 in before the courses are overrun. Here’s hoping the rest of the city didn’t have the same idea!
Me too, woot, woot! Wish it was with you, only 3 hours away.Hit a bucket this morning. Playing 18 8am tomorrow. Woot.
I would love to, but my girlfriend is really anxious about playing Bethpage as we both are still in the 110+ camp. Probably Crab Meadow if I was to guess.Bethpage?
....still in the 110+ camp.
Me too, woot, woot! Wish it was with you, only 3 hours away.
Did the golf gods smite you? I warned you about taunting them.You didn't want to play with me this morning. Gads, what happened. Still, can't wait to get back out again!
I was lucky enough to play Bethpage Black just before they closed it down for the Open and tamed it down. It was actually tougher when I played it before they pruned down the overseeded rough. I played from the tips but they weren't the tips the pros played. Still some insane lengths.I would love to, but my girlfriend is really anxious about playing Bethpage as we both are still in the 110+ camp. Probably Crab Meadow if I was to guess.
Did the golf gods smite you? I warned you about taunting them.
Brew on![]()
It's pretty easy. Your handicap is based on a course of a slope around 124 and rating of 72 I believe. Both of these numbers can change due the uniqueness of the course/tees you're playing.Wish I was good enough to judge a course.
Thoae are a lot of words but I'll try and understand it. Thanks you sir!It's pretty easy. Your handicap is based on a course of a slope around 124 and rating of 72 I believe. Both of these numbers can change due the uniqueness of the course/tees you're playing.
Most people judge the difficulty of the course according to slope. So if the tees you play from is higher than 124 it's more difficult. If lower it's easier. The rating plays a little extra tweak too it. Normally it's around 72 give or take a point. It adjusts how much over par you should shoot based on your handicap. More times than not as slope is higher so is the rating.
So say you're a really good player with a handicap of 1. If the course has a rating of 72 and par is 72 you should shoot a 73 due to your handicap. You can think of rating as the same as par. As the slope increases or decreases it has a smaller impact on how u shoot to par. So if this course had a rating of 72 but a slope less than 124 you might be expected to shoot par due to the easiness of the slope. If the rating is higher than 124 you'd probably shoot higher than 73.
If you play on a course and tees that you really like check the slope and rating. When you visit a different course look for the tees that are similar to your home course tees. You'd be expected to shoot the same score. Maybe higher if the course is new to you. Or maybe if you want to move forward or back from your normal tees it will give you a feeling of how harder or easier it is to those tees
The ghin website has a calculator that you enter your handicap and the course rating and slope it will return what you're expected to shoot to par. So you can compare different tees of different courses to find out what you should shoot based upon the tees you play.
I really don't use the calculator. After a while you get a feeling of the numbers associated with rating and slope. You can play a course that has a really high slope of say 138 but if you notice the rating is like 68.9, I'd think it's a difficult course as long as you don't get in trouble due to the rating.
If I played a course with a slope of say 128 I'd initially think, easy course. But if I saw a rating of say 76. I'd think hmmm something's fishy here. Sounds like a shot makers course. It's an easy course if maybe I use irons off the tee. If you get in trouble on this easy sloped course you may be in jail due to the high rating which pushes you off that Par 76
Yardage you'll also notice has an impact on those numbers. Again you could find a very short course of say 6100 yds but high rating means shot maker. Yardage normally follows the higher ratings and sloped. There are odd quirky courses that play with these numbers. By understanding rating and slope you'll be able to describe and characterize courses.
Hopefully this makes sense as I typed it out on my phone. Golfdigest and golf.com has a good article explaining it too. It's fun to play tees that you may or may not want to punish yourself or fellow players ;-)
I was lucky enough to play Bethpage Black just before they closed it down for the Open and tamed it down. It was actually tougher when I played it before they pruned down the overseeded rough. I played from the tips but they weren't the tips the pros played. Still some insane lengths.
I haven't played the other four courses in the park. Lots of people have told me one of the other courses is better than Black. I forget which one.
From the scorecards on the website they are a lot easier than Black. Judging by the slope and rating they seem easy. All within the high 120's slope that handicaps are calculated by. So, what that means is it's an average difficulty course.
If you're in state it use to be incredible prices so close to the city.
Edit: oof. Actually I did a comparison with Crab Meadows rating. For the men all four other courses are comparable to Crab Meadows (Crab Meadows looks nice) HOWEVER, life for the gf may be difficult. Looks like it's challenging for the ladies.
After working in the industry for all those years you still don't understand golf? It's not about getting better. It's about telling your wife "bye" for 6hrs where she'll never find you while enjoying craft beers walking and/or riding on a big huge flucking lawn. Hitting a ball in a hole with stick is secondary. Shoot, if you try to get better that shaves time off the enjoyment! [emoji3]Golf. Hm. Would rather spend the time brewing I suppose. Thing is, I spent 19 years working at a golf company, designing dimple patterns among other things. We got to leave early one day a week to play. You never really get that much better playing only 9 holes a week.
I don't play golf and I had to like that post.After working in the industry for all those years you still don't understand golf? It's not about getting better. It's about telling your wife "bye" for 6hrs where she'll never find you while enjoying craft beers walking and/or riding on a big huge flucking lawn. Hitting a ball in a hole with stick is secondary. Shoot, if you try to get better that shaves time off the enjoyment! [emoji3]
Just out of college I played with a really good group of people. Pretty large group and at the end of the year we'd pick a really good end of the year course to travel to. The defacto game was always to see who would get into trouble with their significant other along with the tournament Plus drinking on the way out and back. Usually an all day/night affair. One of our friends had a real nut cracker of a fiance. Oddly divorced in two years.After working in the industry for all those years you still don't understand golf? It's not about getting better. It's about telling your wife "bye" for 6hrs where she'll never find you while enjoying craft beers walking and/or riding on a big huge flucking lawn. Hitting a ball in a hole with stick is secondary. Shoot, if you try to get better that shaves time off the enjoyment! [emoji3]
Yeah..kids...they don't do it right!Just out of college I played with a really good group of people. Pretty large group and at the end of the year we'd pick a really good end of the year course to travel to. The defacto game was always to see who would get into trouble with their significant other along with the tournament Plus drinking on the way out and back. Usually an all day/night affair. One of our friends had a real nut cracker of a fiance. Oddly divorced in two years.
You have to milk the "playing golf". We left 6am that day and got back the next day at 1am. The phone rings and we're waiting for it. It's the fiance. He starts with "well we played golf for 4 hrs". I immediately say "He's dead!" We could here the screaming as he tried to patch in the missing 15 hrs of the day. Say the golf took 8 hours! Then you have a chance