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New Men's Stroke Indexes For 2010 |
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The 6th hole is now ranked as the most difficult at Virginia Golf Club.
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| Over the past 18 months, Virginia has been conducting a thorough review of the men’s stroke indexes for each hole to ensure they reflect their true difficulty. |
| To do so, we created a database to record each score in a Saturday single stroke competition where the full course was being used (i.e. no shortened holes). |
| A total of 3,261 rounds were played between September 2008 and September 2009 in varying weather conditions. We felt that this was a sufficient number of rounds to be able to draw conclusions on the average difficulty of each hole. |
| There are no set rules regarding how stroke indexes are determined. It is up to each club to use a methodology which they feel is appropriate. |
| An analysis of the results highlighted how the strength of each hole is affected by a player’s ability. For example, relative to other holes: |
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A long par 3 is more difficult for a low marker than a high marker. The 9th was the toughest hole for players off a handicap of 5 or less but it was the 3rd easiest hole for players off a handicap of 20 or more. |
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A par 5 is more difficult for a high marker than a low marker. The 13th was the 8th toughest hole for players off a handicap of 20 or more but it was the easiest hole for players off a handicap of 5 or less. |
| Following much discussion, the Match Committee agreed that the best method would be to determine the average score on each hole for a player off a handicap of 18 or less. This provided a more “general” average which wasn’t skewed towards the abilities of low markers. |
| Further, the stroke indexes have been split evenly between the two nines. All odd index holes are on the front nine and all even index holes are on the back nine. Our rationale is that the front nine is slightly more difficult. The average score (for a player off a handicap of 18 or less) was found to be 0.6 more shots over par on the front nine. |
| Below is a table which outlines the new men’s stroke indexes. We think you’ll find the results very surprising. The two biggest changes relate to the 4th and 5th. Other changes of note include the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 11th and 13th. |
| The new stroke indexes will come into effect from Opening Weekend on 23-24 January 2010. New scorecards have been printed which will be unveiled on this date. We have also updated the local rules on the back of the new scorecards to help make things clearer. |
| If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to speak with a member of the Board or Match Committee. |
| Matthew Toomey. |
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Hole |
New
Index |
Average Over Par |
Old
Index |
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1 |
13 |
0.85 |
16 |
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2 |
3 |
1.10 |
2 |
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3 |
11 |
0.87 |
8 |
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4 |
17 |
0.72 |
10 |
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5 |
5 |
1.02 |
11 |
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6 |
1 |
1.16 |
4 |
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7 |
7 |
1.00 |
5 |
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8 |
15 |
0.75 |
15 |
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9 |
9 |
1.00 |
7 |
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10 |
10 |
0.82 |
12 |
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11 |
16 |
0.76 |
13 |
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12 |
18 |
0.66 |
18 |
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13 |
14 |
0.77 |
17 |
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14 |
8 |
0.88 |
9 |
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15 |
2 |
1.12 |
1 |
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16 |
12 |
0.80 |
14 |
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17 |
4 |
1.08 |
3 |
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18 |
6 |
0.98 |
6 |
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