My Game is Back!

Hey… To all the frustrated golfers of the world… everyone wants to improve their game …but not everyone can…and they haven’t a clue as to what is wrong with their game…they take lessons, practice and join the team of ‘range rats”...let me share my experience with you.

I was invited to join The Rating Committee for the Golf Association of Florida. Not only have I become a member of a fabulous hard working team of woman and men but, I’ve taken at least five strokes off my handicap…!!!

Allow me first to give you a brief but comprehensive definition of what goes into rating a golf course.

According to the USGA, a golf course rating is “the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for scratch golfers under normal course and weather conditions. It is expressed as strokes taken to one decimal place, and is based on yardage and other obstacles to the extent that they affect the scoring ability of a scratch golfer.”

An individual course does not determine its own course rating. That is done by more than 100 district, state and regional golf associations in accordance with procedures standardized by the USGA. When a golf course rating is required, a rating team is assigned to evaluate a yardage rating based on overall course yardage and effective playing length of a course given the amount of roll received on a tee shot, elevation changes, the number of doglegs that force lay-up shots and the prevailing wind.

The rating team also scores the obstacle on a golf course on a scale of 0 to 10, given the hindrance encountered by both a scratch player and a bogey player. Some of these obstacles include the topography of a course and the difficulty of stances required, the effective width of a fairway landing area off the tee, the size, shape and slope of the greens given the expected length of the approach shot, the difficulty involved in recovering from a shot in the rough. Also evaluated are bunkers, water hazards, trees and out-of-bounds and their effect on normal play. A final ingredient factored into the course rating stew is the mental effect on the player created by the existence of such obstacles.

The course rating is the scratch yardage rating modified by the obstacle factors represented numerically. The USGA also calculates a Slope Rating from the course ratings based on the performance of a bogey golfer….. Many calculations and a lot of consideration goes into golf course ratings which serve to make golf matches as fair as possible for golfers traveling from course to course.

Now I’ll tell you how the great experience of rating golf courses had affected my game.

I was a respectable golfer before I began to rate golf courses and I’ve not paid too much attention to my game however, now that I look ay golf courses differently, and with a more analytical eye, the years I have spent on the golf course has come to a new height. I play golf the smart way, not the super macho way!!!

After rating approximately eight golf courses, I now see when I play at my home course how my game has drastically changed. Why? Well, for example when the average respectable golfer plays what I call golf ‘for it golf’ you simply become this ‘train –wreck’ and ‘masterful destructionist’ on the golf course… all 18 holes you’re struggling to make that par.

Having analyzed almost every blade of grass on so many courses, I am amazed to see why as amateurs we need to play this game so conservatively. We should not go for it but rather lay-up and don’t use a driver on every hole. You know you can’t make it over the water anyway…our egos get smack in the center of our choices and there we strike out…and then until the end of the eighteenth hole, we struggle and struggle, hoping until that last putt that we’ll make a par !!!

This is NOT only called ‘golf course management’ but it’s called smart golf, and more importantly, playing every shot… shot by shot… never look at playing the entire hole.

Step up to the tee, look around and see what’s ahead of you. Analyze….hit 3 wood or driver? Then the next shot, the same routine, what do I do…and sometimes you need an iron shot on a par five as your second shot… well do it and figure it out…remember …shot by shot!!!!

You will see your scores will diminish its way to an amazing score. Just try this once and remember to play conservatively.. Become a smart golfer; allow your brains to play this game, not your ego!!!! Then let me know how you feel!

Bye for now and have a fun time … remember we’re not professionals…even a scratch golfer is not a professional. But the scratch golfer plays the game very differently than the bogie golfer…and that’s pretty darn good!!

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Barbara Levine
Golf Real Estate Professional