Handicap What is Slope Rating System Handicap Handicapping is a system that was designed by the Scots in the early stages of golf so that good golfers could compete with weaker golfers on an even playing field. The reason for handicaps being developed was so that golfers could bet. But clearly this became a problem over time. You see, as golf progressed, more and more courses were built, people who set their handicaps on an easier course and then play on a harder course, found themselves behind a person who has the same handicap and established it on a harder course. This was a problem. What is Slope The USGA created Slope because players who developed handicaps playing on easy courses encountered problems in competing against players who formulated handicaps playing on difficult courses. Before Slope, golfers played with the same handicap on any course. Who would you rather have had as a partner: a player who earned his handicap playing the U.S. Open tees at Pebble Beach or the middle tees at Open Flats? Not a difficult question. Now, with Slope, two players with USGA Handicap Indexes of 18.0 can compete equitably no matter where they originally developed their Indexes. Slope is based on the difficulty of golf courses. Before Slope, the difficulty of any golf course was assessed entirely on one factor: distance. In other words, the longer the course, the higher was its Course Rating; this Course Rating was also based exclusively on the score of a scratch golfer. The Slope of a more difficult course-the gap between the score of a scratch player and a bogey golfer-is steeper than an easier course, producing a higher Slope. A Slope of 113 signifies a course of average difficulty; 155 is the highest possible Slope, while 55 is the lowest. Whatever the Slope, it simply means that players receive more strokes on a more difficult course and fewer strokes on an easier course. Plus weaker players receive more strokes than stronger players as course difficulty increases because the gap between their scores increases. The truth about Slope is that it allows players to move from one course to another and still enjoy a fair match, regardless of which course a player's Handicap Index was originally developed on. It's the best innovation yet to the present USGA Handicap System. Rating System The USGA course ratings are based on an expert's game. For example, an expert should play a course rated 70 in 70. He will play a course rated 75 in 75, or close to it. When an average player plays a difficult course, his score tends to rise more than the difference in course ratings. An 18-handicapper might shoot 105 on a course rated 75, for example. The Slope System alleviates this inequity. It also deals with the problem of the golfer who builds his handicap at a very difficult course and scores well below it when he travels to easier courses. By rating courses according to their relative difficulty for all levels of golfers. The Slope System adjusts a golfer's handicap to the course he's playing. This adjustment is based on a mathematical formula derived from plotting the scores of golfers of various handicaps on courses of varying difficulty. If one were to plot a graph of these scores for any given course, it would be a line which "slopes" up from left to right. Hence, the name. The steeper the slope, the higher the Slope Rating for that course.