What's Your Handicap?

    What's your handicap index? Some people don't worry about establishing a handicap at a local golf course or associate organization, and I can understand many of the reasons why.  I won't go into that at this point, it is not important.  However, it is good to know how you stack up as far as your game goes with the rest of the golfing public.
     I admit that I have let mine lapse.  One simple reason is that I am not playing as much golf today as I was five years ago. Another reason is my move from Fresno to Merced.  At this point, I haven't joined a club here although I will sometime this year or maybe next. I very much miss competing in tournaments on the local club level and want to return to doing that.  First, I have to re-establish my handicap and then I will play tournaments again.
     Do you know what your handicap index means and how you arrive at a particular course handicap.  Many golfers don't, they just establish a number. I will try to explain it as briefly as I can.  You post your score to an organization called GHIN on the course computer. I have never found out  what GHIN stands for, I just know that they are the handicap people.  It's not that important. After 20 rounds the computer takes the scores of those twenty rounds and calculates, using a devised formula your golf index. My last one was 18.4, I think.
     The area or state golf associations are responsible for what is known as rating the golf courses.  Our organization in this part of California is as many know The Northern California Golf Association.  They send out a team of golfers to play a given course to establish that course's rating depending on how hard the course is to play. After they play the course, they go over the course hole by hole and agree on a degree of difficulty of the course and then what is known as a "slope" is calculated for that course.
    Sometimes I find this "slope" number a bit arbitrary and subjective because I have played courses in  Northern California and courses in Southern California which are similar in difficulty, but the slopes are very different.  It seems that courses are rated easier than they truly are in the south than they are in the north. That's only my opinion, however. The ratings depend on the raters and what they agree to, so the numbers are different and may differ from one rating session to the next a few years later. Different raters using the same criteria may rate a course differently.
    Slopes are assigned to the different courses and slope numbers can range between 50 to 150 depending on the rating given by the ratings committee. From there it is simple.  The golfer finds the slope chart for that course and the tees that he or she played, looks up their index and there is your course handicap.
    For example let's take my 18.4 index.  I go to the course slope chart for the white tees and find that the slope of the course is 123.  I go down the chart to find the range of my index where 18.4 lies to find my course handicap.  I find that is is 19 for that particular course. That's my course handicap.  That was simple, wasn't it?
     That's all I have for today. I hope that I haven't insulted anyone's intelligence by this simple explanation of the index/handicap system. Many of you do know it. In the meantime, visit my website at http://golfisforeveryonemd.com.  I have put up a couple of new U-tube videos that I am quite proud of. Take a look. so, for now hit 'em long and straight.  Don't leave that birdie putt short.

OK, how would you rate this hole?  A par 6, downhill to a slightly elevated green.  Yep, it's number 18 at Lake Chabot in Oakland.