Opinion & Analysis

Squaring Things Up with Slope: A Not So Friendly Nassau

Published

9 years ago

Dec 19, 2016

We’re standing on the putting green, me and my new brother-in-law who thinks he’s a real shark. I’m looking over the scorecard. Belmont, it’s his home course. I’ve never seen it before.

“What’s slope?” I ask like an innocent fish. “144, what does that mean?”

“Oh, it’s something about how the course rates in this area. Something like that…”

He wants to play for money. I can tell. He’s making slow circles around me. His jaws are flexing like he smells chum. Not wanting to further the already great divide between families, I ask nicely, “How many will you give me?”

He makes a face like “What?” “Your sister says you play all the time. I thought you’d be giving me strokes. What’s your handicap, anyway?”

“Uh, 16,” I tell him.

“Oh, really?” The shark opens his mouth. Drool. “Okay, I’m a 10, I’ll give you three a side.” Pause. He tries to hide the smile, but his pointy teeth gleam in the sun. “A friendly 20?”

I’m good at what comes next. I pretend that my stomach turns over, squirting a cup or two of acid up into my esophageal whatever… I have that look like I’ve just been splayed out onto the chopping block. And the meat cleaver is poised to strike.

“Like, a $20 Nassau, you mean?”

“Yeah. Too rich for you? I can’t believe that.”

“Uh, no, but… Hey, let me get a coffee first,” I tell him, “got to steady my nerves.” And I head for the grill.

Part of my innocent dork routine is to have professional backup in place before the negotiation is complete, so I sneak into the pro shop and naively ask the preoccupied pro, “What’s ‘slope’ anyway?” The old guy pretends to be busy with some woman over at the hats. She’s not interested in what he’s selling and he turns back to me.

“Slope?” he asks.

“Yeah, slope. What is it? It’s on all the scorecards.”

“Oh,” he says, “it tells you how much elevation you’ll find on the course. You know, like the slope of the fairways.” And with that he goes off to the hats again.

I’ve asked this question a lot and this is probably one of the dumbest answers I’ve gotten. It doesn’t out-stupid the one I got from a lady once who told me that “it predicted whether or not the cart had enough battery to make the entire 18 holes.” But from a guy who should know, “slope of the fairways” was pretty dumb.

I saw a young assistant pro in the back room at a small messy desk toting up some numbers on a calculator. I leaned in the doorway and asked him.

“It tells you the relative difficulty of courses for a bogey golfer,” he says without looking up. (There you have it. Always ask the younger guy. The old guy’s too lazy or tired to bring himself up to date.)

“I’m a bogey golfer,” I tell him, “so what does this 144 mean to me?”

He turns and looks me over. “What’s your index?” he says. I just happened to know my Handicap Index because I see it every time I post a score on GHIN. “15.5,” I respond.

“OK.” He turns back to the calculator and says, “Your index is your traveling handicap. Since you’re here at Belmont and not at your home course, you take that traveling handicap of 15.5 and multiply it times the Belmont slope of 144, then divide by 113, and that gives you your handicap for Belmont.” He’s doing the calculation as he speaks and I see 19.75 light up the screen.

“You should play about 20-over par here,” he says and smiles, like, “Anything else?”

“Thanks,” I say, and head back out to the putting green to gaff the not so Great White one.

“Bro,” I smile, “I was just talking to the pro, let’s play for 50. But you have to give me 5 a side.”

He blanches. “No, really. This course is much harder than my home course, that’s what the 144 tells us, and my 16 translates to a 19.75 here. That’s four more than what you were offering. Shame on you. What do you say? 50?”

He stammers, “Wha.. whaddya mean five a side?”

“Well, that’s what the pro said,” I tell him again. The shark eyes are blank. He’s lost the scent: jaws frozen. “Well, OK, if you want to be really precise,” I continue, “you have to give me 9.75 strokes. Like 5 on the front and 4.75 on the back.”

“What?” Now his eyes look like they’re going in opposite directions. I think I’ve got him. “4.75?”

“Yeah,” I explain, “give me 0.75 on a hole, then if we tie the hole I win with a push. Just like in Blackjack.” His gills are pulsing, searching for oxygen. “Or, you can give me a quarter of a stroke on three different holes. Whaddya say?”

“I’m not giving you 9 or 10 strokes! Your sister says you’re really good.” He’s outraged.

“Oh, I thought you wanted a little action.” And I drop a couple of balls 3 feet from a hole and proceed to miss them badly: push, pull, push. The “relative” tries to think it over. But he’s dead in the water.

“Okay, look,” I continue, “if you don’t like the idea of 0.75 strokes, then just round if off: 5 on the front and 5 on the back. It’s the same thing.”

Not wanting to look like the manatee he really was, he eventually caved and agreed: $50 Nassau with five a side.

Now, whether or not he knew what slope was, I’ll never know. (And whether or not I’m really a 16, you’ll never know.) What I do know is that he thought he could use his home course advantage to take my money. But by squaring things up with slope, I got into his head in a major way. He spent the first nine cussing to himself and the back going totally to pieces.

He balked at the 2-down automatic press on the front and for the 18, and positively refused it on the back. So I only wound up taking $250 from him.

Welcome to the family. And pay attention to the slope.

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18 Comments

ButchT

Dec 21, 2016 at 10:06 am

I appreciate learning how to use “slope.”

Reply Report comment
Ben Richards

Dec 20, 2016 at 9:20 pm

Whoever green-lighted this article should be fired. This goes down as the worst article ever written on Golfwrx. That’s tough to do considering there have been a lot of bad ones in the past (many, many good ones too).

Reply Report comment
Scott

Dec 20, 2016 at 3:32 pm

I am sorry, I have to call BS. A pro would never say that you are a 19.75 on the course today, unless you were playing some type of tournament which used a percent of the handicap. A course handicap calculator would have said 20. If the point of the article is to make sure that you are using handicaps and not indexes when you are betting then mission accomplished. I feel bad for every member of that course to have 2 clueless pros wondering around trying to hawk lessons and shirts.

Reply Report comment
8thehardway

Dec 20, 2016 at 9:47 am

You just furthered “the already great divide between families” and your poor sister’s gonna be stuck defending you to her sore loser husband for years. Divorce is inevitable but next go-around, be kind and go for the long con instead.

Reply Report comment
TheCityGame

Dec 20, 2016 at 9:40 am

Can we count the ways this article makes no sense?

1) As part of your innocent dork act, you ask 2 pros what slope means without your BIL there?

2) You think you could get 19.75 strokes, so you clearly still don’t understand how a course handicap is calculated.

3) You adjust YOUR handicap/index but not your BIL’s handicap index after learning what slope means.

4) One pro doesn’t know what slope is. One pro tells you you’re a 19.75 and should shoot about 20 over PAR here. No, you should shoot about 20 over the COURSE RATING (or to be precise, the 10 best of your last 20 should average about 20 over the course rating).

5) BIL agreed to play for 6 stokes, $20 nassau, but you come out of the clubhouse and counter-offer 10 strokes, $50 nassau and he’s ok with this.

6) You have a $50 nassau, and he balks at the automatic presses, so (a) clearly the presses weren’t automatic and (b) how did a $50 nassau get to $250 if there weren’t any presses?

7) “Whether or not I’m really a 16, you’re never know”. Are you suggesting you lied to your new brother in law about your index? “Welcome to the family”, indeed. Sounds like a really nice family.

8) I’m leaving stuff out because I thought I was getting a little nit-picky.

Reply Report comment
- Harry
  
  Dec 21, 2016 at 1:49 pm
  
  If this was the BIL home course then his handicap is 10 like he said.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - Phil
    
    Dec 21, 2016 at 6:50 pm
    
    Nope – my handicap and my course handicap are totally different things. The article does not state that his BIL is referring to his course handicap as most people don’t. In fact, the article is pointing out that people should be using course handicap instead of just handicap.
    
    Reply Report comment
baddomes

Dec 20, 2016 at 9:39 am

I’ve been waiting almost a month for the second Jim Baffico article! I thought Jim Baffico was done writing articles! I’m glad he’s not!

Thanks Jim!

Reply Report comment
me

Dec 20, 2016 at 9:10 am

This is pure garbage.

Reply Report comment
Dill Pickleson

Dec 20, 2016 at 3:30 am

so, you’re a cheat. this is why i only play scratch and i’ll give away advantage to better golfers. at least i have my honor. but, certainly won’t be betting $50 with an over-eager 15.5 hdcp.

this is also why i avoid stableford competitions.

Reply Report comment
Double Mocha Man

Dec 19, 2016 at 8:13 pm

I refuse any money rounds where I need to take my accountant along…

Reply Report comment
Tom

Dec 19, 2016 at 2:57 pm

Loved the article, reminds me of a typical weekend at my course. What’s with the 25+ shanks…. too complicated for ya?

Reply Report comment
- Phil
  
  Dec 19, 2016 at 7:54 pm
  
  I suspect the shanks is because he applied the slope rating to his handicap and conveniently failed to do so for his brother-in-law. He was only entitled to 7.75 strokes at best, not 10. And the deliberate missing of 3 foot putts. Lets face it – his brother-in-law never had a chance with a shark like this guy.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - Double Mocha Man
    
    Dec 20, 2016 at 2:06 pm
    
    But his brother-in-law sounded like the shark in the first place. A little comeuppance never hurts an egotistical guy.
    
    Reply Report comment
Charlie

Dec 19, 2016 at 1:00 pm

Play from the correct tees and a set amount of money per hole.

Reply Report comment
Pbar23

Dec 19, 2016 at 10:34 am

My question regarding this is when your index is a 0.0. In this case nothing ever changes for you regardless of slope because based on the equation it will always be 0. Now if you were a plus handicap then you would help in your favor. If you were a +1.5 at a 144 slope you would essentially play to a +1.1 (in the equation I am using a negative number for the index so 144 x -1.5= -216/113 =1.9 therefore take the .4 difference and subtract it from the 1.5). So my question is should the ability to have an index of 0 be possible or should it always be some form of a fractional number?

Reply Report comment
- Eddie
  
  Dec 19, 2016 at 12:18 pm
  
  Yes, it is possible to have a 0.0 index. However, to have a differential of 0.0 for the round, the rating would need to be a whole number and you would need to shoot that exact number.
  
  Differential calculation is [[Score-Course Rating] x Slope]÷113
  
  So if you shot a 74 from the white tees at Bethpage Black (74 rating / 145 slope), your handicap differential for the round would be [[74-74] x 145]÷113=0.0.
  
  Had you shot 74 from the back tees at Bethpage Black (78.1/152), your differential for the round would have been [[74-78.1]x152]÷113= -5.5
  
  Reply Report comment
- George
  
  Dec 21, 2016 at 7:47 am
  
  Actually, if you have an index of +1.5 you’d have a course Hcp of 144/113*1.5=1.9. If you would have a course Hcp of 1.5 you’d have an index of 1.5/144*113=1.2. If I understand The US Hcp system.
  Over here in Europe the CR goes into the equation, too. So your course Hcp would be Slope/113*index-CR+Par
  E.g. On a course with Slope 144 and CR 73.1 and Par 72 you’d have a course hcp 144/113*1.5-73.1+72=+0.8 or +1
  
  Our player from the article would have a course hcp of -20.85 or -21
  
  Reply Report comment

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