What grade is scratch?

[Richard Bates]

When talking about golf doesn't one have to take into account that "scratch" is somewhat open to interpretation and/or manipulation. Amateur courses are generally easier than professional courses, and most amateurs will get their handicap on amateur courses. And within the wide variety of amateur courses there are those which are significantly easier than others.

I suppose the best chess analogy would be of players who reach a certain grade/rating playing only in "amateur competitions" with such variety as lack of preparation time (and difficulty of preparation because games aren't available online), quicker time controls (of course the line is becoming increasingly blurred on this point thanks to FIDE), lack of importance given to the specific game given by opponents etc etc.

Of course the distinction can be much less clear-cut than in golf (not least because 'amateur' chess is arguably sometimes a better test of 'pure' chess ability - particularly in relation to points about preparation). Also it is not a simple matter, unlike in golf, of "those who only play 'amateur' chess will be "over-rated" - the differences can work in both directions. However it can potentially provide a guide, for example, as to why ECF grades do not always provide a good fit to FIDE ratings when using them to determine relative strengths between players. (this is something which will possibly become increasingly rarer now that FIDE rating results are no longer restricted to "professional" tournaments). I would argue it will increasingly make FIDE ratings rather unreliable - using them to compare those who play the majority of their games at 90' +30" vs those who only play at "classical" time controls (assuming they survive) will be dubious, but then how much does that REALLY matter?

[Alex Holowczak]

When talking about golf doesn't one have to take into account that "scratch" is somewhat open to interpretation and/or manipulation. Amateur courses are generally easier than professional courses, and most amateurs will get their handicap on amateur courses. And within the wide variety of amateur courses there are those which are significantly easier than others.

I made this point up-thread, and this was the reply:

Of course, the PGA Tour will be playing from the Championship tees, whereas you can get to scratch by only playing off the non-Championship tees. So +10 may even be a bit conservative.

Just to throw something else into the mix- handicaps are not based on the par score for the course. They are based on Standard Scratch Score which is closely related, but not identical to par. SSS adjusts for the relative difficulty of the course (eg several holes only just qualifying for par 4). SSS varies by the tee position selected and therefore, in theory, your conservatism is unjustified.

[Richard Bates]

When talking about golf doesn't one have to take into account that "scratch" is somewhat open to interpretation and/or manipulation. Amateur courses are generally easier than professional courses, and most amateurs will get their handicap on amateur courses. And within the wide variety of amateur courses there are those which are significantly easier than others.

I made this point up-thread, and this was the reply:

Of course, the PGA Tour will be playing from the Championship tees, whereas you can get to scratch by only playing off the non-Championship tees. So +10 may even be a bit conservative.

Just to throw something else into the mix- handicaps are not based on the par score for the course. They are based on Standard Scratch Score which is closely related, but not identical to par. SSS adjusts for the relative difficulty of the course (eg several holes only just qualifying for par 4). SSS varies by the tee position selected and therefore, in theory, your conservatism is unjustified.

Not being versed in the intricacies of calculating handicaps, but how sophisticated is this adjustment for relative difficulty? "Difficulty" is presumably more than just about length. I can see that it would be fairly easy to make adjustments for scores made on different tees on the same course. But how does one judge the difficulty of the course in the first place? Water, well-placed bunkers, severe rough, quality of greens etc etc. As i say i'm not at all versed in the handicap system, and presumably the system tries to cater for some of these things - but it would be surprising if there wasn't significant variation that couldn't be avoided.

[Michele Clack]

I've been looking at the English Golf Union website. There is a 23 page pdf which explains the SS course assessment procedure in great detail. The SS golfer is described in terms of specific abilities. Here's an excerpt

The Scratch Golfer
The EGU system is based on the abilities of the Scratch Golfer. This golfer should
be a consistent player who on average can be expected to drive 260 yards, hit a
fairway wood 240 yards, a seven iron 150 yards and average 2 putts on each
green. The key, however, is the accuracy and reasonable consistency the Scratch
Golfer has in hitting a ball into an expected Target Area. This Target Area allows
Rating teams to consistently assess hazards on the course in relation to the
length of shot being played. The longer the shot, the greater the size of target
area required. The following is an example of the Target Area a Scratch Golfer is
expected to find two thirds of the time:
25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300
Example:
Target Area for a Scratch Golfer at 150 yards is 15 yards wide x 16 yards in
depth (see Accuracy Table).
It is therefore imperative that the County Union Rating Team has a member that
is a low handicap golfer or has experience of scratch golf. Although a large
amount of the subjectivity has been removed from the system, there is always
the possibility that raters will assess the difficulty of the course relevant to their
own golfing ability. This must be avoided at all costs to ensure uniformity of
course rating throughout the country.

[Michele Clack]

I can see what you are saying about topslicing but the number of profressional standard players must be small compared with the total number of golf players who are members of a club and have a handicap. Just to take Redditch as an example, there are 3 golf clubs and probably anything from 1500 to 1800 registered golfers. This is from a town with a population of 80,000. So we were thinking in terms of the pros on the tour being the good and super gm equivalent and club pros being IM equivalent upto low level GM. We were assuming that the base level for an IM was 2400 so our guess at the SS player level isn't that much adrift of Paul's.

There is an ongoing process at the moment to get all golf clubs on the Conga handicap database but it's not complete. To official handicaps for their players though a club has to be affiliated to the EGU ( and to the EGWU of course but there is a merger in the offing), so someone must have the figures in some format. Frustratingly there doesn't seem to be any contact data on the EGU website. I'll keep looking.

[Michele Clack]

If you extrapolated Redditch's figures for golfers as a % of the population it would give you about 1.3 million registered golfers in Britain (this seems a bit high perhaps we are not typical). Then the 6500 figure for pros would be about 0.5% of the total number of golfers.

[Alistair Campbell]

Alistair, thanks, that is very interesting.

Hope the golf went well today!

Thanks – to quote an oft used phrase – I putted like a coo* - 38 putts, but 34 points and I won a bottle of whisky.

*for the non-golfer, there are very few bovines famous for their skill with the short stick

So American handicapping being different from UK handicapping probably makes stats based on the US a bit pointless for UK comparisons. Would an American scratch, then, be of a different standard to a British scratch? In theory, in practise, or neither?

In theory, and in practise, according to this blog, American scratch is easier:

http://tryingtobeascratchgolfer.blogspo ... dicap.html

Here’s some more chat

http://tryingtobeascratchgolfer.blogspo ... ulate.html

Alistair, one question. When you say "5 or less" does that mean "5.9 or less" or does it mean "5.0 or less”?

Neither – I mean playing handicap of 5 or less so that is 5.4 or less.

If I took that table (USGA), for instance, that gives 6.83 % being 4.9 or better and 3.25% being 2.9 or better. That is then somewhat different than your club's statistics. It would give "5" as being the equivalent of 185, rather than 191, and "3" as the equivalent of 197, rather than 215, which is obviously a big difference and I feel needs an explanation. (The USGA table matches somewhat closer to the ECF curve than your club.)

I suspect my club’s statistics are slightly unreliable. I looked at 463 male (mostly adult) golfers with handicaps of 28 or less at one moment in time. Of these 2 were scratch, 1 off 2, 1 off 3 and 7 off 4.

I was surprised at how few there were at that level, and suspect that it is historically on the low side. Basically I don’t have enough data for the tail of the distribution to be reliable.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'll make a fresh post to speculate as to why my club has so few "good" players.

There may be parallels to be drawn with other activities including chess.

To give a bit of background, golf (in Edinburgh, at least) is struggling for numbers. Twenty years ago, almost all clubs had both waiting lists and joining fees (on top of annual subscriptions). Now, you could virtually walk up to a club and join there and then with no fee.

I suspect this is due to a combination of a slight increase in supply and a bigger drop in demand.

On the supply side, one or two new courses have been built (although the Renaissance at allegedly £70,000 joining fee won't affect the mainstream), and some courses will have expanded their membership to increase income.

On the demand side:

there seem to be fewer players - not so many youngsters coming through to replace old codgers. (Sound familiar anyone?)

It is not that uncommon for people to be a member of more than one club (e.g. a parkland course in the city for summer play, and a (cheaper) links course down the course for all year round) but financial constraints may mean that has to be rationalised and one course is given up.

People are busier and play less - with alternatives such as magazine vouchers or pay and play courses, there is no longer the need to pay several hundred quid to join a course that you hardly play. The fact that a membership is easier to obtain means it is also easier to surrender.

As I said above, when checking entries for our championship I was surprised to see that quite a few familiar faces were missing. I don't know why this is, but it may be a temporary phenomenon and hence, just random fluctuation. I suspect that some have gone somewhere "better" (which is now easier) and some have become inactive. I further suspect that if you used to play off 2 you might be more inclined to give up, rather than play off 5; whereas if you played off 22 and are now off 25 you are not so fussed. (That is, the willingness to accept a weakening of your powers is inversely correlated with playing strength).

There is another possibility - our course was rerated about 4 years ago, and the SSS was reduced by 1. Effectively, this meant that overnight everyone's handicap would be expected to tend to rise by 1 (all things being equal). It may be that this increase was achieved more quickly by better players and hence there is a little bit of bunching at the lower handicaps - in other words - the 5s have become 6s, but the 6s have not yet become 7s.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Yes, Michelle, no doubt I am getting it all wrong. Apparently the world's best golfers would have a hypothetical handicap 10 strokes better than scratch, unless you are saying that is not true? But, anyway, I'm still searching for an answer to the question, what grade is scratch? I have a number of estimates lying between 220 and 180. Perhaps you can venture an estimate, with some justification for the estimate. I still reckon my best chance for a good answer is from someone who is highly proficient at both disciplines. Perhaps a new Biathlon style?

So after Boxing Chess and Diving Chess, we now have Golf Chess?

I have played golf in the past for many years (though not for the past few years), and one thing that makes it different from chess is that you have to take each hole as it comes. The aim is to get par (or better), but the level I was at the aim was more to get "+1" for each hole. i.e. I generally needed one more shot on each hole because I'd mess up somewhere on my way from tee to pin. If I messed up very badly, the score could be anything up to an awful 10 for that hole (as you hack away in some piece of rough or the ball keeps swerving off to the right or left into some annoying piece of sand or water). Then there is putting, where you should take only two putts to get down once on the green, but if the course is poorly maintained (common with pay-and-play course as opposed to expensive and exclusive membership courses), then you would struggle to make the single 'birdie' putts that you see professionals do on the perfectly manicured greens they play on.

Then there is equipment. So professionals have better equipment and better courses (though they are also put on harder tees as well). So it is not so easy to compare amateurs and professionals. I have known some amateur golfers get much better scores when put on good courses. The key, though, is practice, practice and more practice. Professionals have a perfectly tuned golf swing and can produce that swing time after time after time (there is some muscle memory effect at work here as well). Technique is ironed out by coaches and work on the driving range. And then you have caddies who help the professionals judge distance to the green and with club selection, and the best professionals walk over a course and take their own measurements before play.

Whether this all equates with the top-level training and preparation in chess, I don't know. Some of it is analogous, and some of it isn't. What I do know is that chess and golf have one thing in common: the amount of time it take to play a game or round. Four hours is a good approximation. Golf is undoubtedly healthier, but is more expensive. Golf widows is a common term in golf, and both pastimes feature understanding partners and family (if they don't play themselves) waiting for the player in question to come home from another whole afternoon or evening spent either hitting a small white ball around the countryside or moving pieces over a board of 64 squares...

This might explain why people that play both are rarely good at both? To answer Paul's question, I would equate scratch in golf at somewhere around FM/IM level in chess, with journeyman professionals being GMs and the top golfers earning a living on the Tours being the equivalent of the super-GMs playing in the world's top tournaments.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I've been looking at the English Golf Union website. There is a 23 page pdf which explains the SS course assessment procedure in great detail. The SS golfer is described in terms of specific abilities. Here's an excerpt

The Scratch Golfer
The EGU system is based on the abilities of the Scratch Golfer. This golfer should
be a consistent player who on average can be expected to drive 260 yards, hit a
fairway wood 240 yards, a seven iron 150 yards and average 2 putts on each
green. The key, however, is the accuracy and reasonable consistency the Scratch
Golfer has in hitting a ball into an expected Target Area.

This is very useful and relates to what I (as a relatively poor golfer, only able to consistently drive and hit irons about 60% of the time) was talking about. The key level in golf to reach is being able to hit the ball consistently. Fail to do that and you struggle to make any sort of impact.

[Alex Holowczak]

The key level in golf to reach is being able to hit the ball consistently. Fail to do that and you struggle to make any sort of impact.

If you can't hit the ball, you literally struggle to make any sort of impact.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The key level in golf to reach is being able to hit the ball consistently. Fail to do that and you struggle to make any sort of impact.

If you can't hit the ball, you literally struggle to make any sort of impact.

(insert the word 'straight' in the appropriate place - distance is important as well; it was only when I realised the need to use the arms and wrists to accelerate [smoothly] through the point of impact that the ball started actually going as far as it should - if you take four shots to get to the green on a long par five hole, you will still struggle to make par).

But to be literal, air shots are not that uncommon among beginners who get nervous on the first tee with everyone in the clubhouse watching. The trick is to have the presence of mind to: (a) pretend it was another practice swing; and (b) believe that you fooled anyone as you line up again to take the real shot.

The best tee shot I ever saw was one that was thinned to perfection so that it hit the women's tee marker and rebounded to end up 20 feet behind the player who hit the ball. Bit dangerous, but the funniest thing I ever saw. If anyone says that player was me, don't believe them.