What grade is scratch?

[Paul Cooksey]

Are there any Fide Masters, who also happen to be scratch golfers?

Not that I know personally. I believe GM Arkell plays golf, but don't know his standard.

One FM, who isn't much of a golfer but whose anonymity I'll preserve, once told me that he played both golf and chess to ensure a happy retirement. His reasoning being, he knew at some point either his brain or his body would pack up. Looking around the chess club, he saw he would still be welcome if his body packed up. Looking around the golf club...

[Michele Clack]

I think you are getting a bit confused over the definition of a scratch player. Each course is assessed for difficulty and given a standard scratch rating. The course SS may be the same as, more than or less than the par of the course. In allocating this SS for the course the formula they use is supposed to represent the average score taken over many games that a Standard Scratch player would take on that course. So effectively the SS player has a handicap of 0.

Unfortunately I don't know the exact formula used but professional players would be on average several shots better than SS. If you watch a golf tournament on TV you will often hear references to the Members Tees. Particularly difficult courses are used for tournaments and they move tees back and adopt really difficult pin positions and still someone will win on say -12 over 4 rounds.

[Paul McKeown]

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?

[Roger de Coverly]

But, anyway, I'm still searching for an answer to the question, what grade is scratch?

Perhaps we are back on percentages. If you took all the golfers who were "average" or better, where would a scratch player appear on a ranking list. Top 1%, Top 5%, Top 10%?

[Paul McKeown]

But, anyway, I'm still searching for an answer to the question, what grade is scratch?

Perhaps we are back on percentages. If you took all the golfers who were "average" or better, where would a scratch player appear on a ranking list. Top 1%, Top 5%, Top 10%?

Which takes us back to those three sources quoted above. If one takes 0.68% of a grading list topped out at 220 and stripped of temporary blow ins, to simulate the fact that professional players are not assigned handicaps, then 210. Other sources lead to other estimates of 204-202 or 196-198. In the absence of any further info, I'm taking it as 204. Michelle's point is, though, perhaps well made. It might well help explain the apparent compression of the skills curve at the top end in golf compared to chess. The point is that if the pins are moved back and the courses more difficult in the professional circuit, then the plus ten handicap of the best players is plus ten relative to a different game, bit like top level discus throwers using a heavier discus than schoolboy competitors.

[Michele Clack]

Perhaps we could go at it from a different angle. There are 26 clubs that enter players in the Birmingham League. If the average club size is say 25 that's 650 people, which happens to be about the size of an average golf club membership. In the Golf Club that I am a member of the only player we have of scratch or better is the club pro. We do have perhaps 1 or 2 people who are close to scratch and perhaps half a dozen within 4 or 5 shots of it. I would guess from comparing that against the Birmingham League that the most likely comparison between a SS player and a chess player would be an International Master. Interestingly I put the question to my husband, who also plays golf, and without analysing it too deeply he immediately made the same suggestion as a guess. As he said we need to know the number of players with a golf handicap and the % of scratch or better players and we could do a comparison. I'll see if I can find the figures.

[Paul McKeown]

Michelle, is your comparison not flawed, in that professional golfers are not handicapped, whereas top chess players remain graded? To make a proper comparison surely you have to top cut the chess grading list to make a correct comparison? At which point you can apply the %age. 0.68% according to the USGA, for instance, although other estimates differ. But before you can apply the percentage, whatever it is, you need to know the top cut...

[Paul McKeown]

Bob, any comment?

[Brian Valentine]

The alternative to top slicing is to add back the professionals. According to the USPGA they have 28,000 members and the GB equivalent has 6,500. I guess if you could argue that scratch is about 120 - 6500th in the grading list. No, I don't believe it either, but it does show another problem in defining scrstch being the respective wealth invested in the two games.

[Paul McKeown]

Thanks, Brian, that makes sense. I came across this thread on a golfing forum. Lots of comments, which suggest that there is an absolute chasm between a pro and a scratcher, one comment being that a pro could easily spot 15 strokes to a scratch player. There is no way that scratch is at the IM level, if that is true. If one were to suggest that a chess player with a grade of ECF 250 (equivalent to FIDE 2600) could go pro, then a typical IM at 225 would not hope to be whitewashed over eighteen games against that level of opposition, would they, even in a nightmare? If a pro golfer could spot a scratch fifteen, then the scratcher might not outperform the pro at a single hole over eighteen.

[Alistair Campbell]

I was playing golf today (in a thunderstorm ) and only stumbled on this thread by accident as I generally give grading discussions a wide berth...

I remember starting a thread on this subject under "Not chess", and intended to do some "research" along the lines suggested above by comparing distributions of handicap v grade. I've only half done this...so here are some random thoughts:

Firstly, I would say that the USGA has a different method of handicapping.

As alluded to above, under the UK method, one would expect to play to one's handicap significantly less than half the time. I believe that the old method of calculating a handicap targeted the handicap as being a certain number of standard deviations below one's expected score relative to par (but I can't find further info on this off-hand). I was led to believe (by a golfer of a statistical bent), that the two systems were approximately equivalent for a category 1 player. Variability in actual score increases with handicap.

I once heard it said that José María Olazábal (more or less at his peak) would have been about +7. Darren Clarke was +4 when he turned pro, Ian Poulter was (-)4.

Cutting to the chase, I would hazard the following table:

2700 +7
2600 +5
2500 +3
2400 +1
2300 1
2200 3
2100 5
2000 7

Analysing my own club's stats:

1% were 3 or less
5% were 5 or less
10% were 6 or less (there is a bunch of players off 6)
25% were 10 or less

Average handicap was about 15.

I haven't decided whether my club's stats are consistent with my guess - but I would say scratch roughly equates to 2350 which would be FM level. Does that seem reasonable?

[Paul McKeown]

Alistair, thanks, that is very interesting.

Hope the golf went well today!

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?

Taking the grading list and removing the silly 296 type Ivanchuk grades, leaving 9948 British Isles resident or born players, but not top cutting, then:

50% being "15" would be ECF 134;
25% being "10" would be ECF 157;
10% being "6" would be ECF 178;
5% being "5" would be ECF 191;
1% being "3" would be ECF 215.

That agrees with two of the three sources which we were looking at earlier as far as the median being "15" at 134, but if we took "7" as being at the 15th percentile in one, then "7" would be equivalent to 171, whereas your 10th percentile is "6" at 178, et cetera. Each stroke better than "6" looks approximately to halve the number of players achieving it.

That is then a much steeper curve than the top quarter of chess grades. I wonder why that is?

Perhaps due to not top-cutting, or perhaps due to differences in US handicapping, or your clubs stats being slightly atypical, or the source being wrong, or perhaps the financial and social pressures driving a "stretch" in the top percentiles of golf?

How many players are there in your club? Would that distribution seem typical to you?

Just taking one 215 at random gives IM John Cooper, FIDE 2351. Taking another gives Tom Eckersley Waites, FIDE 2276.

Scratch would then seem to be higher rather higher than 215, FIDE 2350 seems possible. Say 220 at 0.68%.

Seven strokes better than scratch is then elite, if we are talking in terms of Olazábal at his peak. Say world top twenty? That is certainly 2700 or thereabouts.

This seems to come close to answering my question, as we actually have some real information, but it does seem to raise many other interesting questions!

Thanks!

[Paul Cooksey]

Scratch would then seem to be higher rather higher than 215, FIDE 2350 seems possible. Say low 220's.

Which is what I said in the second post on this thread. People should just take my word for things.

(Assuming my wild guesses aren't wrong, obviously).

[Paul McKeown]

Scratch would then seem to be higher rather higher than 215, FIDE 2350 seems possible. Say low 220's.

Which is what I said in the second post on this thread. People should just take my word for things.

(Assuming my wild guesses aren't wrong, obviously).

Still need to test the data!

[Paul McKeown]

Alistair, one question. When you say "5 or less" does that mean "5.9 or less" or does it mean "5.0 or less"? I am trying to relate that to the following table. (I know you said American handicapping is different, but humour me, please!)

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.)