Scotland Course and Slope Ratings
 
Course Rating
Dealing with Sandbagging
Handicapping Guidelines
History of Handicapping
Junior Golfers
Pace of Play
Scramble Tournaments
Tournament Point System
World Rankings
Magazine Articles
IS IT PLUS OR MINUS?
First-Tee Mulligans
Handicaps of PGA Tour players.
HOW TO WIN A TWO-PLAYER TEAM EVENT
QUICK NINE?
Meaning of codes after Handicaps.
Trying to handicap a scramble?
THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU
Handicap Differential
Picking Your Ideal Partner
Net Skins Game
Canada Adopts USGA's Stroke Control
HOW MANY STROKES DO YOU GET IN MATCH PLAY?
FIGURE IT OUT- Course Handicap Formula
GO AHEAD AND PICKUP
Post a Score on Un-played Holes
Two Outstanding Tournaments
Posting Off-Season Scores
San Diego Country Club to Host 2017 U.S. Women's Amateur Championship.
100th Anniversary of the USGA Handicap System
Sports Legend Revealed: Does the course at Ko'olau Golf Club exceed the maximum slope rating?
How Tough Is Augusta National?
Average Slope Rating
Beating Your Handicap by Nine Strokes
CAR-NASTY: Just How Hard Is It?
Competing from Different Tees
Dancing About Architecture
Every golfer needs to get carded
Frank Hannigan on the Stimpmeter
Get a Handicap
Go Figure
Handicap Formula Trailblazer Passes Away
High Heat Driver
How are holes assigned their handicap?
How often you should beat your handicap?
How to break 60
How to detect a Sandbagger
Pope's points try to level fields
Sandbagger's Hell at the World Am
Sandbaggers wary of this Dean's list
Scrambles
Vanity Handicaps
Was Madoff A Cheat at Golf, Too?
What does "bonus for excellence" mean?
What is a "Handicap Differential"?
Why 96 percent?
Scotland
Other
About the Pope Of Slope
Contact
Home




Pope Of Slope

Golf Digest, May, 2009

DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE

By Ron Whitten

The classic put-down of a music critic is Elvis Costello's line, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

It makes you wonder what he'd say about those of us who rank golf architecture using mathematical formulas. Still, this is what we do. Occasionally we have tap-danced around a course ranking we didn't agree with, but we don't choreograph the results. The numbers are what the numbers are.

Between survey periods, we do tinker with our system, always striving to reach a level of statistical bliss. In the past, we introduced bonus Tradition points to balance the buzz of hot new courses. We also added bonus points to promote walking. Both are gone now.

In 2005, we began training panelists at periodic summits. Our goal is to teach them how to think, not what to think. We remind them, for instance, that they are to analyze Shot Values hole by hole, that backdrops of oceans or mountains are just one element in our definition of Aesthetics, and that we have a new definition of Conditioning. ( How firm, fast and rolling were the fairways, and how firm yet receptive were the greens on the day you played the course? )

Two years ago, we hired statistician Dean Knuth (whose invention of the USGA's Handicap Index system earned him the name "The Pope of Slope") to examine the 2007 results. He confirmed what we suspected: Some of our 900-plus panelists score like Santa Claus and others are simply grumpy old men.

To reduce the influence of such extreme voters, he devised a version of "Winsorization," eliminating outlying scores, and applied it to every course in our 2009 survey. Instead of dropping three highs and three lows (a standard Winsorization practice), Knuth's system is more sophisticated, removing all scores beyond two standard deviations from a course's mean. So it might remove three high scores and one low outlying score from one course, but only one high but no lows from another, because its lowest scores were still within range.

It's applied equitably, and no course is targeted for promotion or punishment. (If you're wondering about Augusta National's ascent to No. 1: It was on top even in the raw scores.)

-- R.W.

Our most recent improvement to the 100 Greatest ranking system will take effect with the next survey. Golf Digest has retained the professional services firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to oversee the tabulation of the results for future rankings of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses, America's 100 Greatest Public Courses, Best in State, and Best New Courses of the Year.

© 1998-2016 PopeOfSlope.com