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Steve Rawlinson
Handicap: 36
North London
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 91
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The stroke index of a hole is a measure of the difficulty of that hole compared to other holes on the course, right? The hardest hole has SI 1 and the easiest has SI 18, right?
How is this 'difficulty' calculated?
Being a bit of a maths geek I assumed that it was based on a statistical analysis of a large number of completed rounds, with SI 1 being given to the hole with the lowest proportion of "par or better' acheived, or something along those lines.
Having played 30+ times at my local course I've noticed that I don't regard the 4th hole, SI 1, as anything like as difficult as some of the other holes. Having recently been given access to the club members website which includes results cards from all the club competitions from every player I decided to check whether the stroke index was accurate.
I wrote some software which downloaded the score cards from several hundered rounds at Trent Park over the last 6 months and ran some statistical analysis to determing the 'hardest' hole. Sure enough the 4th hole (SI 1) came out only 6th hardest. The hardest hole (the 7th) was only SI 3.
Before writing an indignant letter to the Times I thought I'd better check if there is some other statistical method used to determine the Stroke Index of a hole. The answer is yes there is and no, there isn't.
There is another method, but it has nothing to do with the difficulty of the hole.
The full details are here. The short version is, it's more or less random but SI 1 and 2 must be on different 9s, the first and last holes must not have SI less than 8, and it's nice to have a mix of low SIs of different pars.
Who knew?
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Ian Mullins
Handicap: 20
Essex
Pro Member
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 378
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Hmmmm... not sure I get this.... typical CONGU making it clear as mud!
So, in summary, the stroke index has NOTHING to do with how hard the hole is.....
Now we know!
:-)
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Roger Ireland
Handicap: 9
Essex
Pro Member
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 68
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Hi all, let me tell you a story it may help,
When i was a member of stapleford abbotts long ago hole 12 was index 1, and was the hardest hole on the course by far if you are talking about trying to get par, but after a number of year there was a new card and now hole 3 is index 1, why i asked , this is not the hardest hole??
I was then told this, index 1 is not always the hardest hole but its the hole that records the highest score from cards that were from comps, it then made sence hole 3 was a par 5 ob all along the left side and again ob all along the right side plus a pond in front of the green and dog leg as well some players ran up very high scores 10 12 even more!!! hence it had the highest score over all now for a good player it was not a hard hole and you would hope to make 5 and maybe 4 sometimes, however hole . 12 remains the hardest to score a par on but is not index1 what has been said about were some of the other indexs are on a course have more to do with match play and how the course plays etc etc as if you were playing match play and were getting say 4 shots they cant be the first 4 hole as the match would be over after 4 holes if you played to form , hope this helps a bit, but its not to clear, i play many courses and think the indexs are wrong!!!! however if more people used stroke play and not points all the time, then it does not matter as at the end of your game you just take off your h/c from your score job done
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Roger Ireland
Handicap: 9
Essex
Pro Member
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 68
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This is for steve,, just to show how it dont always work
were i play vila sol hole 1 is index 3
hole 18 is index 4 what can you say its all mad
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Steve Rawlinson
Handicap: 36
North London
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 91
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Roger, the link I posted is only relevant in England - that course sounds forrin.
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TSG
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