Course Rating/Green Section

The USGA requires all golf courses to be re-rated within an 8-10 year period. New courses are rated 2-3 times within the first ten years due to the maturity a course incurs. There is no charge to SCGA member clubs to measure or rate their courses.

The course rating team is comprised of a staff representative and a group of trained volunteers. When rating a golf course, the course rating team evaluates each hole using the USGA Course Rating System. The majority of their time is spent measuring distances to various obstacles from specific landing areas based on shot parameters.

Following this obstacle evaluation portion, the course rating team will then play the golf course. This portion of the rating helps to clarify any doubts or questions that may come up on specific holes or shots.

After all the rating data is collected, the SCGA staff representative enters all information into the USGA Course Rating Software program. This program calculates the yardage rating and obstacle values for the scratch and bogey golfer, as well as the course rating and slope rating numbers for every set of tees.

Before the new course rating and slope numbers are released, the rating team’s results must be submitted to a Course Rating Review Committee for final evaluation.