What could you score at Los Angeles Country Club?
It’s the question posed every year: what would an amateur shoot at a US Open venue? Well, for Los Angeles Country Club, the USGA are on hand to help you work it out.
You’ll be well used to the world’s best telling you how an 18-handicapper couldn’t beat 100 but, with Rickie Fowler and company having plenty of hit red numbers throughout the first two days of the US Open, you can now have a guess at how you might fare if faced with the 7,400 yards of thick rough, slick greens, and dreaded barranca.
By visiting their handicapping section, you can pop in a couple of simple details to get a target score at the City of Angels-based venue based on a championship course set up.
Enter whether you’re male or female, along with your World Handicap System index, or your estimated average score, and it will punch out a number for you using its handicap course calculator.
With a par of 70, a course rating of 76.9, and a slope rating of 148, you can expect that digit to be punchy.
When I had a go, based on my World Handicap System index of 11.6, it spat out a course handicap of 22 and a target score of 92. That’s right, I’d get 22 shots at LACC!
My colleague Tom Irwin, toting a mark of 0.7, was given a course handicap of 7 and a target score of 77 (he says, ‘no chance’), while Tour Editor Matt Chivers, with a WHS Index of 6.9, reckons he’d give you both hands and feet to shoot 86.
An explanation of the target score from Golf Journal says it’s what you’ll shoot if you play to your handicap and argues that players will manage that up to 20 per cent of the time – firing two to four stroke higher in most rounds. I’ll still take it.
If some of you think those numbers are a little inflated, you need to remember that in the United States they use Course Rating minus Par. If we teleported LACC to the UK, we’d all be taking a chunk off – seven shots in my case.
But there will be others of you who will think the number the computer comes up with is still nowhere near enough!
Have a go at predicting your target score at US Open venue Los Angeles Country Club here, and tweet me what your number would be.
Steve Carroll
A journalist for 25 years, Steve has been immersed in club golf for almost as long. A former club captain, he has passed the Level 3 Rules of Golf exam with distinction having attended the R&A's prestigious Tournament Administrators and Referees Seminar.
Steve has officiated at a host of high-profile tournaments, including Open Regional Qualifying, PGA Fourball Championship, English Men's Senior Amateur, and the North of England Amateur Championship. In 2023, he made his international debut as part of the team that refereed England vs Switzerland U16 girls.
A part of NCG's Top 100s panel, Steve has a particular love of links golf and is frantically trying to restore his single-figure handicap. He currently floats at around 11.
Steve plays at Close House, in Newcastle, and York GC, where he is a member of the club's matches and competitions committee and referees the annual 36-hole scratch York Rose Bowl.
Having studied history at Newcastle University, he became a journalist having passed his NTCJ exams at Darlington College of Technology.
What's in Steve's bag: TaylorMade Stealth 2 driver, 3-wood, and hybrids; TaylorMade Stealth 2 irons; TaylorMade Hi-Toe, Ping ChipR, Sik Putter.
