Would you join a par 68 or 69?

[Tony_Muldoon]

Yet, in the UK, there are examples like ... The Addington

Perhaps I’m being a bit dense but I found the Addington card to be unique and a little puzzling.

Bogey is 71 and SSS is 71.

On the card the holes are given a Bogey value and the following holes have an asterisk beside them

Hole   Yards   Bogey  SI
4        443         5        1
12       485        5         4
15      439         5         2

Total            71

Underneath it says  "*Par for this hole is one less".

All other holes have a bogey value of 3, 4 or 5 as you would expect for Par.  However that would give a Par Value of 68.

Can anyone explain this and does it have any value in matchplay?

[Jay Flemma]

Forgive me if someone brought it up already, but isn't ST. ENODOC a par 69? Its also a hell of a golf course!

[Mark_Rowlinson]

New Zealand 68, Royal Mid Surrey 69, Swinley Forest 69, West Hill 69, The Addington 68, Rye 68, West Sussex 68, St Enodoc 69, West Cornwall 69, Tadmarton Heath 69, Aldeburgh 69, Cavendish 68, Delamere Forest 69, Ilkley 69, Royal St David's 69...and I haven't even got as far as Scotland which starts (if you approach from the south) with Southerness at par 69.  Case made....

[paul cowley]

...case made for the other side of the pond .


but I doubt for Texas.
Y'all tend to accept little for big a bit easier over there....quaint notion really .

[Jim Franklin]

As Glenn said, Wannamoisett in a heart beat.

[Jason Topp]

If the course was truly remarkeable, the par would not matter.  

Absent that standard, I really enjoy par fives and would shy away from a par 68 or 69.  

My club only has two (par 70).  I wish there were one more. Unfortunately the hole where it could be done would most likely ruin one of the best holes on the course.  Thus, I hope it never happens.

[Mitch Hantman]

Don't forget Brora, par 69, and you'll use every club in your bag.

[Andrew Summerell]

I joined my course because of the quality of the course, even though it's a 2 hour drive. It's a par 72, but the par doesn't to me. If I lived within proximity of Swinley Forest & was invited to join, I would join there in a second.

[hick]

The other great Rhody par 69 is sakonnet golf club in Little Compton. This Is where the real Donald spent his warmer months.

[Tom_Doak]

It is true that despite the quality of all the courses we've listed, none of them can crack the list of the top 100 courses in the world produced by either of the US golf magazines.  [Actually, Rye slipped through the cracks once, then fell off.]

Americans are simply too stuck up in their notions of what good golf is.

[Mitch Hantman]

Tom,

Wasn't Wannamoisett on Golf Digest's list for many years?  

[Tom Huckaby]

TD - of course you're correct about the attitudes of Americans.

But then this begs the question:  what would it take for you to design a new par 69/68/67 here?

And I don't mean a 9-holer nor a course intended to be an executive course.  No cheating.  

Imagine if the land at Bandon had screamed out for such a thing... heck you came darn close with that back nine at PD!  But would Mr. Keiser have gone for a par 69?

What would it take to make it happen at a future site?  An owner/developer with a VERY open mind?  You doing it on your own dime as a benevolent gift to American golf?

TH

[Ted Kramer]

Par 68 or 69 wouldn't bother me at all.
If I liked the course, I couldn't care less.

-Ted

[Tom_Doak]

Mitch:  Yes, Wannamoisett was on GOLF DIGEST's list for years, may still be for all I know.  But pretty low on the list for a course of its quality, and it wouldn't make the top 100 in the world if you combined their US and World rankings.

Tom H:

It would take either

1)  A client who really wanted to build a par 68, like Ran's mission statement for The Carthage Club, or

2)  A piece of ground so small that stretching it to par 70 was unrealistic and/or dangerous.

The only project we've done where 69 was considered was the North Course at Stonewall ... it took a long time to finalize the routing you play today.  I've known that client for years and they did consider it, but they were afraid the course would be compared to Merion West, which is a great little course but clearly the lesser among equals.  So we wound up at 70.

The truth of the matter is that most of those par 68 courses could easily be turned into 70's if they wanted to do it -- just take the two best long par-4's and stretch them out to 490 yards, and voila!  That they didn't is a great testament to what golf is about in the UK and how most Americans don't understand it.

P.S.  I don't think I could even sell Mike Keiser today on a par-68 routing.  He's too much in tune with what the retail golfer wants, and his friends would tell him to buy more land if necessary.  That's not a knock on Mike at all -- he's a pragmatist, and a damned smart one at that.

[Mike_Clayton]

I'm assuming everybody would be happy to join Royal Melbourne West which is in reality a 69 and arguably a 68.
 I don't have all the exact numbers but I think 12 is 434 meters,2 is under 440 and 15 is 427.
4 is the longest and it is not over 455 - from memory.
2 and 12 play as par 4's on the composite and if 15 was on the composite it would be a 4 as well.
4 played as a par 4 for years until they moved the tee back 30 yards a decade or so ago.

[Tim MacEachern]

I'm a member of a par-68 course (67.1 rating) and it does have an advantage previously unstated on this thread:  it takes on average probably a half hour less to play (often an hour less) than the typical par-72 course.  Normal rounds are 4 hours, but the 3:20 is sometimes available when the weather is less than perfect (that is, when there isn't a pack in front of us).

For me, that's worthwhile -- others may think otherwise.  Look at it this way -- I play my home course perhaps 70 rounds a year.  Those extra half hours add up, especially on bad rounds (e.g., with less than my favourite playing partners) or when playing in bad conditions.  On the other hand, when I go to another course, the novelty is something that I can savour over an extended period of time, so a 4½- to 5-hour round doesn't enter my mind as long.  And I've not even mentioned the dreaded 6 hour tournament round.

I'm all in favour of shorter courses.

[Steve_Lovett]

Would I join one - personally, probably not unless it was very convenient or unique...  Would I play a public 68 or 69 often - absolutely.  I grew up with a par-65 as a staple of my early golf (and not a good par-65 either)...

[Craig_Rokke]

Definitely. If Merion, for instance, converted a par 5 to a par 4, yielding a par 69 layout, I think I could somehow cope with that.  

[A.G._Crockett]

A question:

Have any of the excellent courses mentioned on this thread been built at all recently?  I would still maintain that a new course with a par below 70 would be a very tough sell in today's market, almost regardless of the quality of the course.

[Adam_F_Collins]

I joined a par 68. (The same one as Tim MacEachern) and the point he makes about the reduced time required to play it is a good one. The other day, myself and one other player played 27 holes in about 3 and 1/2 hours.

This one couldn't be stretched. It's 18 holes on 93 acres, and 5500 yards. However, it's a difficult course to score on. 70's a damn good round.

[PThomas]

absolutely!

[Kevin Pallier]

Absolutely - if given the chance I would join any of the following clubs that I have visited in a heart-beat...

New Zealand 68, Swinley Forest 69, West Hill 69, The Addington 68, Rye 68, West Sussex 68, St Enodoc 69, Royal St David's 69

I think it's the case today of the majority of the golfing fraternity being fixated with the myth that anything less than a Par of 72 means it's an easier course - how wrong they are !

I would love to invite all my pals over and laugh at their attempts to play to their handicap at any of the above mentioned courses.
 

[Adam_F_Collins]

It's funny, I remember reading somewhere (maybe it was in Nicklaus' biography) that the Japanese would only accept courses that had a par of 72; that they didn't believe that a golf course was a "true test" unless it was a par 72...

...perhaps he should have included North Americans...

[Garland Bayley]

I joined a course that most on this site would say falsely advertises itself as a par 70. It has three par fives. Two are right at 450 from the blue tees and even shorter from the white tees. So many would think it is a par 68. I suppose if it had been par 68 I would have given it a second thought, but give the cost, its location, and how much I like the layout, I probably would still have joined. Since joining, I joined a group of seniors that play 8 different courses each year and have yet to see one that comes even close. We play Astoria CC in October, so it will be interesting to see how well my opinion holds up after that.

[ChipRoyce]

I could certainly consider that the same way I'd evaluate any course. One of many criteria I'd evaluate is if there sufficient shot variety on par 3's, 4's and 5's? If so, that's great. Understanding that there would either be more par 3's and/or fewer Par 5's, it would still need to be able to allow me to break the driver out often enough.