Par 4's played as Par 3's in competition.

[Matthew Rose]

I was reading the long par-3 thread and thought of an interesting tangent.

We know the USGA has been playing par-fives as long fours for decades, and recently some PGA tour events have started doing this. Does anybody know of an event where a short par-4 hole was played as a par-3 for tournament play (and only for tournament play)?

I do not wish to count courses where a par-four hole has been redesigned and rebuilt as a par-3, such as #17 at Hazeltine.

The only examples I can think of are the one on the composite course at The Country Club (Brookline) and possibly the first hole at Victoria (Australia) Golf Club - that hole is approximately 260 yards and a 4 on the card, but I seem to recall when I went to the last Aus Open there a few years back that they played it as a 3.

Can anyone think of any others? Is this the kind of thing the USGA would ever consider doing? Not that I would necessarily be in favor of it.

[Mike_Clayton]

Matt,

At the 2002 Australian Open they shortened the first hole at Victoria (home club of Peter Thomson and Geoff Ogilvy) and played it as a par three.
It went from 260 yards down to about 195 and it will never happen again.

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:

The second hole on the Composite course at Brookline was the only one I could think of.  Funny, when you think about how often they turn a short 5 into a long 4 for the Open.  I guess there's just a bias against having too many par-3's.

If they ever took an Open back to Myopia, a couple of the short par-4's there would play like very good par-3's today, from what I remember.

[Mike Benham]

One might assume that Olympic Lake would provide the opportunity to change the 7th hole (old version) to a long par-3 and return the 17th to a par-5 (or the 1st hole to a long par-4).

This would maintain the unofficial USGA mandate of a par-70 layout and provide a freakish scorecard:  back-to-back par 3s (#7 and #8), back-to-back par 5s (#16 and #17).


It would be interesting to hear the mindset and see how the golfers would play #7 if it was a 250 yard par 3 ...

[PCCraig]

I have great familiarity with the 2nd at Brookline.

While it is changed from a Par-4 to a Par-3 for the composite course, it really isn't the same as just switching the stated Par. The hole usually plays about 300 uphill and a slight dogleg left as a par 4, and when played as a par-3 they use the ladies tee at exactly 190 yards uphill (I've seen two holes in one in one summer on this hole as a par-3 which is super rare).

I think it would be difficult to make it play as a long 300 yard par-3 as last year they added three tall evergreens to the dogleg to discourage players from hitting driver at the green and to block a house from getting pounded by balls after the owner sued the club.

Also the green is just about as difficult to hold as any I have ever seen...being that the green is on the highest point of the property and a sharp hill.