What has the idea of "par" done for the game?

[V. Kmetz]

JH,


I too can live without the direct statement of 72 strokes as even a basis...but the "level fours" reveals itself, since the standardization of a certain number of holes for play that is...since the shepherds knock the rocks about, 4 has rarely been an embarrassment/poor score on any golf task from this tee to that flag...now the trick is, how devious, stimulating, cunning, easy, hard, aesthetically-pleasing, enjoyable, interesting, "every club in the bag"... you make that basic task across 18 (or 12 or 9 or 6) holes...I'm only saying "4s" because its the colloquial standard by which all golfers have come to understand a successful golf round on 18.


More to the point of this and the other thread (and many, many hundreds of threads) is I believe hole par needlessly infringes on the imagination and creativity of courses both in their discovery and in their reputation...have you ever played a course (any) where three or four 100 or 200 yard holes are in sequence? Why not? how is it that in ALL the lands and all the courses built, no architect/designer ever found THAT in the land? Why don't we have more 240-300 yard holes on courses of all ilk...because so many players can get there in one? What kind of submission is that...? And in the other case...Would the Road Hole be shit if we just changed the number to 5 in the par ledger? Or an penal abomination if we changed it to 3?


And the best thing is...we wouldn't lose anything about handicapping, multiple tees, the calls of birdie or eagle or ace (For my own golf, I would personally adopt a system among my companions by which all 1 are aces, all 2s are eagles, all 3s are birdies, all 4s are pars, all 5s are bogeys and so forth...)


And really I don't give a damn about how this impacts tournament/championship play. Let them do what they want on the courses that are interested in doing it with them, for profit or history or reputation...As matter of fact, I believe larger attention must be paid to running AWAY from what elite players on TV and top tournaments do as a guide in GCA areas...90-95% of us are not playing a game remotely connected with that precision and quality, though we can still gain enormously in the enjoyment of those tournaments and the interesting architectural principles and phenomenons that run through the trillions of historical acts of hitting a ball with a club at a target. Because that feature will always be the means of the game, I have no problem stating that golf should be more clearly dividing into a larger recreational portion and a championship-tournament camp... People know how to choose what is right for them, where both economic and recreational values are highest...


That's afield from the germane response to JH's question, but it is one of the endgames I see playing out, the first move of which is eliminating a stated hole "par." I believe the sooner that's rescinded, the more interesting and varied (and yes, "shorter") designs and routings can be put down on paper...we can start to see some more 240 - 299 yard holes, more quirky and amusing greens, greater range of green sizes


...I mean each site has its virtues and properties of topography and wind, but is there any doubt that a charming element of the TOC is in its "Loop" whereby 4 holes in a row can be reached in a single shot...(6 if you include #7 and #12)...and is clearly THE place you have to make hay against a match opponent or medal field...and look how that course ends...with a very, very difficult hole of 450-480 yards and a bunkerless 340 yard hole with a 100 yard wide fairway...


And I'm  saying, the individual hole par (in all its associations of card and difficulty) is a psychological barrier to making more architecture like THAT, which would be a freedom from the current reality, and might be a re-boot for the art, the industry and the sport.


cheers


vk

[Niall C]

As Tom D says before par you had Colonel Bogey, and both relate to what a player should score on a hole on the assumption that they play perfect golf to get to the green and then take two putts when they do. Essentially it has always been about length and it is an objective means of measuring golf holes and therefore the course overall. The golden age guys used it as a tool in their designs every bit as much as modern architects do.


Of course these days the very best players routinely beat par not just because many of them have outstripped the standard length assumptions that determine par ie. reaching par 5's in two, but probably also because they have a lot more single putts than top golfers from previous generations. As an aside, I was at a golf dinner the other week and got talking to a current European Tour player. When discussing a certain links used as an Open Qualifier his blunt assessment was "too short". Of course a couple of years back he had managed to qualify for the Open on that particular course which may have coloured his opinion. However he was only one of a handful of 140 odd top amateurs and professionals who managed to break par at that qualifier which suggests to me that par golf for the top boys has more to it than just length.


Niall

[JESII]

Is the primary reason "Par" haters hate that it limits the architects creativity?

VK makes valid points about a lack of in between holes. That's an architect/client problem as opposed to a scoring construct problem.

To the extent that there are 275 yard par fours and 450 yard par fives on relatively modern designs; how did they come to be? How do they work?

If the shots are fun and interesting with an appropriate degree of challenge, they will work.

[John Kavanaugh]

Par haters are nothing more than an extension of the everybody gets a trophy crowd.

[John Kavanaugh]

Golf has always and will always be best served to those who are successful in life and on the course. Trying to force it on those with neither the time or skill level to enjoy the nuance of a golfing life is what put us on this path to failure. Par de har, har...sorry if it's just not for you.

[BCowan]

Par haters are nothing more than an extension of the everybody gets a trophy crowd.

Thank you, I have been waiting for someone to make a rational post. 

[Steve Salmen]

Keeping score using par in tournament golf is the best measurement. It is convenient to value a par to each hole for these purposes. Extreme example: guy goes out Sunday and shoots -10 to tie for the lead at even par before the leader tees off. On a par 70, the score is now 280-210 and everything in between.  Who wants to use a calculator when you can assign a standard number, par?

[Frank M]

Par for a hole is generally achievable by most at some point and would seem to be the extension of "everyone gets a trophy" to me. Also serves to deduce handicaps, which allows inferior players to play against better players. If "everyone gets a trophy" is not liked, I'd say par serves as a trophy for all fairly well.

[Joe Hancock]

Par haters are nothing more than an extension of the everybody gets a trophy crowd.

Thank you, I have been waiting for someone to make a rational post.

The reality is that many good examples have been given, both for, and against stating a par number. "Par hater" sounds like the dramatic language we're getting in the presidential race, and it draws attention(and, apparently....votes). Congratulations.

Whether it be handicapping, gambling, or simplicity of math, par serves a purpose. Limitation of imagination, or simple enjoyment of the game for the pursuit of a concept like par, design inhibition because of the golfing populace' perception of what par is supposed to be, etc., par can be a hindrance. All very well stated by other posters.

[JJShanley]

On a related note, but one which doesn't require a new thread, when and where did we start measuring the length of holes?  If that only started in the twentieth century, how did people keep score in medal play beforehand?  Did scorecard pre-date yardage measurements?

[John Kavanaugh]

I just played a round of one club golf with my wife. It's her job to carry an umbrella and an extra ball. I made two 6's, two 5's, three 4's and two 2's. The only thing I care about, and the only thing worth rembering is that I made two birdies. Even my wife, a non golfer, got it when I told her it was custom for a caddie to retrieve the ball from the hole on a birdie. Birdie is just a beautiful word, it sings excellence. This thread has reminded me how much I truly love hearing, writing and thinking of it. Saying it, like in nice birdie, not so much. But like all great words, and most great things in golf, it can be a double edged sword.

[Peter Pallotta]

Very nice - the double edged sword. Yes, that's it in a nutshell I think.

One of my many failings is that I don't like double edged swords. They make my head hurt, the complexities and contradictions.

But I know they are all around us, and it's best to make my peace with them.  A golf course must be the nicest and gentlest place of all to try to learn how.   

[Jon Wiggett]

Is the primary reason "Par" haters hate that it limits the architects creativity?

VK makes valid points about a lack of in between holes. That's an architect/client problem as opposed to a scoring construct problem.

To the extent that there are 275 yard par fours and 450 yard par fives on relatively modern designs; how did they come to be? How do they work?

If the shots are fun and interesting with an appropriate degree of challenge, they will work.

Jim,

the problem with par is that most people think it is the score you would expect a player to have on a hole which is not the case. Par is decided in the main by the distance the hole plays. For the benefit of those who mistakenly believe that 'bogey' was the fore runner of par it wasn't. Bogey was the score that it was expected the player would take on a hole and was designed ostensibly for matchplay.

The problem that par based on distance brings is it causes a standardisation of the hole/course structure and standardisation leads to the death of creativity.

JK, par lovers are very dull people 

[paul cowley]

I have a little secrete that I want to share with you...and it won't cost you anything...but some of you will see the benefits immediately...maybe even tonite! It's a secrete that I discovered because I was a lot like some of you. I debated internally much of what you have stated already, and it was wearing on me....affecting my design abilities and ultimately making me question myself, my values about what I felt the game was about, and where did I stand in a arena without footing? I found my answer....and I want to share it with you...for free...because we are friends...and I mean that!


The simple answer that I discovered is only two words, and not even bigs words at that...these two simple, but powerful words are:


HALF PARS


As soon as I began to embrace this design concept and start to think in 'half pars'...pars from 2.5 to 5.5...I felt the mental blockage melt away and this thought became new wings...wings that allow me to soar in confidence! (I think I have a really splendid and acceptable par 2.5 in me, but no place to put it...yet)


Chow


Oh, and could you imagine the betting and handicapping opportunities if half pars were on the score card?!!!

[BCowan]

Par haters are nothing more than an extension of the everybody gets a trophy crowd.

Thank you, I have been waiting for someone to make a rational post.

The reality is that many good examples have been given, both for, and against stating a par number. "Par hater" sounds like the dramatic language we're getting in the presidential race, and it draws attention(and, apparently....votes). Congratulations.

Whether it be handicapping, gambling, or simplicity of math, par serves a purpose. Limitation of imagination, or simple enjoyment of the game for the pursuit of a concept like par, design inhibition because of the golfing populace' perception of what par is supposed to be, etc., par can be a hindrance. All very well stated by other posters.

 ''Limitation of imagination, or simple enjoyment of the game for the pursuit of a concept like par''

     I find this language as putting Par in a box.  You think all us Par lovers think in a box...  There is no reason par can't be imaginative.  Just like in school there are A+ and A- and down the line.  Some of us like to measure ourselves against ourselves .  I find the game I love under assault by people trying to change it and remove grades from playing holes.  The beauty is there is many ways to achieve a par or a birdie.  It's birdies every now and then that get me coming back, I don't want them handed to me.  It's much easier keeping track by how many over/under par and over/under bogey then writing on a scorecard.  It's easy accounting 

   The irony is people who hate par are like a blueprint checklist that follows- They hate any rough, courses can't be over 6500 yards, course has to be built on sand, course has to have many half pars, fairways have to be very wide, and i could keep going.  It's like knowing what a person is going to select before they go through a buffet line. 

''par lovers are very dull people''- Stereotypical GCA rhetoric.... 
 

[V. Kmetz]

 ''Limitation of imagination, or simple enjoyment of the game for the pursuit of a concept like par''

     I find this language as putting Par in a box.  You think all us Par lovers think in a box...  There is no reason par can't be imaginative.  Just like in school there are A+ and A- and down the line.  Some of us like to measure ourselves against ourselves .  I find the game I love under assault by people trying to change it and remove grades from playing holes.  The beauty is there is many ways to achieve a par or a birdie.  It's birdies every now and then that get me coming back, I don't want them handed to me.  It's much easier keeping track by how many over/under par and over/under bogey then writing on a scorecard.  It's easy accounting 

   The irony is people who hate par are like a blueprint checklist that follows- They hate any rough, courses can't be over 6500 yards, course has to be built on sand, course has to have many half pars, fairways have to be very wide, and i could keep going.  It's like knowing what a person is going to select before they go through a buffet line. 

''par lovers are very dull people''- Stereotypical GCA rhetoric....

BC...Despite the emoticon of "cool" you inserted, I perceive such "heat" in your condemnation and gross generalizations. And in THIS thread, the tenor of "you put all us Par-lovers in a box" type swipes, was inaugurated by JK (from whose "Ring of Power" you have received momentary corruption) in his "Par-Haters are an extension of the everyone-wants a trophy crowd" statement.


But to address what you said this recent occasion:
1. Putting Par in a Box? Clever attempt at reversal, but what box, or how I am putting Par in what box that it isn't in right now...3, 4, and 5...am I missing something? I don't think so, in fact, its PAR that is putting architecture in a smaller box than it already is...already feeling the pressure of having to satisfy a wide range of golfers with sustainable practices and disposable income to prosper, while competing against the wide swaths of degree that modern equipment affects those client's own games and the tournament golf and champisnship courses they observe through voluminous media.


2. And if you will look past the "typical GCA rhetoric" to other threads, you have Tom Doak of all people talking about a clever 265 yard hole carded as a Par 4...that people would "lynch" him if he called it a "3," but is dismissively called silly as a "4" I asked and am waiting for response...don't you think getting rid on the stipulated par of all the holes, takes the "lose-lose" in terms of such hole's reception, and frees up architects to design holes of this length in greater practice, and to greater effect?


3. It seems obtuse that in any game in which you would be comfortable to gamble at all, that the participants cannot agree among themselves what a birdie or an eagle is in their game as pertains the action...and this idea of that "birdie" is marginalized and can't roll on, without one of three numbers under the yardage is nearly the greatest obfuscation of all such protest...no one is preventing you or Dan Hicks from envisioning, thinking of, conceptualizing a "3" on a 400 yard as a "birdie." Feel free to reward it in any manner one sees fit...just don't put it on the card; are you worried that there will be panic and emergency meetings in the Men's Card Room...anarchy? And I suspect that if you are, as you seem to profile, an honest and authentic lover of the game and its traditions, then I suspect you would come back if you never made a "birdie" again. Please tell me that tired old mantra is just that, a tired old mantra and the least of the reasons you "return" to the game seasonally.


4. As to your stereotypical list of things people who hold/share THIS opinion of mine also think... First off, I ask,what do YOU think? I'll bet you don't like courses over 8000 yards, I'll bet you don't like uniform 12 yard wide fairways...I'll bet you don't prefer the playing condition of most native clay courses (And I too, could go on and on)[/size]...so what are we talking about here, degree? And your degree is so much finer and more worthy of respect than that of ours?

[/size]And that is perhaps the desultory thing about yours and JKs contributions to this topic (and some form of it is on 4 threads right now), so strong is your orthodoxy and certitude, that when engaged or merely answered, it turns into these wide swaths of wholesale generalizations... and precious aspects of the game that you hold so dearly and cannot imagine the game without, when the entire history of this wee thing and human history itself is the wholesale (even radical) evolution of its character, sometimes cyclical, sometimes slow, sometimes progressive, sometimes fast...that which doesn't stay in motion, stops and withers, that which doesn't change, adapt... dies...

[/size]You're not playing the 13 original rules either, you're playing steel and/or composite shafts, and I'll bet you haven't teed up a Featherie, a Haskell, an Acer or a Balata Tour 100 in many many thousands of strokes ago...but here the line is to be drawn in sharp relief, as it is but one gateway to the destruction of the game and your enjoyment of it?

[/size]To me, that's a contribution borne not of fair exchange about the particulars, but the conceit that your orthodoxy is the one true path..."God tells Brady and Brady tells the world..."

[/size]cheers

[/size]vk

[Peter Pallotta]

VK - very nice indeed, sir!  For those who may not know, VK ends with a reference to "Inherit the Wind", quoting the line that "Henry Drummond" (i.e. Clarence Darrow) thunders at "Matthew Harrison Brady" (i.e. William Jennings Bryan) in the middle of their courtroom battle during the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial. The evolutionist against the creationist. Me, when it comes to golf and "par", I'm a creationist. The concept is inherent in the game, and came into being fully formed at the hands of someone we call "Old Tom Morris". But as JK said, like many other things in golf, par is a double-edged sword. Here is Henry Drummond again:

"Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, 'all right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Mister, you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline.'"

[V. Kmetz]

Hi Peter...


Hats off to you sir


..."Madam, you may have the vote, but you lose the ability to retreat behind the petticoat and the powder-puff"


Still Peter, I'm interested to know how is it that the idea of par comes fully formed from OTM? Isn't there a history before him that didn't care about the "par" of an individual  hole? Isn't there a history after him that standardized hole par as a means of tabulation and public broadcast? And can't it be 100 - 1,000 years from now that this last 150 years of golf is just a classic period, that doesn't preclude new ideas that still center around hitting a ball to a target?


I'm not sure anyone addressed it precisely, perhaps you would...What of the 8-11 Loop of TOC with 4 holes in a row, reachable in one shot (nearly 6 in a row, if you include 7 and 12 for tournament elites)...how come we don't have any architecture like that being made today?


cheers


vk

[Peter Pallotta]

VK - another good post and question. Don't mind my OTM reference - my pen ran away with me in jest, and I simply over-stated my case. I happen to think that "par" gives meaning and purpose to the architecture; but your point about that stretch of holes at St Andrews (which I know only via books) does raise the key point that engaging - perhaps even great - architecture has been created absent the dominant concept of "par".  But I'm now way over my head and can't think through that idea very well.... 
Peter

[Josh Tarble]

Those arguing against par have clearly never played a game of Scotch. 

[Garland Bayley]

The best score I've shot at my home course is 82. That is my "par". Last summer save for a 3 putt on 18, I would have lowered it to 81.


IMO people make too much about the excitement of making birdies, so much so that they want the course shortened so they can make them more often. Have they no memory? I remember my personal bests on a hole. Last year I lowered a 3 to a 2 as a personal best on a hole. Now that's exciting.


As far as playing with a handicap is concerned, there is no need for par. You have the ratings for the course, and you handicap is based on the differential between that rating, and your scores. Therefore my 85 can beat my buddies 78, or I can win the match 3 and 2. No defined par needed.

[Niall C]

I'm not sure anyone addressed it precisely, perhaps you would...What of the 8-11 Loop of TOC with 4 holes in a row, reachable in one shot (nearly 6 in a row, if you include 7 and 12 for tournament elites)...how come we don't have any architecture like that being made today?

VK


Peter is right, these holes were created and then they evolved so I suppose you could say that as far as your Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan discussion goes that it was a draw. However as far as the creation of these holes is concerned I'm very doubtful they were designed as one shotters, in fact I'm sure they weren't.


I think we do tend to give the ODG's too much credit sometimes and not enough credit to the tinkerers that came in between then and now. These ODG's designed as much to par as modern architects do. While I'm at it we don't give enough credit to improved technology in creating these half par holes, indeed we don't give it any credit at all (eg. the Road Hole). Each successive generation, ever since the gutta percha ball was invented, have bemoaned advances in golf equipment yet if it wasn't for those advances the game wouldn't have become so popular and some of the holes we now recognise as classics wouldn't be quite what they are now.


Niall

[John Kavanaugh]

There is a par 70 course that I enjoy playing because it is easier to break 80. Par matters even if you refuse to acknowledge it.

[Carl Nichols]

There is a par 70 course that I enjoy playing because it is easier to break 80. Par matters even if you refuse to acknowledge it.

I'm a par defender, but this doesn't follow.  You like the course because it's easier to play the 18 holes in less than 80 strokes, but that doesn't depend on how par is assigned to the holes--it would (or should) be just as true if the two hardest par 4's are called par 5's.  You might even enjoy it more then.   

[Frank M]

There is a course that I enjoy playing and play quite often that I have no idea what the par is, never even grabbed a scorecard once or know what I cumulatively shot there ever.

The significance of par is subjective, even if you refuse to acknowledge it.