Fixation with par - men and women

[Thomas Dai]

Maybe not herein, but generally the men’s game seems to have a fixation that courses should be pair-72 but the overall par on the scorecard for women on the same course is almost always different (more).
Is there a similar fixation with the overall par number in the women’s game .... and if so what is it?
Atb

[Tom_Doak]

There is an expectation now that par should be the same for women as for men . . . even if some holes would work out much better as "ladies' par 5's", they are against it.


Many of the classic parkland courses were par 75 or 76 for women, but a lot of them have been changed in the last twenty years to conform with how new courses are expected to be.

[Steve Lang]

There is an expectation now that par should be the same for women as for men . . . even if some holes would work out much better as "ladies' par 5's", they are against it.

TD... where are you getting that from??  Are you speaking for all women?  All LPGA players?


The 17th at the WCC's Tournament Course (ol' TPC) is most unfriendly as a par 4 and still good challenge as a par 5 for the normal women.   

[Tom_Doak]

There is an expectation now that par should be the same for women as for men . . . even if some holes would work out much better as "ladies' par 5's", they are against it.

TD... where are you getting that from??  Are you speaking for all women?  All LPGA players?

That’s the feedback we get from the ladies’ committee at most of the clubs where we consult.  If they are playing in a mixed event, they want the par of each hole to be the same for men and women, so they don’t have to argue how to compare scores for the hole.  It isn’t changing all at once, but it is certainly trending in that direction.

[Thomas Dai]

So if the ladies par drops, but they are still playing the exact same course (ie not shortened), then to shoot equivalent nett scores their handicaps will have to be higher?
atb

[Rich Goodale]

Bingo, Dai!


It's about time that men and women identify as "golfers" and play whatever tees they want to, with the same SSS/Course Rating--nothing more and nothing less.  And yes, under such a regime, handicaps for ladies will rise to whatever level they are capable of playing.  Many years ago I played Gullane ''1" with a Curtis Cup lady.  We both played off of 6 and had an excellent (and honest) time.


Rich


PS--don't let Josie know I'm posting this.

[Michael Wolf]

No easy answer on this one.


I'd guess the young Ladies who are competing at Augusta next week would have a different range of answers than if you asked a group of professional businesswomen who use golf for networking.


My wife is a really tough example. She's a 36 handicap novice, but she can hit it 225 with her driver. She doesn't need the tees moved up, she need shallower bunkers and easier hole locations. Only way to fix that is to fix her game.


I lean more and more to most courses should have 3 sets of teeing ground. Call them whatever you want. And leave it up to educated superintendents/club pro's to vary course setups depending on expected traffic, wear patterns, and just good old fun. Probably hurt some ego's of some senior players, but you'd save some maintenance costs.


Michael

[V. Kmetz]

Everytime this (or a like) discussion comes up, I am buoyed that the peaceful and apt solution is to strip away the individual "announced/determined" hole par...


EVERY HOLE should be a solution, not a Par, of 4... "Easy" 4s, Attainable 4s, Hard 4s, Difficult 4s, Impossible 4s, Rarely Acheived 4s, Beguiling 4s, Dangerous 4s, Amusing 4s, Strange 4s, Wanna Play it Again 4s, Detestable 4s, Benign 4s, One-Trick 4s, Crazy Green 4s, etc, etc..


Why 4?...I'm not claiming empircism or divine knowledge, just the ready, plain-view observation that FOR EVERYONE BUT CHAMPIONSHIP GOLFERS, since 18 holes has been the norm, a total score of 72 has always been fantastic, awesome, well-done, wins most bets, scorecard goes on the mantle or the refirgerator...


And before the common objections raise themselves..."What about the terms/outcomes called "Birdie" called "Eagle" called Bogey" C'mon are you telling me you and your group can't come up to any distance of hole and not know what to call the score in these old paradigms? That's obtuse...


Meanwhile, the emotional lid that could be lifted off of GCA and the freedom architects could have to make all those delicious (now, so-called) half par holes would be raised enormously.


C'mon GCAs... let's get a set and embrace this in a future design... lobby your clients...make the case...and STILL, days, months, years after you've cashed their check, they can do whatever they want...all it is printing a scorecard, for goddsakes.


cheers  vk

[Peter Flory]

I always look at the scoring averages from prior CDGA events at a course before I play in a tournament there. 

Here is an example (click on the course statistics button in the upper right):
http://events.cdga.org/app/indexLS.html?target=liveScoring&cID=-1&eID=1774&q=6378031#/stats

I find it useful to know that a hole like #14 really does play to a 4.5 average.  The pattern overall is that par 3s play difficult relative to par and obviously most par 5s play easy relative to par. 

Just as they give the course a rating, like 71.5, it would be interesting to see the rating for each hole.  I'd personally rather see what a scratch player would average on a hole than what par it is. 

Imagine a scorecard that matched those tournament results above:
Hole #1: 4.30 rating. 
Hole #2: 4.15 rating. 
etc.

Similarly, I appreciate when a course determines the hole handicap ranking with actual data. 

The benefit to going with ratings instead of par would be that golfers could be more satisfied with a par and less disappointed with a good bogey.