Should many Par 72 courses become Par 70.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

This is a spin on Pat's post. I think many courses should take two of their par 5's and make them strong par 4's. This will involve green changes, to makethem larger, on those two holes more often than not. It seems the strong 4's are becoming weaker. Many moderate length 5's are nothing more than long two shot holes now. Some places do not have sufficient space to add distance therefore this is a way to keep a course current. Keep a risk reward 5 and a make one a true 3 shotter. This allows for the good strong 4's needed to really have teeth in the course.

[TEPaul]

I wouldn't touch any par 5 architecturally to transition it to a par 4. The only way I'd transition a par 5 to a par 4 is if it could be played as a par 4 without touching it. But as Pat said in the other thread for various reasons some par 5s just don't transition as well as others if nothing is done to them. Maidstone's #15 and #16 would transition great into par 4s without doing a thing to either one and of course Maidstone has those two strokes to play with being a par 72 now.

[noonan]

Maybe change them for the tour.....amateurs need the scoring possibility.

JK

[brad_miller]

Tom, there are some on this site that might give Maidstone more respect if it played as a par 70, of course the CR wouldn't change.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tiger:

I don't know what you mean by "moderate length" par 5, but for the sake of discussion let's take a 500 yard hole.

Very few golfers today are able to reach such holes in two shots. It is an extremely difficult thing to do at all, much less consistently.

When only a small minority of players can realistically shoot at such a hole in two shots why bother to touch the course at all?

Keep in mind that once you reach the 420-430 yard mark, a very large percentage of golfers can't consistently reach the green in two shots (maybe 75-80 percent, if not more). Once you get to the 450-460 yard mark, you are in the low single digit range in terms of the percent of golfers to can get home.

We should follow Tom Paul's advice and avoid touching greens altogether. It is silly to even think about it just to accomodate a very small elite group of players who always have the option of using more appropriate technology, i.e., balls and clubs that do not encourage people to even think about spending money to change golf courses.

[Norbert P]

Yes, if the course is less than 5280 yards long.

[Doug Siebert]

Tim,

What does the percentage of golfers who can reach a 500 yard hole have to do with whether it should be a par 4 or par 5?  Par is what an "expert golfer" should expect to score on a hole, not an average golfer.  The percentage of golfers who can reach a 500 yard hole in two is certainly quite a bit higher than the percentage who can play a regulation 18 hole course in 70 or 72 strokes.

At any rate, the vast majority of golfers who can't reach a 500 yarder in two shouldn't be playing from the tips, I would assume the hole would be shorter from the other tees.  And there's nothing in the rules that says all par 4s MUST be reachable in two or all par 3s in one.

If the USGA/R&A won't fix the problem with the ball, the courses will need to evolve to reflect reality.  The 470 yard yard standard for the max length of a par 4 has been in force for what 50 years?  70 years?  That's equivalent to at least 520 yards today, probably more.

[Mark_F]

Isn't the real problem vis a vis Pat Mucci's NGLA 7th hole post?  Namely that short par five's need a genuine risk/reward on both the first and second shot's to be effective?

Bring back unraked bunkers as driving hazards on short par five's, I say.

[Tom_Doak]

It's hard to have a "genuine driving hazard" on a short par five.  Most fairway bunkers are obsolete nowadays for the long hitters, and you don't always have Rae's Creek to work with.

I've been a believer for years in par-71 or par-70 courses to level the playing field a bit.  But the majority of my clients have asked for par-72 when I show them something else.  A recent client just told me they "like par fives," as in they like having those birdie / eagle chances.

I don't always give in (I think I'm now 3-for-16 on designing par-72 courses), but I'm just saying most golfers seem to be against this change.  Texas Tech wanted that second hole to be a par five instead of a long par four, and I obliged, so Matt Ward could "just wonder" why I didn't have another long par-4 going into the north wind.  Hell, I'm still getting occasional glares over turning the first hole at Pasatiempo into a par-4, and all I did was put the tee back to the same length Dr. MacKenzie had to begin with!

[A_Clay_Man]

The second at Pebble is a good example of how and when a 4 can become a five. Nothing WAS done to the hole and as far as I can tell, doing it for the pros, is not really a major issue other than not being able to get under par before hitting the exposed oceanfront.

NOW, they have added bunkers to the left of the landing area, which to me, seems ill conceived.

[A.G._Crockett]

In new course construction, as an alternative method of protecting par (assuming that is a noble goal, a premise that I don't really accept anyway) wouldn't the addition of more long par 3's be a better way to react to distance problems?
 
   a. it takes the driver, THE club at the center of the whole distance and technology debate, out of play one or two additional times per round
   b. forces long-iron shots, the clubs with which most golfers are least proficient
   c. keeps land, and possibly construction and maintenance costs down.

In the case of existing courses, its something of a moot point.  The Tour already changes 5's to 4's routinely, and has been since before the ProVI, and for the rest of the golfing world, the challenge of a 500 yd. par 5 is still plentiful, even for the so-called "expert golfers."

[Tim_Weiman]

Shivas:

While we are on the subject of being "dumb", isn't is about time people figured out that when it comes to length, the essence of the game is relative length not absolute length?

Shouldn't we all understand that the pursuit of absolute length - the golf technology arms race - does nothing more than make the game more expensive?

Why is it so hard for people to figure out that golfers want to play more not pay more?

I could care less what some guy wants to call the par for a hole. He can call a 350 yard hole a par 3 if he wants. Or he can call a 550 yard hole a par 4. Fine

But, it gets beyond silly if we start changing greens just to accomodate a small elite group of players. That's not "dumbing down"; it is just plain stupid period.

The very best players should be using appropriate equipment; if they are hitting drives more than 275 yards ish, they should go back to equipment that doesn't have that kind of problem.

Why do we need 300 plus yard drives? Isn't 250-275 yard sufficient for the tournament player? After all, all we are trying to do with a tournament is identify relative skills among this group of elite players. Why burden the rest of the golfing world with the pursuit of absolute length? Why should the less skilled - the weekend golfer - be subsidizing the young kids playing at the professional level? Can't those guys just go back to persimmon and balata and really find out how good they are?

We need to all come together and reject the logic of the golf technology arms race. It is amazing to me that any serious student of golf architecture can't see this.

[Steve Lang]

 

Also, everyone must dispose of their CD's and cell phones and go back to their 9 Volt transitor radios and being hard wired.

[ForkaB]

Tom D

The two "par" 5's at Dornoch are only about 500, but.......in order to bring them into drive/iron range you HAVE to hit your tee shot with a long controlled draw down the left hand side, but not so far left as to catch the rough.  I've watched a lot of very good players play those holes, and only a relative handful successfully hit irons to those greens.  You can design "genuuine driving hazards" for such holes, if you have the "bottle."

[Steve Lang]

 

After watching the PGA pros at the Tour Championship this past week (Par 71 – why not split the 72-70 difference Tiger_B?) I was struck by several things:

1)   How similar many of the pros’ ball flights have become and how really little difference there is amongst the top 30.. When you think about it, they’ve all tuned their gear to attaining the optimum launch angle, a function of physics, so things should look pretty similar.   Then there’s Darren working off a little anger, launching it over #9’s 120 ft high dogleg trees, 280 yds out like nothing..

2)   Differences in sound of the driven ball, that sound of compression, metal and plastic meeting for milliseconds.  Many solid thuds, some higher pitched, some cracks..

3)   Watching Toms and Ernie play together was an interesting contrast, but does hitting it 290 in the fairway versus 301 into the rough really translate into an advantage?

4)   Where was Phil?  I guess Tiger was playing in the last group on Thursday with Vijay because of his inferior equipment???  When Tiger missed that first birdie putt from about 4 feet @ #1, a guy behind me said, “looks like he’s carrying a refrigerator, got the weight of the world on his shoulders..”

5)   How fast the greens really are made for the pros, but they’re obviously used to it..  Watching short game stuff and required distance control .. rolls from rough and sand that the masses play out of got much more interest from folks in the crowd than tee shots.  One can certainly have extremely large greens like Championsand change hole length 20-45 yards..

6)   How a course like Champions, that puts the driver in the hands of the pros more than most, separated the most consistent control-power player from the bunch.  Skills of execution reign, but the domain and its architecture still has a strong role.  

7)   The latest technology, in the hands of the top 30 pros, seemed to power many to disaster, put many out in the rough, like a Firebird in the ditch at the hands of a teenager.  

[Lou_Duran]

Tiger-

Does the par on a given hole really mean much to the best players?  For guys like the real Tiger, Earnie, or Vijay, not making a 4 on a par 5 is like making bogey.  Tiger's Tour-low stroke average for the year was 68.4; Vijay's was about a quarter stroke higher.  How much under par this translates to is immaterial.

For schmucks like us, a couple under or 5 over is much more meaningful because par does seem to be more of a relevant standard.  Personally, I like par 72 courses because the par 5s often provide greater variety,  more opportunities to redeem oneself, and the potential for heroic play resulting in an eagle every once in a great while.

Whether we like it or not, the game of golf is now clearly bifurcated.  The game at the top level is being played at unprecendented heights, while the average golfer has made few strides.  What I am trying to say is that the golf that Chad Campbell played this weekend is so far beyond anything that a club player is familiar with, that for all practical purposes, they are different games.

I would not suggest to Champions GC that they should alter the course so a 61 is not possible.  Champions-Cypress is a tough SOB as it is for its 200 or so single-digit handicap members.  If "under par" is that meaningful for the pros, perhaps they should play on venues specially constructed for their competitions, or adjust the par standard for the occasional event.  There is really no need to greatly modify existing courses, nor to build new ones at 7,600+ yards (at sea level).  To make changes or add distance in order to protect par would result in making an already difficult game that much more so, and it would be counterproductive in bringing the needed growth to the game.  Personally, I haven't heard anyone recently say that golf was just getting too easy.

   

[Tim_Weiman]

Lou Duran:

I think you are correct. Golf's dirty little secret is that the game clearly is bifurcated and, most likely, the pursuit of absolute length has contributed to this reality.

But, we maintain the fiction and we keep denying it.

Dave Schmidt himself recently provided an illustration. I won't get Dave's exact words correct, but in essence he argued the #13 at Augusta National was no longer strategic. The evidence he cited was the golf played in the annual Masters Tournament.....as if that somehow represents the game of golf. It doesn't. Tiger & Co are an elite so small that we shouldn't bother to waste time talking about them. They do play a different game.

Dave wants to argue that I don't appreciate the importance of absolute length, trying somehow to argue that we should give it equivalent weight to relative length. I say Dave has been seduced by those silly Titleist ads. Isn't is obvious?

The essence of golf is the BALANCE between player skill, the equipment used and the configuration of the playing field.

The BALANCE is the key, not any individual component.

If we gave the weekend golfer a golf ball that allowed him to hit 400 yard drives would anyone really think we had somehow "improved" the game? If we built a 10,000 yard golf course to test the professional golfer, would anyone think common sense had been applied?

The game of golf really is the millions of people who play it casually. This shouldn't be so hard to understand. For this group - the 95-98 percent - we want to achieve the BALANCE between player skill, equipment used and the configuration of the playing field AT THE LOWEST POSSIBLE COST. People want to play more, not pay more - I'll just have to repeat the wisdom playing in Scotland and Ireland taught me.

Now, there is a group of tournament capable players. Truthfully this group is less than one percent of all people playing the game. It is generous to go as high as 2, 3 or 5 percent.

With this very small group, it is the COMPETITION which is important - differentiating between more and less playing skill. Absolute length doesn't add anything - the competition is all about relative skills, i.e., which guy is better than the next.

The pursuit of absolute length through the golf technology arms race serves no purpose. For the vast majority - really 99% - it only makes playing the game more expensive. For the small elite who want to play competition golf, the pursuit of absolute length is meaningless: a 300 yard drive is no better than a 250 yard drive if your playing opponent has the skill to hit it five or ten percent longer.

Sorry, Lou, I guess most of my comments were really directed at Dave.

[Tim_Weiman]

Dave,

In fairness, it doesn't seem like the debate has been presented as a matter of 50/50 or 99/1 or 80/20 in favor of relative length. To the contrary, we are being spoon fed the notion that absolute length is MORE important than relative length. That is entire thrust of those silly Titleist advertisements. The entire golf industry is trying to indoctrinate people into thinking absolute length has some great virtue – the industry doesn’t even want people to think about the far more important concept of relative length. No wonder participation in the game isn’t growing.

A couple years ago I listened to a professional golfer – a PGA tour player – offer opinions on a 540 yard par five and a 440 par four. He explained that the holes lacked fun or challenge and NEEDED to be lengthened. Why? Because after hitting his 310-320 yard drive, he didn’t even face a question about going for the green in two on the par five and needed only a wedge for his approach to the par four.

Doesn’t this clearly illustrate that absolute length has no inherent value? Wasn’t he clearly expressing that relative length is the secret to the game? Didn’t he “get” the importance of maintaining a BALANCE between player skill, equipment used and the configuration of the playing field? Can we really fault his thinking for anything but his apparent advocacy of a higher cost solution to the balance problem?

How can we assign ANY value to absolute length when it only adds to the cost of playing casual golf and it is unnecessary for tournament/competitive golf?

[A.G._Crockett]

A question occurs to me:

On Tour, do par 5's have the lowest stroke averages, relative to par?  Intuitively, I would think so, but is this in fact the case?

The obvious reason that par 5's are handicapped as the hardest holes on most golf courses is because there are more and better chances to screw up than on a 3 or 4, but does this hold true with the pros or not?  It seems to me that the answer would bear directly on the premise of this question.

I'll try to find current tour stats; thoughts?

[A.G._Crockett]

O.K., answered my own question.

Based on Tour stats:
Par 3's are somewhat harder than par 4's.  Weir leads in P3 average at 2.97, and you only have to go to around #10 before par is the average.  By number 100, the pros are almost a full stroke above par on average!

On par 4's, Singh leads at 3.95; par is still reach by around 10th place in the rankings.  However, by #100, the average has climbed only to around 4.06.

On par 5's, Singh also leads at 4.48; the difference is that the averages go up much more slowly here, with the number at 100 only being about 4.60.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I am really talking about an inexpensive way for a normal club to modernize their course, not the Maidstones of the world. 90% of the courses in America are not the subject of this site. Many of them are becoming the victims of equipment. How quickly we forget how different a holes plays than merely 10 years ago. We have a great 430, used to be strong par 4 that was driver/6iron to 3 wood that now is driver/3wood SW to 6 iron. The balls and equipment are a real problem and many clubs need a reasonable way to address this. Baxter just added a trap for us to help but the real problem is out course is going from a very good sound balanced course to a short course. A course needs strong par 4's to be a balanced course and a 8 iron to SW in is not a strong  par 4. Also those people that cannot easily hit a 500 yard hole in two, usually play off a different tee that has the hole 465 and do hit it in two. It is real easy to modify the green and move the tee up 20 yards and make it a strong 480 par 4. I bet the USGA changes the distances in a year or two anyway.

[Doug Siebert]

O.K., answered my own question.

Based on Tour stats:
Par 3's are somewhat harder than par 4's.  Weir leads in P3 average at 2.97, and you only have to go to around #10 before par is the average.  By number 100, the pros are almost a full stroke above par on average!

On par 4's, Singh leads at 3.95; par is still reach by around 10th place in the rankings.  However, by #100, the average has climbed only to around 4.06.

On par 5's, Singh also leads at 4.48; the difference is that the averages go up much more slowly here, with the number at 100 only being about 4.60.

Where did you get those stats?  I readily believe everything, except the claim that the 100th best pro on par 3s averages "almost a full stroke above par".  Given that you say the 100th best pro averages 4.06 on par 4s the also rans ought be to lobbying for par 76 courses  Its obviously impossible for a guy to be giving up 4 strokes on the top players per round and still make a check.  In fact, I'd find it really hard to believe that the 100th ranked players give up even one stroke per round (.25 per hole) on par 3s.

Seriously though, the stats are pretty much what I expected, other than that typo.  I think that's how it is for most of us here (at least the single digits) but I think it is reasonable to have handicaps listing longer holes higher because once you get up to bogey golfer range this picture reverses itself.  No matter how good you are, you still don't have much room to screw up before you bogey a long par 3, while bogey shooters may only par such a hole after a lucky break, it isn't very difficult for them to bogey it.  On the other hand, while birdies and pars are common on par 5s for better players, and bogey is about as bad as you'll do without some fairly major screwup, the sky's the limit for the poorer golfers.  I never understood why a 490 yard downhill par 5 could have a lower handicap number than a 225 yard par 3 surrounded by rough playing into the prevailing wind until I realized that simple fact.

[Dan_Belden]

We are doing exactly this at BCC in Canton.  We are going from a par 72 to a par 71 for the members, and we are going to a par 70 for the championship course.  Interestingly enough when the course opened it was a par 71.  
     It seems to me that par isn't really important, it is the shots that matter.  A member recently said to me that our front nine was going to be much more difficult for the expert player, and cited the fact that the 5th hole, while not changing yardage, but going from a par 5 to a par 4, is part of the reason why the course is going to be harder.   It almost didn't even dawn on him that his stroke average will probably be the same no matter what they call the hole. How can that make it harder I asked.
   I think what is trying to be conveyed on this post, is that too many courses no longer offer long iron second shots, except on holes that we  call par 5's.  It doesn't really matter what you call them, but if a course can add a long iron approach by playing a par 5 at a shorter yardage that might not be all that bad a thing.  

[skivail]

The is discussion going on at the moment about lengthening the par 5's at RMGC. The holes are rather short, but they can still prove to be challenging, and in hind site the tees are rarely off the back anyway so the course can be played harder if it really want to.

[Shane Gurnett]

The is discussion going on at the moment about lengthening the par 5's at RMGC.

Mot, which ones, how and by how much? I didn't think they had any room to move the tees back?

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