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Jeremy_Glenn.

History of Par?
« on: November 06, 2002, 05:48:22 PM »
I'm finishing up on my essay on "par", and would require your assistance again.

I was wondering if anyone here would have any information on the history of par.  When was it "invented"?  When did it become "accepted"?  When did it takeover from "bogey golf" that was used way back when?

Any info would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2002, 09:46:08 PM »
Jeremy;

I may be wrong but I think you might find a bit of history on the transition from bogey to par as an accepted standard in the USGA's website, maybe under their history of handicapping.

Otherwise I'm sure one of us can find mention of it in some book somewhere but how in depth I don't know! If you don't need it real soon I might see what I can find if I go to Golf House one of these days soon.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Jim_Kennedy

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: History of Par?
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2002, 10:31:31 PM »
Jeremy,
Try this:
http://www.usga.org/handicap/publications/survival/text/c8-16.html

TEPaul,
I think you will enjoy the section on "Bisques".  ;)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:11 PM by -1 »
"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

TEPaul

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2002, 05:08:43 AM »
JimK:

I'm familiar with the "bisque". We should tell it to Pat and he can include it's rebirth with the return of the stymie.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2002, 05:43:12 AM »
Jeremy:

That's the article I was thinking about in the USGA's website. I think there might be another instructive article in there somewhere.

But you can see from that article how the early bogey concept transformed to par and when and why. You can see how the USGA basically based their handicap system on "par" and then later "course rating" on it and eventually "slope" rating on it too.

Incidentally, it was Dean Knuth, the author of that article who developed the concept of "slope". He was the USGA's director of handicapping for many years!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2002, 08:48:39 AM »
Dave:  JV can give greater detail and clarity than I, but please do realize green surface is one of the criteria evaluated separately when doing course ratings.  You start with the green speed based on stimp readings, that gives you a category, then the severity of contour gives you a numerical rating within that category... tiers and other very severe things add a point for the bogey...

That's it in a nutshell.  Greens do count and are separated out, with the value for such coming out just about how you suggest (as I understand things).

TH

ps - the concept of "par" doesn't exist in course rating....
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2002, 08:48:49 AM »
Dave;

I would definitely underscore that last sentence of yours unless we want to institute a rule that no one will be allowed to have a handicap unless they have PHD in mathematics first!

But on the other hand if handicapping can let the power of technology (the computer) work for it and put all these formulaic ramifications into the computer without anyone really understanding what goes on in that computer it would probably be a homerun!

But people will start to want to know why things are as they are and start forming all kinds of odd perceptions and then we'll be in trouble again!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2002, 09:06:29 AM »
Dave - I think I understand what you're getting at, but just note that we have this already... there is no published "green rating", but such could easily be extrapolated as is from a course's course rating and bogey rating... the green surface values do equate to a certain number.  I bet JV could do this in about 5 minutes.

I've lobbied for publishing bogey ratings, but have gotten nowhere.  So hey, if separating out "green ratings" will help in any way, as you describe, then let's make that happen also.  The data already exists....

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Doug Siebert

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: History of Par?
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2002, 05:55:54 PM »
Dave, perhaps it is not realistic to figure on 2 putts per green for expert players.  But neither is it realistic to figure on reaching all par 3s in one and all par 4s in two.  If the best putts on tour hit every green, their "putts per GIR" stats suggest they'd end up with 31 or 32 putts for the round.  Normally 32 putts would be a bad day on the greens for a top pro, but that's because he's usually missing 5 greens and is likely to get up and down the majority of the time.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
My hovercraft is full of eels.

Jeremy_Glenn.

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2002, 08:03:41 PM »
Thanks Jim, that's the website I had been looking for!

That extra little historical background in my essay will at least fool some of the people into believe that I have a hint of credibility...  :)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2002, 07:08:29 AM »
Jeremy:

If you really want to see how par became the baseline for handicapping and as such first led things astray the article on the history of par by Knuth will show it!

When Doleman came up with the idea of "par" and asked Davie Strath and Jamie Anderson to tell him what they thought the reasonable "par" score would be at that competition at Prestwick, what did they tell him? They told him they thought "par" would be 49 (for the 12 hole course at Preswick)!

But what kind of competiton was that tournament at Prestwick which Old Tom Morris won? It was a stroke play tournament!!

And then Doleman quickly did something that was really misleading! He took that gross score "expectation" and he began to break it down into an "expectation" for various individual holes to try to determine what their "par" was. That's basically where the concept of par 3s, 4s and 5s came into being!

And that's fine but what Doleman forgot to do is recommend then that for MATCH PLAY handicap purposes a single round gross score posting will never do! The reason it won't is because that's the stroke play format and not the match play format!

To apply par to a match play format the individual holes need to be considered separately and that was never done and still isn't! The only way to do that is to post HOLE by HOLE, but that rarely, if ever happens, even today!

But we can see that the handicapping authorities of both Europe and the USA never paid that problem any heed and they still haven't. But no one can say they were never warned!

There's a really excellent article in this regard, again, by the thoughtful Max Behr. (I should get GeoffShace to post it in the "In My Opinion" section).

You will see the danger of what I'm saying here and the danger that Behr was outlining in this regard when he said in his article on the problems of handicapping in 1930;

"Because it involves the reduction of activity to some dead mathematical formula, the giving of handicaps has always been a difficult problem to solve. In golf this difficulty is further accentuated in the failure to perceive that a round of golf is not a continous performance such as a race, it's divided into 18 separate parts. Therefore, our present method of averaging scores to attain a handicap has been working from a Whole to arrive at a standard for the Parts, instead of intelligently working from the Parts to determine the efficiency of the Whole. And as it is a conclusive fact that 99 percent of golf is played at match play, a better method would be to arrive at a player's average effectiveness in the 18 separate matches. This is in no way revealed by averaging his best total scores for a ROUND."

And so we can see that a single ROUND score can in no way EVER work efficiently to determine a match play handicap! A single round score is the STROKE play format only. Hole by hole scores are the MATCH play format only!!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

par

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2002, 07:37:08 AM »
professional's average result
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

A_Clay_Man

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2002, 08:21:52 AM »
I think it was Sand Hills' lack of rating and slope that got me to think of a system that took into account the conditions of the day. Be it wind,temp, humidity, firmness, softness and everything else measurable.

In this day and age of genius techno improvrments and software applications why couldn't all be factored in (GIGO) to give a better representative handicap rating/slope for the course the day you played?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Doug Siebert

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: History of Par?
« Reply #13 on: November 10, 2002, 10:47:23 PM »
Some Scottish courses do that, or at least used to.  When my dad went to Scotland in '85, he said there was (at least) one of the "big name" courses (might have been Troon or Gleneagles) that had a sign at the clubhouse that said par for the day was 76.  I don't remember seeing anything like that in my visits, but I might have missed it.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
My hovercraft is full of eels.

Rich Goodale (Guest)

Re: History of Par?
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2002, 12:04:26 AM »
Doug

Scottish (and other GBI) courses have a system which changes the Standard Scratch (the equivalent of Course Rating) for each competition they hold.  (As explained often on this site, their handicapping sysem is based (almost) solely on competitions, which are frequent at most clubs).  Troon, for example, as a "Standard" Scratch Score of 73, I believe.  On the day this can vary from one less than that to 3 more than that (i.e. 72 to 76), depending solely on the results posted on the day by the members playing in the competition.  This is all done by computer at the end of each competitive round.  It is a real time (although imperfect) indication of the dificulty of the course on the day.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

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