There are a couple recent posts that I've wanted to respond to, but haven't for various reasons. I think they all trace back to golfers obsession with par.
Back in the good old days there was Colonel Bogey. The good Colonel was the equivalent to the most consistent golfer at the club. People would say he could drive like the best driver in the club, approach like the best with irons and putt like the best putter. He had the characteristics of real people. You played your match against the good Colonel, getting strokes where you needed them. A scratch player could play the Colonel on even terms.
Then along game par. Par is not the friendly Colonel, par is evil. Par is a bunch of college kids whose lives revolve around preparing to be professionals. The Colonel was retired military, Par is rich kids. The Colonel understands the traditions of the game and believes in etiquette. Par is about return on investment, shot value and getting through Q-School. The Colonel could play a leisurely round in three hours, par will take as long as it takes and doesn't want time restrictions.
Nobody knows par. It's a number, and since it isn't associated with anything real, it is something everyone thinks he or she should be able to achieve. This is why we need six sets of tees, yardage all over a course, and the whole bluidy idea of fairness in golf.
Someone posted they like to play golf on courses of a specific length. Why? On a longer course, doesn't that just mean you might need a few more strokes? On a shorter course, just need fewer strokes? Assuming the extra yardage isn't in forced carries, what's the harm of playing 6,000 when you prefer 5,500? Why is it important that there be a tee that meets my exact ability? Should it make a difference to me if the course is 4,500 yards or 7,500? Par was supposed to be an ideal, not something that should be within every golfer's reach.
IMHO it is because we are judging courses based on other courses. Too many golfers really want every course to be identical. Different scenery, maybe a par-3 as the third hole instead of the fourth, but every course should be 18 holes, par-72, four par-5s, four par-3s, (Make sure just two on each side so you get 36-36) hazards of the same depth, greens of the same speed, tees pointed in the correct direction and yardage to the front, middle and back on sprinkler heads, each 15-yards apart. And holes should fit comfortably within their correct par, god save us from holes to close to the edges of par.
When did golf become tennis?
Did the PGA Tour® do this to us? The golf mags ranking courses against each other? TV? Or was it when evil par replaced our old friend the Colonel? (In reality the term par pre-dates bogey, but the acceptance of par took longer.)
I really enjoyed playing Pacific Dunes as a 12-hole course. It felt great, i was emancipated from par or comparisons to other courses. I didn't even bother guessing at the end what I might have shot because I had nothing to compare it to. I have no idea what the 12 hole Pacific Dunes yardage was and don't care. It was just myself, Slag and the good Colonel enjoying a quick round of 12 holes of golf.
Dan King
dking@danking.org
quote:
The story goes that this was a nickname by which a certain fiery colonel was known just before the 1914 War when [Lieutenant F.J. Ricketts] was stationed at Fort George near Inverness in Scotland. One of the composer's recreations was playing golf and it was on the local course that he sometimes encountered the eccentric colonel. One of the latter's peculiarities was that instead of shouting 'Fore' to warn of an impending drive, he preferred to whistle a descending minor third.
--Richard Graves (The Real Colonel Bogey)