Explain this to me...

[TEPaul]

JohnV;

I have no doubt either that the USGA probably does drop par sometimes to see if they can get into some tour pros heads so that what apparently happened to some at Wailua will happen to them.

These are the tour pros who the USGA can most easily insert the end of a string in one ear, reach into the other ear and pull the string out and work the string back and forth with relative ease! It appears from Tiger Woods's remarks about the dropping of par on #2 Pebble that he will not let the USGA's string people anywhere near either of his ears.

[peter mcknight]

Stroke average of hole 2 at Pebble
1972--4.86
1982--4.69
1992--4.65

2000--4.42

Stroke average relative to par at Pebble
1972--+5.79 (winning score +2)
1982--+3.58 (winning score -6, n=9 under par)
1992--+2.97 (winning score -3, n=2 under par)

2000--+4.36 (winning score -12, n=1 under par)

Other par 4s (some converted) that have played harder than no.2 at Pebble in recent opens:

Oakmont 1, 10
Shinnecock 6 equal
Oakland 18 (par 5 for members)
Congressional 6, 10 (both par 5s for members) (17 was equal)
Olympic 4, 5, 17 (par 5 for members)
Pinehurst 5, 8, 16 (8 and 16 are par 5s for regular play)
Southern Hills 18
Bethpage 5, 7 (par 5), 10, 12, 15 (16 was equal)

[Ted Sturges]

Thank you Peter McKnight for the statistics on how the 2nd hole @ PB has played in the last 4 opens.  I didn't know the statistics, but would have bet heavily that the 2000 version of the 2nd hole (the shortest) would have played the easiest.  Thank you for providing the statistics to prove this.

TS

[JohnV]

6 at Congressional is one hole that I always think of as a hole where the players got suckered by the USGA.  As I recall, it is about 480 and has water the the right of the green.  Call it a 5 and players who miss hit their drive a little will layup, but call it a 4, and they all go for it and lots hit it in the water.

[Rick Shefchik]

How you think about par relative to a hole's length has a lot to do with what you think of your own short game. I know I play my best golf (i.e., score lowest) when I hit lots of greens in regulation (again, a par-relative term).

I can have good days when I scramble, but not as likely as when I'm two-putting for pars. Therefore, par gets into my head this way: I am tempted to go for a long par 4 green in two more often than I am tempted to go for a short par 5 green in two, even if the shots are of equal difficulty. In the last couple of years I've been successfully resisting the temptation more often, but "par" makes it harder to resist, for me, than "birdie."

[JWL>]

TN
Well, you must be a bigger hitter than you think, or least for that day.  The hole plays slightly downhill on the drive and often with wind aid.  I can only assume you played under rather firm, wind aided conditions.   This hole was always planned to be hole that 4 was a score that all players could make if they played good shots.  I felt like there was enough difficulty on the back nine and making a birdie or even an eagle late in the round would make a player happy.  I have learned thru the years that a happy player usually likes the course and is more apt to come back and play again.  And that was the goal of the development, to get consideable repeat play.  I will add that the next time you visit SF, and play that hole, turn around to your right and look up into the rock outcroppings in the hillside.  It was our desire to build a back tee in those rocks after we cleared the unbelievable number of environmental/county regulations.  You wouldn't believe them all if I listed them.
We realized that should an important championship be played by professionals/top amateurs, that the 16th would be played as a par 4.
Good example of the this entire thread!  Thanks for the compliments on the course.  It was about as difficult a site as I have ever encountered in the US.

[Tom Doak]

Funny, but I just got back from a consulting assignment where the club wants us to call a 460-yard hole a "par 5" to assuage the membership.

The hole is a par five now, but we have to move the tee forward some to make room to add a new hole.  (The new hole replaces one which is now in the parking lot of the new clubhouse!)  Anyway, the membership is in terrible fear about our changing par from 72 to 70, so they want me to do whatever I can to keep this hole a par 5 -- even if it means just calling it one for the members' sake.

Now, I have no problem with that -- if the hole is the same length I don't care what they call it.  What I am resisting is moving the green back twenty yards (where you can't see it as well, and therefore you're making the hole less good) to help justify it as a par-5.  To me, there's all the difference in the world there.

[MBL]

Gentlemen-

Regarding the Jack quote before the '00 US Open, didn't a couple of trees that had protected one (?) side of the green come down in addition to the length issue...making the hole a bit easier?

And thank you for the thread, I played all weekend on a course with some great holes that had recently be renovated...the 17th was a shortish three-shotter with lake guarding front and right of green (almost Cape-esque) and OB coming into play on left (in landing area of lay-up).  All weekend I commented how it was a tough -- i.e. shouldn't be one -- par 5 because there really wasn't any lay-up area.  This thread has clearly set me straight that the number doesn't matter .... it's always the hole.

[JWN>]

MB

You are correct.  There has always been a large evergreen just over the ravine on the left side of the fairway.  When long shots were hit into the hole in the past, this tree guarded a shot that was played to bounce in from left to right.
Shorter hitters could play this shot when they accurately drove down the right side of the fairway.  With today's equipment, power like Tiger has, he could drive it anywhere and still fly the ball over the tree and onto the green surface.
Not everyone could do that in the past.
Prior to the 2000 Open, the tree was removed because of beetle infestation.  It was not replaced with a tree large enough to have the same impact as the original, so the hole definitely was easier from that aspect.  The original tree had as much, or more, impact on the play of the hole as the large evergreen (same tree and same beetle problem) as the one they recently replaced at 18.
Therefore, the comparison of scores on #2 at Pebble over the years isn't exactly comparable.