Taking Par Off of the Scorecard

[PCCraig]

My home course, which sits on land that has been played as a golf course since 1893, has no less than 6 holes which could be considered "half-par" holes where, depending on the conditions, the hole could play either a half stroke harder or easier. Here are the holes and their respective yardages with par removed:

Course Rating/Slope: 71.9/137
1:   324         10:   377   
2:   110         11:   186   
3:   163         12:   533   
4:   490         13:   283   
5:   337         14:   230   
6:   468         15:   533   
7:   354         16:   521   
8:   366         17:   522   
9:   414         18:   170   
       3,026                3,355   

Par has been debated for a while at the club, with one strong suggestion being the alteration of two holes in order to create equal pars on both nines.

One hole, the 6th, is a bit of a hot topic at the club. At 468 yards, the hole was originally been played as a par 5, but is now listed as a par-4. The primary challenge of the hole is that approximately 160 yards away from the green there is a steep, ~30ft, hill which creates a completely blind second shot. There are a significant amount of players who think they should bulldoze the feature to create a more gradual slope and only a semi blind 2nd shot.

I was playing with another gentlemen earlier this year when the subject of the 6th hole came up. He claimed the hill should be flattened as he thought it was too difficult for a mid-to-high handicapper to hit a mid iron or fairway wood high enough to clear the slope and to reach the green. My response was to ask him if he could hit a 7 iron high enough over the slope and when he replied in the positive I then suggested he hit that then follow up with a pitch shot onto the green and play it as a "par-5."

I mentioned that "par" shouldn't really matter and, in my opinion, really serves no purpose. I proposed that the course keep the hill (which is completely natural) and if players feel the hole is unfair as a par-4, but too easy as a par-5...they should just take par off the scorecard all together.

With the variety of hole lengths and half-par holes, why not just go out and play the golf course as it is? Why are we a slave to an assigned number which has historically been derived from a formula?

Has any course successfully taken par off of its scorecard? What's stopping a course from doing so?

[Garland Bayley]

Sagebrush doesn't have hole pars on the score card. As I posted earlier, I didn't even realize there were four par 5s (I only knew of two) until after my trip there when I took time to look at a thread on the course. I just thought there were holes this old duffer couldn't reach in two. Didn't realize they had been classified as par 5. When the green looked to be unreachable, I just took the appropriate club to reach a place where I thought I should hit my next shot from.

[Phil McDade]

Pat:

Please lie down in front of the bulldozers should the suggestion on the 6th be taken seriously. I'd normally add an emoticon "wink" here, but I'm semi-serious (haven't played, but seen some of the pictures -- that's a great piece of unconventional routing you just don't see all that often anymore).

I've seen this feature on a few courses -- the 17th at Flossmoor comes to mind, as does the 10th at the Janesville (WI) Riverside course -- and it usually makes for (in my view) one of the better holes on the course.

Changing par is surely a better option than modifying the course terrain. I think eliminating par altogether on the scorecard is a bridge too far for many folks.

[Tom Culley]

Pat,

Only ten minutes ago was i discussing with my brother the fact that par is a relatively new thing to the game, and is really not necessary.

I propose the concept of par be scrapped worldwide.

[Jud_T]

I believe Friar's Head has no Par on the scorecard.  Of course it makes it difficult to post a score for handicap for partial rounds etc... 

[Dan Kelly]

I'm with Phil. When that hill gets flattened, it'll be the end of Town & Country's claim to being the oldest course in Minnesota. Flattening it would be a golf-architecture atrocity of the first magnitude.

(For the record: I've driven it into the fairway, to near the bottom of the hill, every time I've played No. 6 -- and almost every time I've played it, I've hit a 3- or 4-wood that didn't QUITE make it over the hill without skipping like a very flat rock on a very calm lake. I've never hit the green in regulation -- but I don't hold that against the hole!)

Here's what I'd do, to forestall atrocity:

I'd make No. 6 a par-5. Making it a 5 sure as hell wouldn't matter to those who will regularly birdie it -- just as surely as it WILL matter, forever, to those who can't ever hope to hit the green in "regulation" if it's a par-4. (And say what you will about par, and I'm sure I'll agree, in theory, with everything you say: In practice, par *does* matter, especially to anyone whose best shots are doomed to leave him -- or, of course, her -- short.)

Why not let the par rise to 73? There's a long tradition of TC courses at par-73.

As for the uneven nines? Point them to Pacific Dunes. Let the rankings do some good for once!

[PCCraig]

I believe Friar's Head has no Par on the scorecard.  Of course it makes it difficult to post a score for handicap for partial rounds etc... 

Does it? Each nine and the entire course has a rating and slope, so couldn't you just punch in a score, regardless of how many over "par" you are?

Or perhaps someone who is more familiar with the rating and slope process can enlighten me. Does designated par weigh into the process?

In discussing the theoretical removal of par from a scorecard, someone mentioned to me that it would be difficult to play a match with handicaps because "you wouldn't be able to handicap individual holes." Any truth to that? Couldn't you create the hole handicaps separate from par?

[PCCraig]

I'm with Phil. When that hill gets flattened, it'll be the end of Town & Country's claim to being the oldest course in Minnesota. Flattening it would be a golf-architecture atrocity of the first magnitude.

(For the record: I've driven it into the fairway, to near the bottom of the hill, every time I've played No. 6 -- and almost every time I've played it, I've hit a 3- or 4-wood that didn't QUITE make it over the hill without skipping like a very flat rock on a very calm lake. I've never hit the green in regulation -- but I don't hold that against the hole!)

Here's what I'd do, to forestall atrocity:

I'd make No. 6 a par-5. Making it a 5 sure as hell wouldn't matter to those who will regularly birdie it -- just as surely as it WILL matter, forever, to those who can't ever hope to hit the green in "regulation" if it's a par-4. (And say what you will about par, and I'm sure I'll agree, in theory, with everything you say: In practice, par *does* matter, especially to anyone whose best shots are doomed to leave him -- or, of course, her -- short.)

Why not let the par rise to 73? There's a long tradition of TC courses at par-73.

As for the uneven nines? Point them to Pacific Dunes. Let the rankings do some good for once!

Dan,

The interesting thing about #6 is that it's actually pretty similar to #4, a 490 yard "par 5" with a blind second shot that is a little longer (~25 yards) but over a hill only half as tall (although granted there is more trouble off the tee). As I've explained to other people, I think both holes play almost identically difficult and that I consider neither a par 4 or 5, but 4.5's. As I've said, if I can manage to make a  combined 9 on both holes I feel like "I'm even with the field."

So, getting back to the point of the thread, wouldn't be great with someone walking off the 4th hole with a 5 and saying "ok, I need to be a little more aggressive on #6 to stay even" or vice versa...laying up on a "par 4" to be safe knowing that you already made a 4 on the prior hole?

Is this the strategy and are these the decisions that we're missing with par on the card?

[Phil McDade]

Pat:

Here's the thread I initiated on "hard" half-par holes; my thinking is that folks seem to like half-par holes where the mid-point score is birdie/par, but don't like as much half-par holes where the mid-point was par/bogey.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,48396.0.html

One other thought: What about an optional tee (not sure if there is room, or the terrain would allow for it), and letting the player decide the par for the day's play. Janesville Riverside does this very successfully for its funky 10th hole, which seems similar to the 6th here in some ways. In all the times I've played Riverside, our group typically gets to the tee and decides on the spot -- par 5 today, or par 4? It works!

Excerpts from the Riverside thread of a few years ago:

Here’s the tee shot of the 10th hole – from the tips, the hole plays as a 491-yard par 5; from the whites (the white tees are to the right of this photo), as a tough 445-yard par 4. From either tee, it’s a fun and challenging hole.


The canted fairway dives into a deep ravine, with the green tucked into an opening in the woods distant. Originally, the green sat at the top of the hill in the distance. Harris moved the green back into the woods, about 100 yards back from the top of the plateau, making an already solid and fun hole that much better.


The decision for those laying up on this short par 5 is difficult – play to the base of the ravine, or try to carry a long shot to the top of the hill coming out of the ravine?


Nearing the 200-yard mark, the flag on the green can be seen, but not the green surface itself. There is not a lot of room for error upon the high shelf where the green sits -- deep woods squeeze the landing area on the plateau where the green is located.


Here’s the view from 160 yards – a totally blind shot over a steep hill. This is wonderful, old-fashioned golf.


The bunkerless green is one of the better ones on the course, with some significant slope on the right side. Trouble lurks left, right and back of the green with falloffs and deep woods. Although not as grand in style, the 10th at Riverside reminds me of Lawsonia’s famed par 5 13th, which incorporates a similar steep ravine that must be negotiated in the latter half of the hole. The best hole at Riverside.

[Wayne_Kozun]

In discussing the theoretical removal of par from a scorecard, someone mentioned to me that it would be difficult to play a match with handicaps because "you wouldn't be able to handicap individual holes." Any truth to that? Couldn't you create the hole handicaps separate from par?

I don't think that is true.  Here is what I found on the net regarding hole ratings:  

Match Play:  The USGA recommended way to obtain the proper allocation based on scores is to collect 200 hole-by-hole scores of two groups of golfers.  Group A is the lower handicap players and group B is the higher handicap players. The average score - hole by hole - is calculated for each group.   The holes are then ranked by comparing the average scores from each group on each hole.  The hole where the difference between those averages is the greatest is the #1 handicap hole and the hole where the difference is the least is the #18 handicap hole.

 I don't see wjhy par matters in that instance.

The only place that I think it matters is for partial rounds, as someeone mentioned above.  If you play 13 or more holes then you are supposed to enter you score based on what you would get vs a scratch player.  In other words if you are a 12 handicap you would score a bogey for any holes that are the #12 handicap or less and a par for holes that are the #13 handicap and above.  If you don't have par then what do you put in?

[Dan Kelly]

So, getting back to the point of the thread, wouldn't be great with someone walking off the 4th hole with a 5 and saying "ok, I need to be a little more aggressive on #6 to stay even" or vice versa...laying up on a "par 4" to be safe knowing that you already made a 4 on the prior hole?

Is this the strategy and are these the decisions that we're missing with par on the card?

Apologies if I missed "the point of the thread"!

My answer to your last question: I sincerely doubt it. I have no doubt that if you make 4 on 4, you're hoping to make 4 on 6, too, so as to be one stroke ahead of the crowd.

I don't know about you, but I try to make the best score I can on every hole, while eliminating the possibility of a horrible score.

I don't see how "par" on the card or no par on the card would change that one whit.

[Garland Bayley]

I believe Friar's Head has no Par on the scorecard.  Of course it makes it difficult to post a score for handicap for partial rounds etc... 

Does it? Each nine and the entire course has a rating and slope, so couldn't you just punch in a score, regardless of how many over "par" you are?

Or perhaps someone who is more familiar with the rating and slope process can enlighten me. Does designated par weigh into the process?

In discussing the theoretical removal of par from a scorecard, someone mentioned to me that it would be difficult to play a match with handicaps because "you wouldn't be able to handicap individual holes." Any truth to that? Couldn't you create the hole handicaps separate from par?

Pat,

In order to post a partial score, you have to complete the score card by adding handicap strokes due you to par for each of the remaining holes.

[PCCraig]

Here is an overhead of the hole in question from earlier in the thread. Forgive the white boxes, but I took a quick snapshot from Google Maps, in case anyone is interested:


And here is a view from the players 2nd shot over the hill in question (from Jason Topp's thread last year):

[PCCraig]

Edit.

[Wade Whitehead]

Par was cemented into relevance when Clifford Roberts created the over/under method for displaying progress during tournament rounds.  It allows spectators and players to track how competitors stand, no matter what hole they are playing at any given time.

Before that people were just concerned about a total number of strokes, not necessarily how that total stacked against a "constant" like par.

WW

[Mark Johnson]

par matters for a few reasons

1)  ESC-- I can only take a double for ESC purposes.    Need to know the par to know if I can take a 6 or 7 on a par 4.5

2)  Stableford event -- does T&C ever do stableford events?  if so, you need par.   Big difference between Net Eagle (5) and Net Birdie (2) Points

[Adrian_Stiff]

Whilst it is easy to make the case that par makes no difference the real world will not accept the radical step, people like to make birdies and par is our language, you would only lose trade by doing it and its probably a 1-99 situation that people would think it was a really great idea, for a good player they might just take the principle of I just make the lowest score I can each hole, for many the par is part of the strategy how he might play the hole, we had a few 485 yard par 4s that people seem to like more now we made them par 5s.....If we are back to that FUN word, then taking away the par would more likely take away some fun rather than make everything better.

[Jason Topp]

For those that have not played the course, the tee shot is significantly downhill and often with a summer wind.  On the 2nd, the picture flatens the hill considerably.  It truly is like you are hitting into a wall.  I understand why many would consider the hole "unfair" because a large percentage cannot get it over the hill on the fly and the more agressive one is off the tee, the more you need to get it up in the air.

However - how many people are going to reach a 468 yard par four in regulation anyway?

Pat - If you bulldoze the hill won't long hitters cut the corner further, making the hole pllay shorter than it does now?  I can't remember the distance to the corner but I recall aiming over trees, which would mean most good players who carry the ball 30-50 yards farther than I do, could cut a lot off.

[Neil Davis]

If the par of the hole was changed to 5, would the course need to be re-rated, or the rating change signficatly the next time it is rated?

[Ken Fry]

Par has no effect on course rating and slope.  Par would only effect the assignment of hole handicaps which is decided on by the individual club or course.

Changing a 475 yard par 5 to a par 4 would more than likely lead to a change of the assigned hole handicap, but it would have no effect on slope and rating.

Ken

[David_Tepper]

No pars on the scorecard would make playing a Stableford pretty difficult.

[Wayne_Kozun]

No pars on the scorecard would make playing a Stableford pretty difficult.

On a hole by hole basis it would but if the course was deemed to be a par 72 in total, even without pars for specific holes, then your Stableford score would be 108-(stroke play score)+(course handicap), assuming standard Stableford scoring of par=2 points, and linear scoring for all other scores.

[David_Tepper]

Wayne K. -

I am not sure that is correct. The beauty of Stableford scoring (at least in my mind) is you can pick up your ball when you have made a net double-bogey or worse. How would you know when you have done that if you did not know the par of the hole?

DT

[Wayne_Kozun]

You're right - I forgot about that, but that depends on your scoring method.  We now use Stableford in our CC in all flights except the open flight.  The max is a trible bogey or -1 points.  I guess this is similar to ESC for someone with a handicap of 9 or lower.

[mike_beene]

I have started just playing off 4.All of the sudden I love the old par 3s.Very easy to score.6 over is always 78 and you will get out of scoring ruts.I know one shot at a time and don't count is the real answer but that is no fun.