[Dan Kelly]

... same goes for Par 3s -- in most case, they simply aren't all that interesting to me except in relationship to what's come before.

Really?

Would you elaborate?

I think most golfers love par-3s.

There are days when I think that I'd like nothing better than a really well-designed 18-hole par-3 course, with holes ranging from little pitches to driver-length.

[Brent Hutto]

Dan,

I think that is a seriously niche preference. Personally, the finest 18-hole Par 3 course in the world would bore me to tears by the end of my first round there, if not before. And I think an awful lot of golfers would feel the same way.

[Dan Kelly]

I remember once reading that a golden age architect commented that each par 3 and each par 5 should be perpendicular to each other hence you ended up with 4 10 4. So one par 3 is into the wind, another downwind, another left to right and the last right to left wind. Same with the par 5s.

My home course, Midland Hills CC (Roseville, Minn.) -- a Raynor design -- has this arrangement.

I wonder how many others do.

[Peter Pallotta]

Dan - Brent said it better than I in his last post:

"..The majority of holes being Par 4's arose IMO because it provides the rhythm that most golfers historically have preferred to their round - hit a shot from a tee, hit a shot from the fairway, hit a couple of putts or chips...I think a string of three or four Par 4's in a row is the basic shot-variety (or stroke-variety) rhythm that "just works" for a lot of golfers...."

A really good Par 3 is wonderful - but what 'just works' for me, especially for three or four holes in a row, and what -- even more to the point --  I miss if I don't get it for two or three holes, is the "long club off the tee, watching it bound along, hoping for a resulting good angle into the green, and then a mid iron approach, trying to play it smartly with the right distance and trajectory and hoping to be somehwere on a safe part of the green, and if not, at a place where I can chip or pitch or bunker my way out and still make a putt for a par or an easy bogie" rhythm.

Again, a very interesting Par 3 (for me, a bit rare) is great, but in most cases I find the standard "one shooter" more pleasing as a timely "break from the rhythm" (as described above) than I do as a golf hole in and of itself -- and that I think would only be accentuated if I had to play three one shotters in a row.  

Peter

[Jeff_Brauer]

I understand the majority being par 4 holes.  If you want strategy, it creates it efficiently in just two shots.  The third on the par five is usually not all that interesting (but it can be)  Similarly, the par 3 obviously has no strategic shot relationship.

I always wondered just how the 3 and 5 came to be.  Probably needed to fit a par 3 in just to get 18 holes.  Maybe they felt they needed some variety? 

[Jim Nugent]

Architects could design 6700 yard courses that would give the pro's fits, make par a good score, and still keep the course enjoyable for the bogey golfer.  6 par 3s, 8 par 4s, and 4 par 5s.  Make a number of the par 3s long to real long.  Make one of the par 5s a legitimate three-shot hole, even for pro's.  The par 4s can run the gamut, from drivable to monsters.  

I played a course with a setup similar to that when I was a kid.  Forest Park (St. Louis) 18.  Under 5900 yards.  But four of the six par 3s required long irons or 4 wood.  The 600 yard (almost) #9 required three real good shots to get on the green.  Par was a good score, even for many of the top ams in the area.  And that was with mostly flat greens, and little real bunkering.      

[Brent Hutto]

I would bet somewhere along the line there were courses that were for all intents entirely "two shotters". I'm imagining a course where the short holes were still barely reachable with the equipment of the day and the longest holes were not much beyond reachable-in-two under the right conditions.

Not saying anyone would have deliberately designed it that way. Just that maybe a 9-holer or 12-holer or whatever might have come about with a fairly restricted range of hole lengths. Not sure about an entire 18 but, unlike the all-Par-3 concept, I think you could build a course with, say, nine holes all between 220 and 440 yards or something like that which still offered sufficient variety for me.

P.S. Now that I think of it, for a short hitter like myself there are probably tees I could use to "design" a course like that any time I like at my club. Most of the Par 3's have way-back tournament tees of 200 yards or more. And the ladies tees on all but one of the Par 5's are short enough to be reachable for me. I think if I pick the right nine, getting a range from about 195 to 420 ought to be doable. It might be fun to take an afternoon off work and play a "nine hole Par 4 course".

[Michael Felton]

Just a thought, but if you expand your thinking to include half par holes, you have 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5 and 5. So 18 holes is split into those 5 buckets, which works out to 3 or 4 holes in each one. Then the 3.5, 4 and 4.5 holes are mostly dropped in the par 4 bucket, with maybe 1 of each of the 3.5 and 4.5 holes slotted into par 3 or par 5 respectively. So you end up with 3 or 4 genuine 3s, 1 3.5 called a par 3, 2 or 3 3.5s called par 4s, 3 or 4 par 4s, 2 or 3 4.5s called par 4s and 1 4.5 called a 5, with 3 or 4 5s remaining. That works out to 4 or 5 3s and 5s and 8-10 4s.

I've never played any 6-6-6 courses so I don't know, but I would wonder if it was just that some of those half par holes are called 3s and 5s more than perhaps at other places. I think if there were 6 holes of less than 180 yards, I'd find that quite dull. Likewise if there were 6 holes of 540+.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Brent,

Not sure about that. I do agree that the real old courses probably set out holes looking for little hollows that held moisture for greens, or maybe little plateaus (Like TOC) if grass grew well.  Length was probably a secondary consideration way back then.

Over time, stuff got more and more architected.  Certainly by at least 1910 when CBM was writing about the "ideal mix" of holes the craft had advanced beyond finding the best sites to finding the best green sites within some sort of set out prescribed yardages, a subtle but important distinction. I know others wrote about ideal courses before even CBM.  It was something that developed over centuries.

I wouldn't doubt that the results of some British Open, or the opinions of the champs, or losers, had a lot to do with it.  You just can't play golf without thinking about how the architecture affects the game.

In fact, I figure the first cries of "That's unfair" probably occurred somewhere during no later than the second round of competitive golf.  

[Tom Bagley]

Many of the golden age architects wrote about their lack of interest in constructing "three-shot" holes which were considered "dull".  Ross specifically mentioned that he rarely laid out a "three-shot" hole unless explicitly urged to do so by the client.  But many of his long "two-shot" holes - as he described them - were ultimately designated/labeled as par 5s by clubs and local golf associations when "par" replaced "bogey" as the "rating" of the holes.  New England is full of these very long Ross two-shot holes, some of which have VERY challenging greens.  Members often resist reducing par on these holes from 5 to 4 because of the belief that "Ross did not intend players to hit long irons or fairway woods into THAT type of green.  If he had intended this hole to be a par 4, he would have made the green more receptive."  The reality is that most of those holes were two- shot holes when constructed for the better players of the day.

Ross also noted that the "short holes" (par 3s as we would call them) should be quite difficult.  Again, his rationale may have been that they would be otherwise dull.

ANGC may have influenced the convention of establishing par as 72 as others have mentioned, but it is important to note that Bobby Jones was explicit in his dislike for three-shot holes which he also found to be tedious.  As a result, he and MacKenzie designed the "5s" to play as four-and-a-half holes.

Contrary to what others have written, I have found it more common for high single-digit golfers (and higher handicappers) to want "true" par 5s on their courses.  They are popular becuase they provide a rare birdie opportunity for some golfers and a rare par opportunity for the shortest hitters.  But these groups very much dislike those holes that the scratch golfer can reach in two - if they, themselves, can not.  To them, it permits the scratch golfer to obliterate par on those holes - at the expense of the higher handicapper.  Hence the desire to extend some of these holes to make them "true par 5s" in the view of the average player.

My favorite courses tend to have only two par 5s because the majority of par 5s do tend to be dull.  But with wetlands limitations and more challenging properties to deal with, I am seeing more new courses with more 3s and 5s and less 4s in the routing.  Although I am not an architect, it appears that it is easier to route par 3s and the "point A - to point B - to point C" three-shot hole on these challenging properties.

[Phil McDade]

William Langford was a Golden Age architect who often routed his courses with five par 3s (his best-known course, Lawsonia, is a 5-8-5 course). Langford, in his writings (he was fairly prolific in his commentaries about golf design), often talked about shot values, specifically what might be better described as the kind of shots one hits into greens. He worried less about par -- both the par of the hole, and the overall par of the course -- but rather wanted to test the golfer with a variety of shots into greens.

I've always thought his Spring Valley course in Salem WI is the poster child for this kind of approach; perhaps even better than Lawsonia (not saying it's a better course, but to me it truly embodies his views on shot values) -- take a look at the scorecard:

http://www.springvalleyccgolf.com/#!scorecard/c1p3i

-- A par of 70 for 6,451 yds (from the tips);
-- A 5-9-3 combination of holes;
-- Four par 4s under 390 (including a nifty, driveable 278 yarder), but also four par 4s of 420+, including two beefy par 4s to start each nine at 460 and 450 yds;
-- Five par 3s that range from 138 to 230, and play in every direction (thus they may play longer or shorter, depending on the day's wind);
-- Three par 5s from 505 to 560 (the longest with a fun blind 2nd shot)

The notion of "hitting every club in your bag" may be a cliche, but Langford really liked courses that asked the golfer to take a variety of shots into his often turbulent greens. That mattered more than the hole's (or course's) par.

[Dan Kelly]

the par 3 obviously has no strategic shot relationship.

Jeff --

That isn't at all obvious to me.

The strategic shot relationship, on a lot of the best par-3s, is between the tee shot and the hoped-for putt or the dreaded alternative. No?

I don't see how the risk/reward calculus on "strategic" par-4s or par-5s is any different, fundamentally, from the risk/reward calculus on interesting, well-designed par-3s.

Dan

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom B - thanks, a really good post. I've often wondered about the (unintentional) revisionism that many of today's golf architecture afficiandos engage in when it comes to the golden age greats; and I have often doubted the narrative and consensus opinion that has come down to us (many of which you note) as technology has changed the way those original holes played and as our reverance for the top architects of the past has grown -- changes that have led to the average golfer's belief that "Ross not intend players to hit long irons or fairway woods into THAT type of green"...and to all the expectations/demands that go with that belief. 

Peter

[Sean_A]

Tom

I agree about 5s.  I think a large percentage were designed as 4.5s for scratch players back in the day and that the elimination of bogey forced the issue.  In effect, what designers would do is create 4-6 4.5 holes and eventually about half became 5s.  What is very cool about this is on any given day a par 5 may actually be easier than a par 4 - demonstrating the idea of 4.5 holes.  Okay, today most of those 4.5s are now really par 4s for scratch players no matter what they are labelled, but for handicap players, they remain 4.5s - hence the sense of confusion where par is concerned and absolute sense where bogey is concerned.

My ideal course probably has five 4.5 holes, four 3 holes and three or four 3.5 holes.  The par 4 (say between 315ish and 425ish) considered the stock of the trade, but I think about five or six does the job for me.  

Ciao

[Tom Bagley]

Peter:  Thanks for the kind words.

Sean:  I agree whole-heartedly, that Colt, Ross, MacKenzie and others built many holes in the 430-460 yard range that were always 4.5 holes (in our modern way of looking at it).  That is why these holes often have difficult greens or hazards well-short of the green to provide interest and challenge for those players who need three shots to play the hole.  Too often, we think about the "three-shot player" (a player requiring three shots to reach the green) competing against the "two-shot player" and how the hole is fair/unfair for those players when competing against each other.  The more common match involves players of roughly the same skill level competing against each other:  the three-shot player vs. the three-shot player, for example.  For their game to have interest - and strategy - the architect needs to provide some challenge for their SECOND shot on those holes.  Otherwise, they would be just mindlessly advancing the ball down the fairway to within short range of the green.

I also agree with your "ideal" course.  Too many "standard" 4s leads to dull golf.  It's nice to have a few of those holes, but not two many.  The 4.5s and 3.5s are much more interesting.

Of course, on the PGA Tour there would be an insurrection if the 4.5s (for them) were labeled as 4s, and the 3.5s (heaven forbid) as 3s - witness the response to #3 at Merion during the Open this year.

[Thomas Dai]

There is also the issue of what 'par' was when the course was first opened as against what par is now.

I did a short review of Walsall GC just north of Birmingham, UK, a Dr MacKenzie course, which has a sign displayed at the 1st tee stating  "At the time of opening in 1930 the SSS was 76 and 6 of the holes were par-5's". The yardage hasn't lowered over the years but the Men's SSS is now 71 (par 70) ) and there are only 2 par-5's. How times change.

Only today I played a few holes on another Dr MacKenzie course, built late 1920's this time, playing with hickories, and the 420 yd reasonably uphill 10th hole, which has a bunker 60 yds short of the green that for many, me included, is not in play with modern equipment, was certainly very much in play with two good hits with hickory.

All the best.

[Matthew Petersen]

It's funny that the notion of a "championship" being a par 72 persists, given that so many major championships are contested on 71 or 70 pars. Garnted, a good many of those are playing to that par number only because the USGA or PGA turned a par 5 into a par 4, but the public is still pretty used to seeing par 70s at US Opens these days.

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