What has the idea of "par" done for the game?

[Joe Hancock]

Why do we assign a par number to holes? Is there anything gained, as far as the game is concerned? Personally, I could care less.

Thoughts?

[Tom_Doak]

Before par, there was "bogey" in the UK.  I'm not sure exactly when that forerunner of par started, but it seems that golfers inevitably want a standard to fall short of!

[Peter Pallotta]

Joe - to paraphrase TS Eliot: 

Between a line of instinct
and the line of charm, 
between a game of inches
and a game of chance 
Lies a Par.
For it reflects the Target.

Between a flowing meadow
and the field of play,
between an untrammeled walk
and the designer's art 
Lies a Par. 
A journey with neither hazard nor goal is very dull.

Between a birdie
and a bogey,
Between my elation
and my despair
Lies a Par.
For it reflects the Target. 

For it Reflects
Par, is
For it Reflects a

This is the way a round ends
This is the way a round ends
This is the way a round ends
Not with a chuckle but a Score.

Peter

(Now, you can't really argue with THAT, can you?  )

[Bill_McBride]

Peter P is a tough act to follow

[JESII]

Joe,


The negatives associated with the concept of PAR could fill a million boxes...but the notion that "I'm here in the wrong side of the fairway and I need to figure out how to get this shot into a position from which I can get down in two" IS the fodder that makes golf architecture important.


Take away my desire, my need, to accomplish something and you take away temptation which is the architects greatest tool.

[Frank M]

My desire to accomplish in golf has nothing to do with par. I want to make a 1 on every hole.

[Tim Gallant]

Joe,


The negatives associated with the concept of PAR could fill a million boxes...but the notion that "I'm here in the wrong side of the fairway and I need to figure out how to get this shot into a position from which I can get down in two" IS the fodder that makes golf architecture important.


Take away my desire, my need, to accomplish something and you take away temptation which is the architects greatest tool.

I should have read this before I posted on the 200+ par-3 thread. +1

[Sean_A]

To me the concept of par has served for all to see the game as though they were among the best in the game...not good.  Not only is that very misleading, because the best players are better than par, but also a false guidebook for archies.  Its a codification system which has run amuck.  Archies design to par these days looking for a total number rather than simply designing holes.  Basically, par is an ego trip with archies driving the bus.


Ciao   

[JESII]

Frank,

If you're hoping/trying to make a 1 on every hole, you're even more misguided than those of us that think Par matters.

[Jim Nugent]

Par is a handy accounting device.  In medal play it makes comparing scores between players both easy and more reliable than, say, even fours. 

[BCrosby]

The negatives associated with the concept of PAR could fill a million boxes...but the notion that "I'm here in the wrong side of the fairway and I need to figure out how to get this shot into a position from which I can get down in two" IS the fodder that makes golf architecture important.

Take away my desire, my need, to accomplish something and you take away temptation which is the architects greatest tool.

Well said, Jim.


The sweet agony of taking a risk or playing safe is at the heart of what makes golf fun to play. But that sweet agony only exists when you are measuring yourself against some standard. In match play that standard might be your opponent. In almost all other contexts, it is Mr. Par.


Bob 

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob - yes, I too thought Jim put it very well. This is a fascinating topic, for this reason: it comes up time and time again, and time and time again you and/or Jim S will make a very clear and cogent and (to me) indisputable defence of Mr. Par. And yet, every time, like clock-work, some otherwise intelligent and astute observers like Jim N and Joe H and Sean A will come on here to disagree with us, and suggest that the concept of par is unhelpful/misguided or that Mr. Par is irrelevant. Now, I know that reasonable men can hold differing/opposing opinions, but I honestly don't know how anyone could not feel compelled to see it OUR way in this case.

Peter

[Sean_A]

Pietro


I admit to over-playing my hand.  However, I find it a great disappointment that a field such as golf architecture producing an incredible array of courses on which an even more incredible diversity of abilities are ever present can be boiled down to numbers which were meant to measure courses for only the best players.  This ties neatly into my crusade for golfers to become realistic and start thinking about courses in terms of handicap players and therefore take decisions/hold opinions about course changes (or not) based on handicap players. To me, the connection of par, pros and architecture has not been good for the game.


Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

That's a very good post, Sean - the best 'counter-argument' I've read on this.

Nice to see you raise your game 

[Joe Hancock]

Good comments so far, even if I feel differently.

Par does one thing for me; it sets the points during a match in which handicap strokes are distributed. Otherwise, I look at it this way:

My 75 beats your 80

or

You won the match 5 and 4

I feel no reward in taking x number of strokes on a hole based on someone else's idea of what a standard is. No, that's not completely true, as I revel in making an "eagle" just like everyone else. But, at the end of the round, it's either about beating an opponent by x number of strokes (and making a 3 on any hole is a good start) or winning x number of holes more than your opponent before the round ends. If I make a 3 on a long hole, I will still feel the elation of an accomplishment that, for my skill level, isn't ordinary. The number of par doesn't create that, it comes from within, IMO.

The older I get, and the more I learn about architecture(and, consequently, how I interact with it), the more I value fun golf shots vs. an arbitrary concept, such as par. If my bogey beats your double bogey, and we both had fun, then what do I care about the relationship of our scores to par?

[John Kavanaugh]

Because in every game I have played my entire life winning with a birdie pays more than winning with a par. It is a very important concept in handicapped games. Only natural birdies pay extra thus giving the more excellent player an advantage. Every good money game should give the guy who plays best the advantage over the guy who just plays to his handicap.


Try playing with a guy who lays up on his stroke holes so the only way you can beat him is with a birdie. When you do, he needs to pay a premium. It levels the field.

[Kyle Harris]

Joe,


The negatives associated with the concept of PAR could fill a million boxes...but the notion that "I'm here in the wrong side of the fairway and I need to figure out how to get this shot into a position from which I can get down in two" IS the fodder that makes golf architecture important.


Take away my desire, my need, to accomplish something and you take away temptation which is the architects greatest tool.

I call this "shot urgency."

To me this is no more urgent shot seen annually than the second shot into 11 at Augusta National.

[Jim Nugent]

Peter, I think par is helpful, and agree completely with Jim Sullivan and you.  I was trying to point up another good thing par does, besides the ones already mentioned.   

[David_Tepper]

It makes Stableford scoring possible.

[V. Kmetz]

I'm merely reposting what I said in the "No good 200 yard par 3" thread; it's better positioned here.





"Jiminy Crickets - get rid of individual hole pars and we could dispense with this needless and arbitrary criteria of evaluation, and just treat holes as they are found.Call each and every thing of 18 "holes" a golf course, and we all know that the numeric standard for expert play is level 4s or 72, let's just go from there...Every hole is thus a solution of 4 conceptually...there will be easy ones and hard ones and ones in the middle...and 1s and 2s are available on a few of them, 3s are available on most of them, 4 is a good score available on each of them, 5 is a mediocre score available on each of them, and 6s-plus are the results of poor play and misfortune...Whatever is gained by having an easy 125 yard 4 can be lost by having a seemingly unattainable 700 yard par 4...and everything in between, if well-rendered, provides the similar and smaller fulcrum of the balance.I urge inclined board members to approach their next round experimentally and take this focus on each tee (how can I make a 4 here?) and I believe the internal conscience of how your play honestly measured to that pursuit, will reveal to you just how good a hole (and a course) is."cheersvk

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[Ken Moum]

I'm reminded of the discussion between Payne Stewart and Mike Davis many years ago.


Stewart was bemoaning the (slight) shortening of a par five and calling it a par four. He said something like,"Mike that green is too small to be playing to it with a long iron, it's not fair."


Mike's reply, approximately, "Well, okay, I'll change it back on one condition, you get everyone in the field to agree to not try to hit it in two."


Par, especially these days, is a phony number.


People like short par fours and short par fives because they make them feel good about themselves. And they hate holes of identical length played as par threes and fours because they make them feel inadequate.


It's an artificial construct, with no objective foundation.


K

[Joe Hancock]

Barney,

Had the idea of par, and therefore, birdie, never been introduced, I'm sure there would be another avenue of doubling ones' winnings, in the event anyone would ever use the game of golf as a gambling mechanism.....sandies, barkies, and other incredible feats would have been utilized to keep the gamblers' fire burning.

V. Kemtz,

You will have to excuse me if my usually keen sense of sarcasm is off, as I am fighting an illness today. But why any of that? If we don't need par for particular holes, why do we need "fours"? Or 72? Isn't the pursuit of the lowest number of strokes on any given hole, and certainly for a round, still alive and well? Even for those who chose to play the game alone, aren't they still attempting to utilize as few strokes possible in all cases? ( I realize I am an exception in that I will chose a low percentage fun shot in lieu of score, most of the time. An ornery partner can influence me, however. )

Related question to all; Would you chose to not play a golf course that had been highly acclaimed and revered on GolfClubAtlas.com if the said courses' scorecard had no mention of par? Or, heaven forbid....yardage? Or would you be more intrigued by that notion? What if the only measure of the course was golfers reports alluding to fun and challenge and presentation?

[Frank M]

Par is arbitrary. If I'm misguided for always aiming to be the absolute best anyone can be, than I'll happily be misguided.

[Thomas Dai]

'Par' provides a benchmark against which handicaps can be established and adjusted. Handicapping is one of the great aspects of the game of golf as it expands the basis on which (non-elite-scratch) golf can be a competitive passtime for the vast majority of folks who play the game. The game would be less without handicapping.


Whether another form of 'par' if established would enable the handicapping system to operate in an equally or better way is surely the key to the matter and whether such other system would be equally appropriate in respect of matchplay, pairs play, team play, stableford, medal, mixed play etc.


The aspect that I would suggest is the area of weakness is not the current establishment of 'par' or the handicap system (by which I mean the handicapping system adopted through Congu not the much criticised herein USGA system) but the establishment of stroke indexes for individual holes and SSS etc.


Atb

[Jon Wiggett]

Pietro


I admit to over-playing my hand.  However, I find it a great disappointment that a field such as golf architecture producing an incredible array of courses on which an even more incredible diversity of abilities are ever present can be boiled down to numbers which were meant to measure courses for only the best players.  This ties neatly into my crusade for golfers to become realistic and start thinking about courses in terms of handicap players and therefore take decisions/hold opinions about course changes (or not) based on handicap players. To me, the connection of par, pros and architecture has not been good for the game.


Ciao

I totally agree Sean. I would imagine this would be easiest to do if courses were designed to have matchplay be the general form played.