Par

[Kip Patterson]

Having just read through most of a search (in the discussion groups) on "par," it seems logical to ask the question... What designer is going to have the intestinal fortitude to delete the concept of "par" from his/her course design?

A bit of background on the question... I played on several links courses in Scotland this summer, for the first time.  Standing on those landscapes, in on-and-off again rain, a bit of a wee hoolie (of wind), and minimal indications for the line of play (especially at TOC), I was struck at the absurdity of the notion of "PAR."

The human mind only knows something by comparison.  Deleting "par" as a "measure" for golf is likely to create a much larger revolution than any other single design parameter.  The folks that invented the game did not enjoy themselves any less because they couldn't keep track of their over/under score did they?  Are we so different from them?
 
So who's going to do it first?

By the by, don't give me any of that lame "Can't be poetry without meter, playing tennis with the net down" kinds of arguments.

[RJ_Daley]

If I'm not mistaken on this, the Warren Course at Notre Dame, designed by Coore and Crenshaw was built with the intent of not stating par for the holes.  Just yardage.  No handicap was listed either.  But for numerous reasons, the concept was abandoned and now the course has both par and handicap and course slope/ratings given.

http://www.warrengolfcourse.com/

[Forrest Richardson]

Golfers like the idea of a standard, or par. That is why the notion has stuck...especially since the 1920s when it became a strong tradition in the U.S. to think and design around par.

This is not to say the idea was born here.

Par is much less important in match play environs — the U.K., Ireland, etc.

I also had heard of the Coore project. Seems as if I've heard of others, too. Personally we have designed a hole with optional pars to be decided by the player with honors. I suppose that demands par, doesn't it? Well, as I said, par is a notion which appears rooted and enjoyed — there being no right or wrong.

[A_Clay_Man]

The better question than should be who is going to have the guts to call 360 yardish hoels par 3's? Lowering par even more by lowering all the 500 yard par 5's to par 4's.

The line of par should move, just as it has done in the past. Golf should not inhibit man's ability to design, train and educate.

Seventy-two becomes sixty-six and nobody needs to lose face about the ease of their course for a good long time.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

When I started playing golf in the 1960s in the UK there were still many courses which used bogey rather than par for reckoning scores, while my father's generation always gave the score as "Two over fours" and so on.  Par is a useful means of comparing the relative standing of golfers on different parts of the course at the same time but is no indicator of the difficulty of the course or the kind of scores the best players will achieve.

[ForkaB]

Adam

Excellent point.

This obsession of holding to a "par" standard of 72 is like changing the definition a "mile" to something like 5600-5700 feet so that the "standard" of the "4-minute mile" could be "defended."

By all means, bring on those 330 yards "par" 3's and 540 yard "par" 4's.  I'll wager that the best golfer will win over those "revised" courses, stroke play or medal play, rain or shine, thick or thin. The only losers will be those with a vested interest in the "virtue" of their course, who use "par" and length as surrogates for their own inability to distinguish between size and satisfaction.

[BCrosby]

Par doesn't matter unless, well..., unless it matters.

Par doesn't matter if you are playing (i) match play, (ii) just horsing around, or (iii) just horsing around some more.

I does matter when you are keeping score in a competition against other people also keeping score.

How? Because it sets the go/no go decsion tree. If I am playing a 500 yard hole with water around the green, the field (on the margin) is more likely to go for the green if it is a par 4. On the margin, fewer people will go for the green on the second shot if it is a par 5. Same hole, same wind, same everything.

Par sets scoring expectations that have a direct impact on shot choices in medal competitions. It is just a psychological fact about golfers. Par designations matter in medal play.


Bob    

[ForkaB]

Bob

You have a point, but not a great one.....

In the olde days, Opens (British and otherwise) were played without "seeding" of competitors, so some of the leaders could be first out, some in the middle and some at the end, even on the last day.  Why would any of those competitors care a rat's ass about "par?"?  They just played, as best they could, perhaps altering play vis a vis competitors results (i.e. ""Snead 4-putted the last!"), but mostly playing as best they could.

No?

[mike_malone]

 David Toms vs. Phil Mickelson at the PGA #18.What was the par?Who cares?Phil went for it in 2 and lost out to Toms.

[BCrosby]

Rich -

A seeded or unseeded field shouldn't make any difference. The notion is that I am making shot choices against a backdrop of how I think the "field" is viewing a particular hole. That will affect my shot choices. In that situation par designations matter, especially on half par holes.

I don't need to be playing with (or near) my the competition. It only matters that I am playing against a field.

Every golfer feels in his bones that laying up on a par 4 - however long or nasty the hole - is giving up a stroke to the field.

(Whether it turns out that you actually did give up a stroke to the field won't be knowable till after the round. But that is a different, purely empirical question.)

Bob  

[TEPaul]

An interesting idea might be to maintain a "course par" but sort of do away with "hole pars". What a "course par" would be is something along the lines of what a scratch player is expected to play a golf course in which now is referred to as "the course rating".

In that vein it really wouldn't matter much where a stoke play player lost or picked up shots and so "hole pars" would be less relevant. All that would matter is where any player stood in relation to the "course par" and of course that could be easily translated into where they stood in multi-round events against the "course par" and consequently in relation to any other player in the field if the tournament maintained some kind of scoreboards. In that way I'd think stroke play players would tend to think more in "whole round gross par" and less in the context of a single hole's "par". This might just free them up psychologically to make choices in a more general sense instead of fixating on individual shots on individual holes!

But in my opinion most of the maintenance of individual hole par has more to do with the handicapping structure and process. But if you think about it even that doesn't really need individual hole par as one would just know on which holes they got shots and play the course in match play against their opponents accordingly. What difference does it make in match play what a hole's par is? A 2 still beats a 3 and a 9 still beats a 10.

[Lou_Duran]

Par is a standard of excellence, similar to scoring an A on a test or 1600 on the SATs.  When it is said that we play the course, it normally means that we compete with old man par.

Take TEP's example.  Who derives more pleasure, a golfer who beats his opponent with a birdie, or one who does the same with a quadruplebogey?  In the former, both players may feel great satisfaction in playing the hole well, while winning a hole with a double-par probably does little to warm either contestant.

Golf without par is like having a course without a routing or boundaries.  Tom Doak's "Sheep Ranch" may come close to this, but is it really golf as we know it?

My home club used to host an annual "Hard Hat Open" which was basically cross-country golf with no par targets or defined corridors.  The mission was to go from designated tees to designated greens throughout the course without killing each other.  It was normally played as a scramble and the team with the fewest number of strokes won.  I think that it took some 4 hours to play the 9 hole event.  Par here was entirely meaningless, and while the event was mildly popular for a time, it was discontinued for a lack of participation.  

   

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Along the same lines, for many years people kept medal scores based on how many strokes over or under "4's" they were. It was in effect a course par of 72. Specific hole pars weren't given. Ross, for example, rarely designated pars on holes he designed. In his writings he only talks about long holes and short holes.

I don't think that means, however, that par is always irrelevant.

Bob

 

[Steve Lang]

 

I definitely agree with Lou.   Take away standards and what have you got, anarchy?  

Seems like the proverbial slippery slope if you get rid of par, almost PC like, so no one has to lose and all can claim accomplishment, so as not to affect their self esteem!!!  What's next?

I personally love to see folks shoot anything under par, whether 1 or 2 on a hole or 25 in a tourney!  Its the chase and then dominion over par that most seek, and that makes the game and sport of it all.  

One, two, three shotters.. why not 4 shotters too and reduce the number to 15?

[A_Clay_Man]

I don't have a problem with the concept of par, I just think it's absolute value could move, again. In the "G.C. overlay" thread Tom Paul tells us of the changes in par to many of the holes at G.c.

I don't buy the notion that I need to know what par is before playing a hole to decide what is in my capabilities on attacking that hole. Knowing par or thinking about par is contrary to what I've found is needed to golf well especially in medal play.

[BCrosby]

I agree, Lou. Old man par is always there, sitting on my shoulder, scolding me for my bad shots. For me, he is the "field" I always seem to be playing against.

For those who do not feel his presence, I envy you. You play a much more ethereal game than the one I know. I've never been able to get there.

Bob

[A_Clay_Man]

Bob- You are not alone. Letting go of the number would put an end to the techno boogie man without removing what par should be.

[SteveTL]

I like Tom's idea of "course par".  Few new courses offer holes between 265-290 yards and 475-510 yards... Holes of this length can create great excitment - and opportunities to explore some different strategies...  These could be par 3/4 or 4/5 within an overall "sum of the parts" course par...

[SteveTL]

Old man bogie is even nastier!

[TEPaul]

When one thinks about this subject and begins to try to extrapolate what it might mean if hole par could be removed from a golf course and from the pyschology of golf is that players might then be psyhologically freer to play golf in a more true form of risk/reward, particularly in stroke play touraments, when all they have on any golf hole is some psychological feeling about what others have made or might make and not actual knowledge (as in the match play format).

The match play format does accomplish that to a large extent anyway for the simple reason even an atrocious mistake resulting in a high hole number only has approximately 1/18 of the value of the same atrocious mistake in the stroke play format. Presumably any thinking golfer is aware of that obvious fact both actually and pyschologically (in a strategic or tactical sense).

In this sense match play golf could do without "hole par" far more easily in the mind of any golfer than stroke play could. But a "whole round par" in stroke play would seem to basically accomplish the same thing as present "hole par" does now in the stroke play format if any golfer in relation to the field simply knows as much as he does now which is where any player stands in relation to a "whole gross score round" or  a "whole tournament gross score" (in other words so many over or under the "whole course par"). Without individual "hole par" any stroke play player, if scoreboards are provided, as they are now, only needs to know what any other player is doing in relation to a whole round or a whole tournament par. He really doesn't need to know how any other player has accomplishing that in any individual hole context. That just doesn't matter!

So I see no reason why a tournament couldn't be conducted at stroke play without any individual "hole par" if the "course par" was the only thing used! Of course again, in match play even that doesn't matters.

Why would anyone think to do something like "course par" only without individual "hole par"? For the simple reason that putting stroke play golf, even pyschologically, into a larger context which is where it belongs anyway (fixation on only a whole round score or "course par" instead of fixation on individual "hole par") then golfers would (presumably) be freer to make decisions and play in a larger and probably truer strategic context and probably not be so hung up on the preceived unfairnesses of individual shots and individual situations relating to architecture!

Therefore, presumably it follows that more architects would be freer to design golf courses with more adventurous and more interesting golf holes without the sometimes stultifying fear they seem to have today of doing something unfair. After all everybody has to play the same course but it might help to allay concerns of unfairnesses in architecture if the psychology of it all was moved into a larger context--eg "course par" only without "hole par".

[JohnV]

Tom, I like your idea of a course par vs a hole par.  The only problem is that it would screw up TV during their coverage of PGA Tour events.  After all, how could they tell you how Tiger stands relative to Ernie when Tiger has played 12 holes and Ernie 17?  It could be done relative to 4s or just say that Tiger has to play 13-17 in 17 strokes to stay ahead of Ernie or some such, but it would definitely confuse the average golf viewer.

I played the Warren course with John and Lisa M a few years ago and the hardest part was not saying, "Nice par" when someone made a 4 on a 390 yard hole.

[Brian_Gracely]

I like Tom's concept of "course par", although it's not the first time the concept has been discussed on this group.  

Aside from the challenge of trying to change mass-group mentality, I wonder if people wouldn't then flock to another "number" to be able to evaluate courses against each other?  Would this then create a proliferation of designers creating 7100 or 7500 or 7800 yard par 68s?  

[A_Clay_Man]

I can think of one instance of where par for the hole is needed... Gambling! Birdies need to be counted in our money game and so do eagles.  Move par's number to reflect the improved performance at the pro level and we have all the same terminology all the same same cept for a number.

[TEPaul]

JohnV:

You've got a good point there but all's not lost. Just have  scorboards like they do now with the hole numbers and below that what every player made on that hole. Those caddies always have some little book and pencil out calculating everything like how far Ernie is from the blond on the left of the green or God knows what. If Ernie really wants to find out how Tiger is doing in relation to him he can tell his caddie to total up Tiger's hole numbers through 12 and take out Ernie's card and see what Ernie did through 12!  And of course Steve Williams five holes behind Ernie is watching like a hawk those five holes Ernie's played but Tiger hasn't and when the time comes Steverino will tell Tiger nows the time to take out his 6 iron and launch one out of a bunker to a flag sticking out in the water about 220 yds away

[Doug Siebert]

Like it says next to my name "par is not an integer".  Or doesn't have to be.  Nothing wrong with making those 325 yard holes into par 3 1/2.  That'd have a similar psychological effect to what others are discussing, by making people think that a 4 is losing a half shot to the field.  Might get a few more people to pull the driver out and risk whatever doom awaits a misplayed shot.

They used to have half par holes, someone needs to bring them back.  How about it Tom Doak, any chance of any of your clients would ever go for such a thing?