Should we change how we define par?

[saevel25]

http://www.golfwrx.com/367952/in-memory-of-par-ending-an-era-of-exasperation/

The author of this article proposes that there should be a tier system based on your average carry distance which defines what par is on the hole. 

By his chart, a guy who hits the ball 250+ would have a par 3 up to 275 yards. While a guy who hits it 190 off the tee would have a par 3 up to 175 yards. 

Here are a reason why I think we should not change what par is.  

It allow you to compare yourself to what a scratch player would shoot on that hole. If you are an 18 handicap and you get a birdie then you did really good. If you change par to match the golfers ability it really devalues what par is. I rather keep par as a hard achievable goal.

[Jeremie Boop]

Wait, a so I could be expected to play a par 3 as long as 275 yards? So they are saying that par 3 could be so long that it requires a driver from the tee? That sounds much worse than how it is now.

[DaveP043]

3 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Here are a reason why I think we should not change what par is.  

It allow you to compare yourself to what a scratch player would shoot on that hole. If you are an 18 handicap and you get a birdie then you did really good. If you change par to match the golfers ability it really devalues what par is. I rather keep par as a hard achievable goal.

I agree with this, par is a standard across the board, for all skill levels.  There's no reason to change it just to make golf SEEM easier.  I fully support the practice that many higher handicappers use, that of defining a "personal par" for themselves on every hole, I think it offers them a goal that they can meet and occasionally exceed.  Net par is also there for a player to measure himself by, assuming he's avid enough to want to establish a handicap, official or otherwise.  Some changes just don't need to be made.

As an aside, bogey was the original standard score for a hole.  Par came to be used a bit later, and eventually superseded bogey as the standard score. 

http://www.scottishgolfhistory.org/origin-of-golf-terms/bogey/

[David in FL]

Isn't that why we have different sets of tees?

[MrDC]

They already have this system in place, for many years, they call them tee boxes, pick one.

[DutchGolf]

Bad idea, this makes the game even more complex to understand. Plus it does not change how many strokes I need to get the ball in the hole or something. There is already a handicap system that gives people strokes based on their ability. Besides, they can always tee it forward.

[Fourputt]

Par is par.  Changing what that means is like taking a yardstick but instead of 3 feet, sometimes calling it 4 feet or 5 feet.  Stupid idea.  Like MrDC said, we already have a perfectly functioning system for adjusting to players' ability, and one that doesn't muck around with what we all understand.  While I grant that many courses could do a better job of offering a greater variety of tee boxes, with a wider spread from the longest to the shortest, that is a shortcoming of the individual course, not the game itself.  

All this would do is have 30 handicappers playing from the back tee because now par is 85, so they take their 103 strokes of "bogey" golf, and spend 5½ hours hacking around a course that is 1000 yards too long for their ability.

[Dave2512]

1 hour ago, David in FL said:

Isn't that why we have different sets of tees?

Beat me to it. Seriously.

[newtogolf]

This is just an extension of everything that is happening today in this country, likely from the same people that brought us participation trophies.  

Some people feel bad not scoring par, so let's change par so it's easier for them to feel good about themselves.  As @David in FL said, we have different tee boxes to make up for the distance gaps between players.  

[boogielicious]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

http://www.golfwrx.com/367952/in-memory-of-par-ending-an-era-of-exasperation/

The author of this article proposes that there should be a tier system based on your average carry distance which defines what par is on the hole. 

By his chart, a guy who hits the ball 250+ would have a par 3 up to 275 yards. While a guy who hits it 190 off the tee would have a par 3 up to 175 yards. 

Here are a reason why I think we should not change what par is.  

It allow you to compare yourself to what a scratch player would shoot on that hole. If you are an 18 handicap and you get a birdie then you did really good. If you change par to match the golfers ability it really devalues what par is. I rather keep par as a hard achievable goal.

Agree with this. I would not be in favor of a change.

[Lihu]

Oh, I thought this was another PEZGolf thread.

 

 

 

Looks like most people don't like the idea based upon the GolFWRX ratings"

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[Gator Hazard]

The world is changing to one where people aspired to challenging goals and failure was an incentive to do better or approach things differently to a culture of everyone should get a trophy and everyone is a winner. 

I try and par every hole. Right now I only par about three a round. But that keeps me aiming for a goal and benchmark. I'd probably be worse than I already am if I played this feel good par proposed system. 

[paininthenuts]

I voted yes, but only for one reason. I play on a very long course, with  very long holes. My suggestion would be to re-look at the length of any par. We have a par 4 on my course that can't be reached by the club pro unless it is summer, so surely that is wrong. Maybe the answer is to look at what tees are used by which golfers ?

[Patch]

I voted no. Current par is the number everyone is tested by, and/or compared to. 

Now I think it's ok for the individual to have their own reference number. In my case, when I go out, I am always looking at the number 80. That's the number I am aiming at. Sometimes I am a little better than 80, most times I am not

[Lihu]

46 minutes ago, paininthenuts said:

I voted yes, but only for one reason. I play on a very long course, with  very long holes. My suggestion would be to re-look at the length of any par. We have a par 4 on my course that can't be reached by the club pro unless it is summer, so surely that is wrong. Maybe the answer is to look at what tees are used by which golfers ?

The club pro not reaching the hole in the winter is not necessarily a good metric. We have three par 4 that are not reachable in the winter by 99.97% of the players from the tips. 474 , 506 and 468 yards where the first and last ones are against a wind in the winter time. There are only a couple players I know who can reach with driver and iron in 40F weather, and I know of a few more. Many mid-cappers are playing their hybrids and fairway woods from the blue tees which are about 20-30 yards shorter. The rest of the golfers just don't expect to make a regulation par in the winter. Most even have trouble in the summer, but that doesn't make them par 5 holes. It just means they should be playing the shorter course or the red (ladies) tees which are still 6000 yards.

[Jeremie Boop]

19 minutes ago, Lihu said:

The club pro not reaching the hole in the winter is not necessarily a good metric. We have three par 4 that are not reachable in the winter by 99.97% of the players from the tips. 474 , 506 and 468 yards where the first and last ones are against a wind in the winter time. There are only a couple players I know who can reach with driver and iron in 40F weather, and I know of a few more. Many mid-cappers are playing their hybrids and fairway woods from the blue tees which are about 20-30 yards shorter. The rest of the golfers just don't expect to make a regulation par in the winter. Most even have trouble in the summer, but that doesn't make them par 5 holes. It just means they should be playing the shorter course or the red (ladies) tees which are still 6000 yards.

By pretty much anyone's standards that hole is extremely long for a par 4 and actually hovers right around what most courses would consider a typical par 5. However, having a par 4 that long probably goes a decent way towards a higher course rating, and on a course with a higher rating I'd expect to have either longer hole lengths, more trouble via hazards and OB, or both.That being said, he said the course Pro couldn't reach unless it was summer, not that he couldn't reach it in the winter. So that sounds to me like that hole probably plays longer than it should for a par 4. It would be helpful if we knew which hole it was on what course so that we could make an evaluation of it ourselves though.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Jeremie Boop

[natureboy]

4 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I fully support the practice that many higher handicappers use, that of defining a "personal par" for themselves on every hole, I think it offers them a goal that they can meet and occasionally exceed.  Net par is also there for a player to measure himself by, assuming he's avid enough to want to establish a handicap, official or otherwise.

I agree that net par is basically the same measure since HCPs already track pretty accurately by driving distance. The guy's system also makes your expected score all about distance, which does not reflect reality. Distance is a bit more important, but accuracy is a significant part of scoring. Better players tend to be both longer and more accurate than higher HCPs, but not all long players are accurate enough to score up to their distance potential.

Also it seems that the suggested system would require extra signage on each hole describing the par from each tee for each player tier. This extra signage could just as easily convey the net par for their HCP for each tee. If no extra signage is provided than some math on the tee is required to figure either 'new par' or 'net par'. So no real advantage that I see.

The whole tee-it-forward campaign is about moving up so that you will be playing closer to your 'personal par' based on your HCP / tee distance. IMO the lack of a decent range of tees for a wide range of skills is more the issue than 'par' itself. Focus new golfers on their reduction in total score and HCP improvement, which is usually encouraging. If you've plateaued, you've plateaued under any scoring system.

[Lihu]

5 minutes ago, Jeremie Boop said:

By pretty much anyone's standards that hole is extremely long for a par 4 and actually hovers right around what most courses would consider a typical par 5. However, having a par 4 that long probably goes a decent way towards a higher course rating, and on a course with a higher rating I'd expect to have either longer hole lengths, more trouble via hazards and OB, or both.That being said, he said the course Pro couldn't reach unless it was summer, not that he couldn't reach it in the winter. So that sounds to me like that hole probably plays longer than it should for a par 5. It would be helpful if we knew which hole it was on what course so that we could make an evaluation of it ourselves though.

First of all, it's crazy to play the tips in the winter. You'll even find me on the ladies tees when the temperatures are in the 30s, if I'm even on the course.

IIRC, the hole he is talking about is right around 475 yards.