Should we change how we define par?

[MrDC]

People come up with new ideas to change the game seemingly every day, and not one of them ever happens, we're still playing the same game, so I tend to not even read these types of articles, silly.

[14ledo81]

4 hours ago, MrDC said:

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

Agreed.

[Jeremie Boop]

8 minutes ago, Lihu said:

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.

Again, he never specified it was only in the winter that the pro couldn't reach, he specified summer as the only time he could reach. At 475 pretty much any hole that length around here is a par 5. I can only think of one hole that's a par 4 near that length at 465 from the tips but it plays 75 yards longer than the next set up. I don't imagine most courses have that big a gap between the two sets of tees.

[DrvFrShow]

51 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.

Just out of curiosity, what is the name of the course and what is the par and rating for women? 74? 75?

[Lihu]

31 minutes ago, DrvFrShow said:

Just out of curiosity, what is the name of the course and what is the par and rating for women? 74? 75?

My home course, or one of them.

http://brooksidegc.com/sites/default/files/brookside-koiner-scorecard.pdf

There are some holes that they lengthened and is not shown. The 485 yard 12th is actually 506 from the tips. The par 5 rating on some of the par 4 are for the ladies ratings, and the overall par for ladies is 75. When I play from the Reds I still play the standard par rating, of course.

So, they already change the par rating for the ladies, although my daughter plays from the standard white tees. She's on a coed team and they are making her play from the standard tees for men. This is why she's playing "bogey" golf.

[pganapathy]

You have different tee boxes and handicaps.  Why should you change par according to player ability.  It is another fact if a hole is too long to be reachable even by the club pro @paininthenuts but that means the hole itself should be changed for everybody or that should be a stroke index 1 or 2 hole.

[Lihu]

1 minute ago, pganapathy said:

You have different tee boxes and handicaps.  Why should you change par according to player ability.  It is another fact if a hole is too long to be reachable even by the club pro @paininthenuts but that means the hole itself should be changed for everybody or that should be a stroke index 1 or 2 hole.

Guessing this makes the most sense. People shouldn't be playing too long a tee. Makes no sense.

[Dave2512]

1 hour ago, Lihu said:

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.

Depends where you live. Here the courses play faster in the winter, ball rolls forever with no rough and rock hard fairways. Worst part of winter in CO is balls bounce off frozen greens like it hit a cart path.

[Lihu]

1 minute ago, Dave2512 said:

Depends where you live. Here the courses play faster in the winter, ball rolls forever with no rough and rock hard fairways. Worst part of winter in CO is balls bounce off frozen greens like it hit a cart path.

Like playing on ice?

[Dave2512]

9 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Like playing on ice?

Like playing on frozen turf. On nice days when the sun comes out and we get a little melt you can't even fix a ball mark. There will be a shallow splat where it made contact and the ground so hard can't poke a repair tool into it. We don't bother trying to fix it because it tears it up even more.

That's why we have a handicap season. It's not because we can't play just that the courses don't play like they should.

[Ernest Jones]

Ridiculous. @David in FL nailed it.  

[Cheesehead]

This is a terrible idea.  What's next, eliminating hazards and penalty strokes just to make someone feel better about their game?  A player should adjust his skills to match the course and not the other way around.  I'm all for more people and younger people being exposed to golf, but not at the expense of the integrity of the game.

 

[newtogolf]

Really scares me that this is the direction our world is headed.  Seems everyone just wants things handed to them, there's no pride in hard work and accomplishment any more.

[Dave2512]

9 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Really scares me that this is the direction our world is headed.  Seems everyone just wants things handed to them, there's no pride in hard work and accomplishment any more.

Grandpa is that you?  

 

Seriously though I do see a lot of that.

[chilepepper]

Par is a benchmark. If you change par you can throw handicaps out the window. Then what does one do in competition? Have 20 + different flights in a tournament? 

Par is an ideal for good players, a goal for lesser ones. 

[Dave2512]

Got to thinking about this, I've actually seen par and hole handicaps changed on courses with combo tees.

[Ernest Jones]

58 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Really scares me that this is the direction our world is headed.  Seems everyone just wants things handed to them, there's no pride in hard work and accomplishment any more.

 

You scare too easily.

[Dan42nepa]

More of the everyone gets a trophy mentality. Golf is not easy.. If someone can hit a 5 iron 190 on a par4 and i need to hit a 4 wood.. Good for them.