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Post by shotstone on Mar 22, 2021 15:05:26 GMT -5
I'd be very curious to hear reactions from course designers here about the Ohoopee Match Club in the Georgia Sandbelt.
Video here -
This entire concept, at least in my mind as a lower handicap golfer, flips the entire script on its head... If you are designing purely for match play then everything is on the table...
You don't especially need balance anymore. Risk / Reward seems to be your only concern. There's no need for balance.... Can you imagine what that opens up?! I awould be thrilled to see a whole sub-genre of design born out of something like this.
As a designer how awesome would it be if you didn't have to worry about entirely fair pin placement, or how one tee plays compared to another? (one of my favorite match play games w/ pals is the winner of the last hole picks how the next hole plays - short par 4 that isn't normally drivable, fine let's go up to the reds and bring eagle into play, etc) I would get so much more enjoyment out of something like this personally.
And to be perfectly honest I am so much more a fan of match play over stroke play. So I might be overly enthusiastic here.
Anyway... What do you all think?
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Post by boynsy on Mar 22, 2021 20:24:23 GMT -5
From what I’ve learned, the best architects design considering match play golf, and how to win/lose holes. Protecting par is boring, but when you bring in various ways to put pressure on an opponent, or lose a hole with a mistake etc, you have a good hole.
Also for what it’s worth, “par” as a concept is pretty irrelevant. This is extra true in match play but when applied to stroke play competitions, you can see how it doesn’t actually matter if a given hole is listed as a par 4 or 5, for example - someone making a 4 has taken exactly one less shot than someone making a 5, and that will be reflected in the final scoreboard.
Design interesting holes, particularly with match play in mind, and you’ll have a good course no matter what format!
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Post by shotstone on Mar 22, 2021 20:31:45 GMT -5
From what I’ve learned, the best architects design considering match play golf, and how to win/lose holes. Protecting par is boring, but when you bring in various ways to put pressure on an opponent, or lose a hole with a mistake etc, you have a good hole. Also for what it’s worth, “par” as a concept is pretty irrelevant. This is extra true in match play but when applied to stroke play competitions, you can see how it doesn’t actually matter if a given hole is listed as a par 4 or 5, for example - someone making a 4 has taken exactly one less shot than someone making a 5, and that will be reflected in the final scoreboard. Design interesting holes, particularly with match play in mind, and you’ll have a good course no matter what format! Would you agree or disagree that designing, as in this case, solely for match play would afford the designers more creativity? Would you be able to get away with more heroic risk / reward options? Does adding par back into the equation force designers to tampen down crazier (albeit fun) ideas / options?
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Post by boynsy on Mar 22, 2021 20:50:16 GMT -5
From what I’ve learned, the best architects design considering match play golf, and how to win/lose holes. Protecting par is boring, but when you bring in various ways to put pressure on an opponent, or lose a hole with a mistake etc, you have a good hole. Also for what it’s worth, “par” as a concept is pretty irrelevant. This is extra true in match play but when applied to stroke play competitions, you can see how it doesn’t actually matter if a given hole is listed as a par 4 or 5, for example - someone making a 4 has taken exactly one less shot than someone making a 5, and that will be reflected in the final scoreboard. Design interesting holes, particularly with match play in mind, and you’ll have a good course no matter what format! Would you agree or disagree that designing, as in this case, solely for match play would afford the designers more creativity? Would you be able to get away with more heroic risk / reward options? Does adding par back into the equation force designers to tampen down crazier (albeit fun) ideas / options? Moving away from what I’ve learned in my brief experience and now speaking purely from my personal opinions, it shouldn’t matter what sort of golf a course is being designed for. Options are the key to an interesting hole, and heroic risk/ reward shots are a part of this. The diagonal carry or prize dogleg sort of design are ideal examples, as you bite off exactly how much or how little you want. Obviously in match play, how much you take on may well be a direct response to your opponent - a good drive from them may force you to take an aggressive line to try to make a score on a tough hole, whereas a drive into trouble would encourage you to play safe and make a conservative score. If you’re designing with par in mind as the target score, courses get a bit boring a samey. Requiring almost unachievable perfection to get a good chance at birdie means that grinding out par by hitting the middle of the green or playing safe and making up and down isn’t exciting golf, and it’s unlikely to yield large scoring discrepancies between players. Holes that tempt the player on the other hand may bring birdie or eagle into the equation, but similarly a drive out of bounds or into water can open up the opportunity to make double or triple. So I don’t necessarily believe that courses designed specifically for match play have any extra design freedom intrinsically, but I do believe that when a course is set up to allow players to win or lose holes it is more exciting than when it’s set up to defend par.
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Post by shotstone on Mar 23, 2021 10:46:13 GMT -5
Interesting... I feel like throwing par away from the design process allows one to be incredibly more creative. Tees could spand over +/- 100 yards, greens could be made more extreme in lay out and slope (favoring a riskier tee shot), bunkers and hazards can be more expansive (where you aren't worried about excessive pinching or can defend "safer" shots [ie carry the water to a massive landing area, lay up to a tighter spot with bunkering], etc).... And so forth.
I feel like the strategy in match play is to force your opponent to make a shot. With that design concept in mind you can get a lot more creative since the opponent isn't a score. If you tuck a pin in an entirely inaccessible spot on the green (such as behind that crazy knoll in the video) that doesn't fly in stroke play because you've added a stroke minimum to the hole so no birdies would ever be in play... The par 4 is playing like a par 5 simply due to the green design and the pin placement. A huge stroke play no-no. But if par isn't a thing then who cares. It's all about getting in the hole against an opponent. 🤷♂️
To be totally fair I am definitely biased in my love of match play over stroke play. Get a 10 and you're only down 1...
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Post by boynsy on Mar 23, 2021 11:03:37 GMT -5
What I’m trying to say is that when it comes to stroke play, you shouldn’t necessarily be designing with par in mind anyway. A good 275 yard hole is going to be a good hole whether it is designated as a 3 or a 4 in theory. People may complain about laying up on a par 3, but in reality they’re playing against the field and what is determined as par is irrelevant. 3 is still a 3, regardless of if it’s termed as a birdie or a par.
Your point about the tees is slightly misleading. Look at Chamber’s Bay - holes 1 and 18 played as different numbers on different days so there is no reason why a stroke play event couldn’t have +/- 100 yard differences between tees. I believe the 9th also played from vastly different angles depending on the teeing ground in use on each day.
However, designing a good hole from multiple teeing grounds is challenging. It could be interesting to bring in flying over a central hazard as an option instead of forcing a left or right choice, but this is hard to execute. How far do you move the tees up to make sure the carry is an option, rather than the obvious way to play the hole? The players hated 18 as a par 4 in the US Open at Chamber’s (although they aren’t always the best critics!) because it took driver out of all but the longest hitters’ hands.
Maintaining multiple tee boxes also increases maintenance costs, not to mention the extra land required to add 100 yards onto holes that isn’t always going to even be in use!
It’s all subjective though, because I’d argue the ability to hit the ball far is a skill that deserves to be rewarded just as much as any other, so lengthening/ shortening holes, and it’s more interesting to play holes in different ways! I’m all for a bit of funkiness in a design - give me a hole that plays as a 520 yard par 5 one day and a 380 yard par 4 the next, but make sure there’s a reason for doing it and it works both ways, rather than just being gimmicky.
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Post by Q on Mar 24, 2021 16:20:14 GMT -5
What I’m trying to say is that when it comes to stroke play, you shouldn’t necessarily be designing with par in mind anyway. A good 275 yard hole is going to be a good hole whether it is designated as a 3 or a 4 in theory. People may complain about laying up on a par 3, but in reality they’re playing against the field and what is determined as par is irrelevant. 3 is still a 3, regardless of if it’s termed as a birdie or a par. Your point about the tees is slightly misleading. Look at Chamber’s Bay - holes 1 and 18 played as different numbers on different days so there is no reason why a stroke play event couldn’t have +/- 100 yard differences between tees. I believe the 9th also played from vastly different angles depending on the teeing ground in use on each day. However, designing a good hole from multiple teeing grounds is challenging. It could be interesting to bring in flying over a central hazard as an option instead of forcing a left or right choice, but this is hard to execute. How far do you move the tees up to make sure the carry is an option, rather than the obvious way to play the hole? The players hated 18 as a par 4 in the US Open at Chamber’s (although they aren’t always the best critics!) because it took driver out of all but the longest hitters’ hands. Maintaining multiple tee boxes also increases maintenance costs, not to mention the extra land required to add 100 yards onto holes that isn’t always going to even be in use! It’s all subjective though, because I’d argue the ability to hit the ball far is a skill that deserves to be rewarded just as much as any other, so lengthening/ shortening holes, and it’s more interesting to play holes in different ways! I’m all for a bit of funkiness in a design - give me a hole that plays as a 520 yard par 5 one day and a 380 yard par 4 the next, but make sure there’s a reason for doing it and it works both ways, rather than just being gimmicky. Im going to argue both sides here where points matter for each The one counterpoint to this is while par doesnt necessarily matter, the amount of difference between a long par 3 and a driveable par 4 is quite huge. That 290 yard par 4 is going to need some heroic elements to it to make it feel like an accomplishment to execute while a long par 3 should generally have more helpful slopes so it doesnt become an exercise in frustration just to par it. When a driveable par 4 becomes easy, 3 just becomes the new number to shoot to tie the hole on it. when a long par 3 becomes hard, the same thing happens. These variations of a par 3.5 or famously the 4.5 (road hole at st andrews is an example) allow for interest but should be on a good golf course whether or not it is designed for stroke or match play. When looking at your course, if it gets put on tour you get great stats back. THESE NUMBERS are more important than par itself. No hole on that list should produce a similar average score. On asylum for instance I had everything from a true par 5 (4.92 average) to a par 2 (2.11) with numbers smoothly inbetween with no gap larger than .3. Applying this to above, my easiest "par 4" (7:3.4) should still play harder than my hardest "par 3"(15:3.3). So in effect I don't design with par in mind and then usually label each hole a fair number to shoot towards if that makes sense. in conclusion, par both does and doesnt matter lol
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Post by Q on Mar 24, 2021 16:31:09 GMT -5
Interesting... I feel like throwing par a way from the design process allows one to be incredibly more creative.
I actually think throwing away stroke play matters more than par. You can have more obscene risks because none of that risk sticks, it's all worth the same at the end of each hole. Stroke play makes every risk (like a hazard) stick, so you generally want to reward conservative play, while on match play, you want to reward heroic shots.
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Post by shotstone on Mar 24, 2021 18:00:02 GMT -5
Interesting... I feel like throwing par a way from the design process allows one to be incredibly more creative.
I actually think throwing away stroke play matters more than par. You can have more obscene risks because none of that risk sticks, it's all worth the same at the end of each hole. Stroke play makes every risk (like a hazard) stick, so you generally want to reward conservative play, while on match play, you want to reward heroic shots. I think that's the right take. I like how you frame it. Really when you throw stroke play away you don't care if an aspect of the hole is exaggerated or extreme. When every stroke sticks after a hole you have to try to and be "more fair". So players in stroke when they walk away with a 10 that isn't going anywhere. In match play if someone walks away with a 10 they're at worst 1 down. With that perspective I do think designing for match play can be more creative as the idea of "fair" is really more arbitrary than in a stroke play competition. We can have crazy inaccessible pins or wild slopes or hazards, because score isn't as important as getting in on a hole before your opponent. That said I also don't think is should be the objective to have people walk away with crazy scores, but promoting a more heroic play style requires, imho, a different approach.
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Post by boynsy on Mar 24, 2021 18:56:47 GMT -5
What I’m trying to say is that when it comes to stroke play, you shouldn’t necessarily be designing with par in mind anyway. A good 275 yard hole is going to be a good hole whether it is designated as a 3 or a 4 in theory. People may complain about laying up on a par 3, but in reality they’re playing against the field and what is determined as par is irrelevant. 3 is still a 3, regardless of if it’s termed as a birdie or a par. Your point about the tees is slightly misleading. Look at Chamber’s Bay - holes 1 and 18 played as different numbers on different days so there is no reason why a stroke play event couldn’t have +/- 100 yard differences between tees. I believe the 9th also played from vastly different angles depending on the teeing ground in use on each day. However, designing a good hole from multiple teeing grounds is challenging. It could be interesting to bring in flying over a central hazard as an option instead of forcing a left or right choice, but this is hard to execute. How far do you move the tees up to make sure the carry is an option, rather than the obvious way to play the hole? The players hated 18 as a par 4 in the US Open at Chamber’s (although they aren’t always the best critics!) because it took driver out of all but the longest hitters’ hands. Maintaining multiple tee boxes also increases maintenance costs, not to mention the extra land required to add 100 yards onto holes that isn’t always going to even be in use! It’s all subjective though, because I’d argue the ability to hit the ball far is a skill that deserves to be rewarded just as much as any other, so lengthening/ shortening holes, and it’s more interesting to play holes in different ways! I’m all for a bit of funkiness in a design - give me a hole that plays as a 520 yard par 5 one day and a 380 yard par 4 the next, but make sure there’s a reason for doing it and it works both ways, rather than just being gimmicky. Im going to argue both sides here where points matter for each The one counterpoint to this is while par doesnt necessarily matter, the amount of difference between a long par 3 and a driveable par 4 is quite huge. That 290 yard par 4 is going to need some heroic elements to it to make it feel like an accomplishment to execute while a long par 3 should generally have more helpful slopes so it doesnt become an exercise in frustration just to par it. When a driveable par 4 becomes easy, 3 just becomes the new number to shoot to tie the hole on it. when a long par 3 becomes hard, the same thing happens. These variations of a par 3.5 or famously the 4.5 (road hole at st andrews is an example) allow for interest but should be on a good golf course whether or not it is designed for stroke or match play. When looking at your course, if it gets put on tour you get great stats back. THESE NUMBERS are more important than par itself. No hole on that list should produce a similar average score. On asylum for instance I had everything from a true par 5 (4.92 average) to a par 2 (2.11) with numbers smoothly inbetween with no gap larger than .3. Applying this to above, my easiest "par 4" (7:3.4) should still play harder than my hardest "par 3"(15:3.3). So in effect I don't design with par in mind and then usually label each hole a fair number to shoot towards if that makes sense. in conclusion, par both does and doesnt matter lol Par absolutely doesn’t matter in the sense that anyone making a 3 on the 2.11 hole has effectively made 89% of a bogey, despite nominally making par. If you were to call this hole a par 7, I’d still be losing shots to the field by making an albatross, so it really isn’t important in that sense. And yes I agree that a short par 4 and long par 3 should be very different in how they play (laying up should be far more of an option on the short par 4, for example), making the “target score” for both holes around 3.5 leads to more interesting golf courses, no?
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Post by mvpmanatee on Mar 25, 2021 9:56:29 GMT -5
I have been thinking about this conceptually for a long time.
I was always in the boat of "par is just a number." And while I still do argue that quite strongly, we have to remember that the concept of par is very deeply rooted in the game itself. It would be awesome for us golf fanatics if we could drop it entirely, but we are never going to do that. The everyday golfer likes to know what par is, likes to have a scoring system of structure so that they can casually analyze their round and can learn from it. If we dropped par entirely, people would have no idea half the time if they had a good score. It would break all of the beginner level expectancies that come with golf. This would probably result in golf being even more for the elite view, which is not what we want at all.
I love the idea of having no par. I think that match play is by far the most exciting format in golf. I hate being asked to allow a 250 yard hole to be more accessible. But these are the necessities for the community of golf. The Ohoopee Match Club is a course that does not have to cater to 60,000+ rounds a year. It's exclusive and set in the mountains. Courses are all not, and should not, be like Ohoopee Match Club. I think in this game, we are allowed to make "match play" courses like Ohoopee, but they won't be great for tournament golf, and this community thrives on tournament golf.
I am in the mindset that not every golf course has to be tournament friendly. We should be allowed to make courses with half pars, with whatever green speeds we want, and we are allowed to defy the rules set in a golf course. But unfortunately if every course did this, we wouldn't have good tournament courses, which would be more detrimental than it is beneficial.
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Post by mctrees02 on Mar 25, 2021 11:25:08 GMT -5
I have been thinking about this conceptually for a long time. I was always in the boat of "par is just a number." And while I still do argue that quite strongly, we have to remember that the concept of par is very deeply rooted in the game itself. It would be awesome for us golf fanatics if we could drop it entirely, but we are never going to do that. The everyday golfer likes to know what par is, likes to have a scoring system of structure so that they can casually analyze their round and can learn from it. If we dropped par entirely, people would have no idea half the time if they had a good score. It would break all of the beginner level expectancies that come with golf. This would probably result in golf being even more for the elite view, which is not what we want at all. I own a lot of real estate in the par is irrelevant camp because, at the end of the day, the object of this game is always to get the ball in the hole as few strokes as possible. I also agree it helps the game be a bit easier to understand for much of the golfing public. The problem with believing par is irrelevant is the retail golfer has ingrained into their head that X par + Y hole length = Z type of hole and, as a result, I believe that par plays an undue influence on golf course construction. For example, If I tell you a 260y hole is a par 3, then you expect to the hole to have a large green that's not surrounded with trouble where you'll have a good chance of being on/safely near the green with your tee shot and have a chance to two putt for par. If I tell you a 260y hole is a par 4, then you expect to hole to have a higher risk option if you go for the green in one shot as well as a lower risk option if you choose to "play it safe" off the tee. or If I tell you a 500y hole is a par 4, then you expect to find challenge on either the tee shot or approach but one of the two shots should give you margin for error so that you can still be by the green in two if you hit a bad shot. If I tell you a 500y hole is a par 5, then you expect to have be going for the green in two every time your tee shot finds the fairway. It's almost a certain the fairway and/or green will be surrounded by hazards waiting to punish a bad shot. If I then present you with a 260y hole that fits the description of the par 4 or the 500y hole that fits the description of the par 5...but then call the holes par 3 and par 4, you would likely declare, "this isn't a good golf hole" because you perceive it to be too hard of a hole for the length and par listed on the scorecard. Related to the above, our obsession with par tells us that golf courses need to have a par of 70-72 and that playing a par 63, 66 69, or 74 golf course is somehow a bad idea. While I'm not in favor of golf (both real and virtual) building longer courses with higher stated pars and thus take longer to play than they already do...I would love for the golfing public to move beyond caring about par and instead care about figuring how to get the ball in the hole in fewer shots. Unfortunately, this idea isn't coming to fruition anytime soon and the USGA/R&A even decided it was a good idea to incorporate par into the handicap calculations now. 🤦♂️ All that is to say this... Par is irrelevant in accomplishing the objective of golf; get the ball in the hole in as few shots as possible. However, par plays mind games with many of us and we instead focus on our +/- in relation to par instead of on getting the ball in the hole. Side note that didnt fit the above commentary...par plays a very important role in making tournament golf more enjoyable to watch. If a leaderboard instead says, "Tiger is at 240 shots on the 6th tee while Rory is at 268 shots on the 16th tee" it would be very difficult for any of us to figure out who is in the lead/most likely to win. We would need to do a lot of math to figure out what Tiger needs to do and how likely it is for him to be at/below Rory's 268 shots by the time he reaches the 16th tee...and that would make tournament golf incredibly boring and/or frustrating to watch.
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Post by csugolfer60 on Mar 26, 2021 8:08:01 GMT -5
*Licks chops*
Aight listen up.
Par is descriptive, not prescriptive. Par is a description of generally how many shots a good player will take to play the hole. There are a lot of different types and skill levels of players in golf.
The reason par is more important in tournament golf is because when watching golf, the viewer needs a baseline to tell if a golfer is playing a hole well, or badly.
If I said "here is Justin Thomas tapping in for a 4 on 16, for his 60th shot of the day", that would be confusing and useless for most people.
If I say "here is Justin Thomas tapping in for bogey on 16, moving him to +2 on the day", you immediately get the sense that he played the hole badly, and that his round is not going well.
Golf courses should not be designed for par, but par is a descriptor of how the golf course is designed.
As for designing for match play vs stroke play, if more people designed courses for match play, I think we'd have a lot more interesting stroke play tournaments on TGCTours.
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Post by boynsy on Mar 26, 2021 9:17:34 GMT -5
I have been thinking about this conceptually for a long time. I was always in the boat of "par is just a number." And while I still do argue that quite strongly, we have to remember that the concept of par is very deeply rooted in the game itself. It would be awesome for us golf fanatics if we could drop it entirely, but we are never going to do that. The everyday golfer likes to know what par is, likes to have a scoring system of structure so that they can casually analyze their round and can learn from it. If we dropped par entirely, people would have no idea half the time if they had a good score. It would break all of the beginner level expectancies that come with golf. This would probably result in golf being even more for the elite view, which is not what we want at all. I own a lot of real estate in the par is irrelevant camp because, at the end of the day, the object of this game is always to get the ball in the hole as few strokes as possible. I also agree it helps the game be a bit easier to understand for much of the golfing public. The problem with believing par is irrelevant is the retail golfer has ingrained into their head that X par + Y hole length = Z type of hole and, as a result, I believe that par plays an undue influence on golf course construction. For example, If I tell you a 260y hole is a par 3, then you expect to the hole to have a large green that's not surrounded with trouble where you'll have a good chance of being on/safely near the green with your tee shot and have a chance to two putt for par. If I tell you a 260y hole is a par 4, then you expect to hole to have a higher risk option if you go for the green in one shot as well as a lower risk option if you choose to "play it safe" off the tee. or If I tell you a 500y hole is a par 4, then you expect to find challenge on either the tee shot or approach but one of the two shots should give you margin for error so that you can still be by the green in two if you hit a bad shot. If I tell you a 500y hole is a par 5, then you expect to have be going for the green in two every time your tee shot finds the fairway. It's almost a certain the fairway and/or green will be surrounded by hazards waiting to punish a bad shot. If I then present you with a 260y hole that fits the description of the par 4 or the 500y hole that fits the description of the par 5...but then call the holes par 3 and par 4, you would likely declare, "this isn't a good golf hole" because you perceive it to be too hard of a hole for the length and par listed on the scorecard. Related to the above, our obsession with par tells us that golf courses need to have a par of 70-72 and that playing a par 63, 66 69, or 74 golf course is somehow a bad idea. While I'm not in favor of golf (both real and virtual) building longer courses with higher stated pars and thus take longer to play than they already do...I would love for the golfing public to move beyond caring about par and instead care about figuring how to get the ball in the hole in fewer shots. Unfortunately, this idea isn't coming to fruition anytime soon and the USGA/R&A even decided it was a good idea to incorporate par into the handicap calculations now. 🤦♂️ All that is to say this... Par is irrelevant in accomplishing the objective of golf; get the ball in the hole in as few shots as possible. However, par plays mind games with many of us and we instead focus on our +/- in relation to par instead of on getting the ball in the hole. Naturally though, if you design a hole that is around 250 yards with a particularly fiendish green that means the player is going to be inclined to make it a two shot hole, it will be a par 4. The par should become secondary to the hole, and be a reflection on how it is played. Although a counterpoint - would holes like the Road Hole be considered as exciting and fiendishly difficult if their par was different? In the 2015 Open round 1, 17 apparently yielded no birdies and a scoring average of +0.833, which is HIGH. But would it still have the same aura if it was a par 5, and playing for the green in three wasn’t considered such a defensive play?
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Post by mvpmanatee on Mar 26, 2021 9:21:33 GMT -5
I own a lot of real estate in the par is irrelevant camp because, at the end of the day, the object of this game is always to get the ball in the hole as few strokes as possible. I also agree it helps the game be a bit easier to understand for much of the golfing public. The problem with believing par is irrelevant is the retail golfer has ingrained into their head that X par + Y hole length = Z type of hole and, as a result, I believe that par plays an undue influence on golf course construction. For example, If I tell you a 260y hole is a par 3, then you expect to the hole to have a large green that's not surrounded with trouble where you'll have a good chance of being on/safely near the green with your tee shot and have a chance to two putt for par. If I tell you a 260y hole is a par 4, then you expect to hole to have a higher risk option if you go for the green in one shot as well as a lower risk option if you choose to "play it safe" off the tee. or If I tell you a 500y hole is a par 4, then you expect to find challenge on either the tee shot or approach but one of the two shots should give you margin for error so that you can still be by the green in two if you hit a bad shot. If I tell you a 500y hole is a par 5, then you expect to have be going for the green in two every time your tee shot finds the fairway. It's almost a certain the fairway and/or green will be surrounded by hazards waiting to punish a bad shot. If I then present you with a 260y hole that fits the description of the par 4 or the 500y hole that fits the description of the par 5...but then call the holes par 3 and par 4, you would likely declare, "this isn't a good golf hole" because you perceive it to be too hard of a hole for the length and par listed on the scorecard. Related to the above, our obsession with par tells us that golf courses need to have a par of 70-72 and that playing a par 63, 66 69, or 74 golf course is somehow a bad idea. While I'm not in favor of golf (both real and virtual) building longer courses with higher stated pars and thus take longer to play than they already do...I would love for the golfing public to move beyond caring about par and instead care about figuring how to get the ball in the hole in fewer shots. Unfortunately, this idea isn't coming to fruition anytime soon and the USGA/R&A even decided it was a good idea to incorporate par into the handicap calculations now. 🤦♂️ All that is to say this... Par is irrelevant in accomplishing the objective of golf; get the ball in the hole in as few shots as possible. However, par plays mind games with many of us and we instead focus on our +/- in relation to par instead of on getting the ball in the hole. Naturally though, if you design a hole that is around 250 yards with a particularly fiendish green that means the player is going to be inclined to make it a two shot hole, it will be a par 4. The par should become secondary to the hole, and be a reflection on how it is played. Although a counterpoint - would holes like the Road Hole be considered as exciting and fiendishly difficult if their par was different? In the 2015 Open round 1, 17 apparently yielded no birdies and a scoring average of +0.833, which is HIGH. But would it still have the same aura if it was a par 5, and playing for the green in three wasn’t considered such a defensive play? In my opinion if the Road hole was a par 5, it would drastically change how people approach the hole. Players would naturally play safer off of the tee, and in the 2nd shot. I know most players would still be aggressive, but it would change how people think of the hole.
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