How is “par” determined on the holes, and who determines it? Is par different for men and women?
Mostly to do with distance to the hole (I think) …
I could imagine that a situation where the men’s tee was placed well forward of the ladies’ could result in a male par 4 (say) and a female par 5. I doubt that it happens in practice, as the tees would need to be 50-100 yards apart.
Grim
URL for the above quote: http://www.usga.org/about/timeline/1904.html
Grim
And from the same site
Is there nothing in the computations that has to do with difficulties, like bends i the fairway, trees, water hazards, etc?
Not readily apparent from grimpixie’s post, the yardages have been increased. This weeks US Open showcases two par 4’s that are 492 and 499. As for ladies/mens tees, I have played par 4 holes (ie, about 440 yds) that were a par 5 for the ladies.
Par is determined from the tee shot and approach shot. If the hole can realistically be reached with an iron off the tee, then it will probably play as a par 3. Par 4, tee shot with a wood, then approach shot with an iron. Par 5’s, one tee shot, two approach shots. Each hole is assigned two putts. Courses vary in their setup, but the “standard” so to speak, is 4 par 5’s, 4 par 3’s, and the rest (10) par 4’s for a par 72.
I have played courses were you have to tee off with a short iron (severe dogleg) and then hit 3-wood to the green.
The course does have a slope and course rating which identifies the level of difficulty the course plays to. This is also used in the players handicap computations. The average slope rating is about 117 (Bethpage Black is in the 140 range). The course rating is determined by a how a scratch (0 handicap) golfer will score a ten round average in ideal playing conditions. If the course is a par 72, and the course rating is a 69.5, then it’s a pretty playable (for scoring) course. If it’s a par 70 and the course rating is 72.9, bring a lot of balls.
As the others say, it’s all based on distance. Par allows 2 putts/hole. That’s 36 putts allowed for an 18 hole round. Then an estimate is made of how many strokes a good player will take to go the distance to each hole and this total is added to the 36 putts.
So par allows a good player about half of the par total to be putts on the green and it follows that if you want to score well, learn to putt.
BF pretty much got it on the nose but you can have holes that are shorter than normal. I think currently the “standard” is up to 250 yards par 3, 251-472 par 4, 473-? par 5 and ? up is 6. It’s really up to the course to determine par though, I’ve played par 4s that were under 250 for the men. I’ve also played par 5s that were just over 400 yards.
As for the Open’s 499 par 4 I don’t like it. I was watching how they were making the course and someone said we fully expect 80% of the players NOT to be able to reach the green in two. That, IMHO is not how par should be made.
I believe the two long par 4’s at the Open are actually par 5’s for the average weekend golfer. That is why par is 70 as opposed to the usual 72. I would bet this sort of thing will start happening more often. The owners and managers of these older, shorter courses don’t like to see people shooting 8 under all the time.
Augusta will have to do something as well.
On another note, how’d you like to try this monster?. Almost seems like it should be a par 7!
I have played the Meadows Farm course in Leesville, just outside Fredericksburg. From the white tees, the par 6 plays 730, and water is in play off the tee. I hit driver, 3-wood, 3-wood, 8-iron, and promptly 3-jacked it. (ps, the course is actually 19 holes, as the first hole is a warmup hole and is not listed on the card)
Nope - it’s just a function of tee-to-the-green distance.
Having said that, though, we should note that most golf courses have more than one set of tees, and “par” is calculated using whatever the course management decided was the “normal” tees. Also, in any given day a hole will play longer or shorter than normal because of the location of the tees that day (the course management moves both the tee-off area and the hole location around periodically to prevent any one spot in the teeing area or in the green from getting excessively worn).
I typically play off of whatefer are thought of as the shortest of the “men’s” tees, which sometimes results in my playing “par 5s” that are shorter than the USGA par 4 upper limit.
Let me expand on that - “par” determination is just a function of tee-to-green distance, but a course’s rating and slope (which are used to determine course handicaps) use other difficulty factors such as trees, hazards, width-of-fairways, etc in their calculations.