Par Talk

[Ryan P.]

Originally Posted by johnrhouck

Sorry, that should be “now.” I would never say “no” to Steve.

Hah yeah hopefully people assumed as much. I figured it out pretty quickly since I make the same mistake all the time.

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by johnrhouck

The individual holes scoring may or may not be similar. But the net result is VERY dissimilar. At that same tournament, their winner shot -12 over four rounds. Our LVC winner this past weekend shot -12 per round.

https://www.cbssports.com/golf/leade...-invitational/

And they had two par 5s where there were more birdies than pars! Golf is not immune to par inflation, but I think the driving force there is "fear of less than 72" so it mostly affects the fake par 5s.

If LVC pars were set according to the definition, par would have been 22 lower in total over the four rounds for both FPO and MPO. The MPO winner would have been 26 under and the FPO winner 3 under.

Even when we set par according to the definition, we see winning scores farther under par for disc golf than golf. This happens even when I apply the same formulas to the scores of each sport.

One reason is that the gap in skills between expert and top players is bigger in disc golf. (No one in golf can park a 600 yard hole, for example.)

The other is that we just prefer a more birdie-rich mix of holes, even when the birdies are legit.

So, I'm OK with farther-under-par winning scores, but there is a limit.
-26 vs -12 is OK.
-48 vs -12 is not OK.

[dreadlock86]

Originally Posted by Steve West

Fourth, I'm in favor of substituting other skill levels in place of "expert" to get "par" for other divisions or for daily play, but it should have a qualifier. "Advanced par" or "Blue par", for example.

Originally Posted by johnrhouck

Yes. Now we're talking.

the main focus always seems to fall onto the gold level events, courses, and players.

with respect to coming up with accurate blue, white, and red pars, do you think the main issue is a consistent/accurate standard of par or better informed course designers? or are those the same thing?

or is it something else altogether, perhaps the fact that many courses seem to be designed to get the best possible holes out of the land available rather than catering to an intended player level?

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by ballgolfconvert

No because all expected scores are fractional, so you either round up or down. You prefer to round up so they are not birdies, i prefer to round down. The basic issue is that the holes simply do a really poor job of differentiating between excellent and error-less play, mostly because the target is too easy.

Scores in disc golf are integers. No one can expect to get a score that cannot be scored, so the expected score cannot be a fractional score.

Par is not an average. Averaging and rounding is not the way to find par. Par is set by choosing the single particular integer score which an expert would expect with errorless play.

The reason par is not an average is because all the scores that do not result from errorless play are not part of the definition.

[ballgolfconvert]

Originally Posted by Steve West

And they had two par 5s where there were more birdies than pars! Golf is not immune to par inflation, but I think the driving force there is "fear of less than 72" so it mostly affects the fake par 5s.

If LVC pars were set according to the definition, par would have been 22 lower in total over the four rounds for both FPO and MPO. The MPO winner would have been 26 under and the FPO winner 3 under.

Even when we set par according to the definition, we see winning scores farther under par for disc golf than golf. This happens even when I apply the same formulas to the scores of each sport.

One reason is that the gap in skills between expert and top players is bigger in disc golf. (No one in golf can park a 600 yard hole, for example.)

The other is that we just prefer a more birdie-rich mix of holes, even when the birdies are legit.

So, I'm OK with farther-under-par winning scores, but there is a limit.
-26 vs -12 is OK.
-48 vs -12 is not OK.

There is usually a PGA Tour Par 5 that scores more birdies than pars every week. Par 5's give you an extra shot to gain strokes vs. par, so you get more birdies on them. Period. In ball golf they have always been considered the scoring holes.

The real issue was the course had 8 holes playing less than 400'. That is equivalent to a whole bunch of 90-150 yard par 3's in Ball Golf. For players of this caliber that means a bunch of 2's. Labeling them par 2's isn't the answer. We need to have better courses / holes for the pro's or make it much harder to make C1 putts. Discs fly differently than golf balls and that makes it easier to get around obstacles and back on the line of the play. When folks ask me why disc golf scores are lower, I just tell them the truth, disc golf is easier in it's current form than ball golf. Unless baskets are changed or placed much more strategically, the low scores will continue.

[oldmandiscer]

Originally Posted by ballgolfconvert

There is usually a PGA Tour Par 5 that scores more birdies than pars every week. Par 5's give you an extra shot to gain strokes vs. par, so you get more birdies on them. Period. In ball golf they have always been considered the scoring holes.

The real issue was the course had 8 holes playing less than 400'. That is equivalent to a whole bunch of 90-150 yard par 3's in Ball Golf. For players of this caliber that means a bunch of 2's. Labeling them par 2's isn't the answer. We need to have better courses / holes for the pro's or make it much harder to make C1 putts. Discs fly differently than golf balls and that makes it easier to get around obstacles and back on the line of the play. When folks ask me why disc golf scores are lower, I just tell them the truth, disc golf is easier in it's current form than ball golf. Unless baskets are changed or placed much more strategically, the low scores will continue.

Putting is the greatest difference, it's like comparing Preschool Math to Advanced Calculus. Just look at 10 feet and the Pro Disc players make nearly 100%. On the PGA Tour it's only 38%.

Further away disc golf remains high as well while putting in ball golf is very difficult of course.

At 25 feet top disc golfers are approx. 85-90% while the PGA Tour players are 10%. A whopping 9 times greater chance to make. I would just like to see top players move down to "only" 70-75% which is still incredibly high! But hey I'm crazy for wanting to see players challenged just a little bit.

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by ballgolfconvert

There is usually a PGA Tour Par 5 that scores more birdies than pars every week. Par 5's give you an extra shot to gain strokes vs. par, so you get more birdies on them. Period. In ball golf they have always been considered the scoring holes.

Adding "Period." doesn't make something true.

"An extra shot to gain strokes" is a load of crap they use to justify handing out unjustified birdies. The math does not hold up.

Look at it this way: the chance of making a lot of exceptionally good shots in a row is less than the chance of making a few exceptionally good shots in a row. So, the more shots a hole takes, the fewer birdies there should be.

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by ballgolfconvert

The real issue was the course had 8 holes playing less than 400'. That is equivalent to a whole bunch of 90-150 yard par 3's in Ball Golf. For players of this caliber that means a bunch of 2's. Labeling them par 2's isn't the answer. We need to have better courses / holes for the pro's or make it much harder to make C1 putts. Discs fly differently than golf balls and that makes it easier to get around obstacles and back on the line of the play. When folks ask me why disc golf scores are lower, I just tell them the truth, disc golf is easier in it's current form than ball golf. Unless baskets are changed or placed much more strategically, the low scores will continue.

The only holes at LVC that could have been par 2 were #3 and #6 on Innova, and both of those were just barely too easy to be a legit par 3.

The real issue is the eleven holes labeled par 4 that should have been par 3, and the six holes labeled par 5 that should have been par 4.

We very well might need longer holes or to make it harder for pros to make C1 putts. However, if we do that without wiping out the notion that par is a bad score, TDs will just bump up par a throw to get back to many unearned birdies.

Low scores relative to par is only a symptom of high pars relative to score.

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by oldmandiscer

Putting is the greatest difference, ...

And par, set according to the definition, would recognize that difference.

[Steve West]

Originally Posted by dreadlock86

the main focus always seems to fall onto the gold level events, courses, and players.

with respect to coming up with accurate blue, white, and red pars, do you think the main issue is a consistent/accurate standard of par or better informed course designers? or are those the same thing?

or is it something else altogether, perhaps the fact that many courses seem to be designed to get the best possible holes out of the land available rather than catering to an intended player level?

Many events have been run, and many courses have been designed, by untrained volunteers.

The standards do exist; they're out on the PDGA web site. It takes extra work and discipline to look them up and apply them.

Creating all the best holes without regard to an intended player level would not preclude setting par according to the standards. Every hole should have a list of the appropriate pars for all skill levels, because pretty much all skill levels play pretty much all holes.