History of everything being a par 3

[Eman]

I have watched some coverage from old world championships in the 80s and early 90s on youtube and all the holes in the tournament where par 3's even though a couple of them where 700+ feet. When did worlds and other tournaments start having holes that were not marked par 3?

Was it a official change in the the PDGA rules or just a trend that one tournaments at a time started to move away from par 54? I know that initially early disc golf courses where built to be par 54 because it required less space then a par 72 course but did Ed/ the PDGA ever officially say that disc golf (and particularly tournament disc golf) is played on par 3 holes?


Every time I've seen par 54 brought up it has been in the context of ease of counting and the perceived irrelevance of par but I have never seen the history discussed of when and how par 54 stopped being a universal standard.

 

[biscoe]

I don't think par 3 was ever mandated. When I began playing in the mid-90's everything local to me was called a par 3 regardless of how ridiculous it may have been. My friends went to worlds in Port Arthur, Texas and came back talking about par 4's like they were unicorns. Those were Houck courses I believe. it's not that there were not long hard holes in the Mid-Atlantic- "serious players" just called them all par 3. Lots of the older courses had tee signs calling 300 foot holes par 5 and such- no one paid any attention to them though. They were just seen as remnants of Steady Ed's legacy of disc golf for recreational players.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Steady Ed assigned pars pretty well for recreational play with lids with some course pars in the 60s. Serious players felt those pars were inflated for their level of play, especially once beveled edge discs became more popular by the mid-80s. If anything, quite a few holes on those early courses (and even today) were legitimately par 2s for pros but no one used that since ball golf doesn't have par 2s. Plus, calling all holes par 3 made it easy to keep score without a scorecard since there were only handful of courses with pro shops where you could get a card.

 

[Ryan P.]

I'd love to hear a more seasoned golfer's take on the legacy/importance of par 3s to our sport. I'm looking at you Biscoe, but if anyone else wants to chime in, I'm all ears.

 

[Monocacy]

. . . it's not that there were not long hard holes in the Mid-Atlantic- "serious players" just called them all par 3. . . .

Yep that's what I grew up with, mostly playing at Seneca Creek. Not that I was a serious player, then or now. "Par 3" just made the math easier, even if the hole was what we would now consider a tough par 4.

"What did you get?"
"One over."

DGCR still lists everything at Seneca Creek as par 3, even the 550'+ holes with woods and OB creek lining the fairway. TDs do use more conventional "tournament par", but when you play a casual round or Wednesday Night Dubs, everything plays as par 3.

And somehow the planet continues to rotate on its axis.

 

[ThrowaEnvy]

I'll ditto that, someone pointed out there's 2 par 4's on our course a couple years ago.. Haha I'd never bothered to read the tee signs and it's all reachable in three.. I don't know if they've been par 4's for 30yrs or not.. We play everything as 3's.

 

[Three Putt]

An issue I recall is that we really had no idea what a par 4 or par 5 hole looked like in 1994. Our club was designing courses; we had players who had been around and traveled to big events and they had what turned out to be good ideas on how to design a course, but what par the holes they designed were wasn't anything anyone was sure about. We wanted the holes to be a "Pro" par and pretty much every hole we had we could imagine Crazy John at least taking a 3 on, so...does that make it a Pro Par 3? We didn't really know. The "safe" option was to call it a par 3, so we did.

Some of those shots today are labeled as par 4's; I think players in general are more comfortable with what the criteria for a par 4 or par 5 is now.

That was one place so it probably is not the only answer, but it was what happened where I was.

 

[Casey 1988]

Steady Ed assigned pars pretty well for recreational play with lids with some course pars in the 60s. Serious players felt those pars were inflated for their level of play, especially once beveled edge discs became more popular by the mid-80s. If anything, quite a few holes on those early courses (and even today) were legitimately par 2s for pros but no one used that since ball golf doesn't have par 2s. Plus, calling all holes par 3 made it easy to keep score without a scorecard since there were only handful of courses with pro shops where you could get a card.

Yep, a few more modern courses, the basket on one local holeA Steamboat Park Pierre was legitmatly a 2. You take your driving putter/putter like midrange on a 201 foot hole to get a 2 on it from players who have been playing at least 6 months. The local course made first in 2006-2007, we the people who helped design the course did not want to make that hole but rather have the course Steamboat park Pierre have a Pratice hole with 17 good baskets for people but the city people said 18 at the time or nothing at all, unless you want 9 holes. Now 3-4 baskets will be fully removed to make space for a much needed water treatment plant with the 200 foot hole in the balance depending on what plan the city uses for the new Bridge over Missouri that both Pierre and Ft. Pierre need to connect both cities. With those 3-5 baskets and some newer Lighting DB-5 baskets 4-6 of those using an extra set of 6 galvanized chains on inner ring every 3 spot for 24 chains using its own ring/S hooks, in another unused part of a park, people could have a tough highland style Disc Golf course that would be very tough to play 9 holes, not for beginners.

 

[Cgkdisc]

On an early course in the Twin Cities, I remember seeing an 80 ft hole shown as Par 1 on the tee sign. Wish I had taken a picture for the files.

 

[Steve West]

On an early course in the Twin Cities, I remember seeing an 80 ft hole shown as Par 1 on the tee sign. Wish I had taken a picture for the files.

Not a hole I designed. Par 1s shouldn't be more than about 25 feet.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Not a hole I designed. Par 1s shouldn't be more than about 25 feet.

The original 9-hole course at Zachary Playfield, maybe installed by Park Dept in Plymouth, MN. Removed around the time the original Plymouth Creek went in.

 

[ru4por]

Back in the day.....not very many courses had tee signs, or signs that were in good enough repair to read. Setting par at three for everything was just easier. Easier to score and caused less arguments at the basket, as to what par on the hole was.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I can remember talking about how we might try to shoot even par on the new Monster course at Hudson Mills, circa 1998. "You've gotta get some deuces while you can because you ain't gonna par the monster hole. That's at least a double, guaranteed." (It's over 1,000 feet). I mean...Stokely was putting for 3 there, so it's possible for somebody to "par" it.

I'm proud of my 75 personal best on the Monster course back then. Only 17 strokes worse than Steve Rico!

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

Yeah, sometime in the mid-90's when I was encountering serious players for the first time, somebody (perhaps J-Bird) flat out told me "Everything is par 3 in Disc Golf." And that was that. I was told it was for ease of score keeping, plus most if not all courses had holes that good players could get threes on, and par is supposed to be what good players can get without a mistake.

Putting is easier, I was told, too. I mean...we had Mach III's by that point, for crying out loud. A marvel in the history of projectile sports. Seriously, we loved them. A shiny, gleaming Mach III was to be worshiped.

 

[shyguy30]

There was a time when Mach IIIs shone?

 

[ru4por]

There was a time when Mach IIIs shone?

Yes sir. Try putting on a tone pole, lol. But, moving away from single chains was a revolution for most courses, when they came out. They still catch fine.

They were VERY popular here in Michigan, where RARELY could you find a yellow band in the woods. Hit a Mach III dead pole with a firm putt and you could be putting again, but many here developed a softer, nose up putt to accommodate the basket.

 

[Nova P]

There was a time when Mach IIIs shone?

I started playing in the KC metro area, so it was all Mach IIIs for me. They're fine, so long as you hit the sweet spot which is a hair to the right of the pole, and in the bottom third of the chains. The key is to catch a bunch of chains and drop into the tray, without catching a huge kick off of the pole.

edit: And no hyzer angle! Those slash straight through.

 

[Dingus]

edit: And no hyzer angle! Those slash straight through.

Unless you are Brooklyn, then hyzer puts you in the basket

 

[wolfmandragon]

....
Hit a Mach III dead pole with a firm putt and you could be putting again, but many here developed a softer, nose up putt to accommodate the basket.

Maybe this is why I never had any issues with the Mach III catching my discs; until the past year, my natural putt either came in nose up or nose down, never flat.

I never could figure out why people hated them. Too many chains, like most newer styles, reward throw-ins and hurt a soft putting style; I like Mach III chains.... now the exposed nubs on top... I hate those.

Mach III with a band is what I would like to see.

 

[biscoe]

I'd love to hear a more seasoned golfer's take on the legacy/importance of par 3s to our sport. I'm looking at you Biscoe, but if anyone else wants to chime in, I'm all ears.

Par 3's are way more important in dg relative to golf for a number of reasons. First is that we have such an enormous variety of cool things we can do with them. Second is our need for inexpensive space. I have blah blah blahed at length about this before and am a little beat thence brevity.