It's sort of a Steve Westism at this point: refusing to discuss the point you have raised by, in this case, refusing to acknowledge what you mean by "ball golf like scoring."
Perhaps I did skip over that. I assumed what was meant was that par in golf is about equally difficult to achieve from course to course, that the winner of a tournament will usually have a score around 4 below par per round, that commentators rarely say things like "every single one of these players is expecting a birdie on this hole", and such.
But, if what was meant was that course pars are around 72, then that's different. The only way to get that is make bigger courses. Ropes are not very effective at raising par, they mostly just raise the average. Par is not average.
Another of his standard tactics is to refuse to recognize that when he talks about the definition of par, his is talking about his own, personal definition of par. This leads to acts of hubris such as claiming that TDs of tournaments are setting par "incorrectly" which, although not impossible, is not his place to determine according to the actual definition.
When I say definition, I'm always talking about the actual definition. The actual definition is in the rule book. "Par is the score that an expert disc golfer would be expected to make on a given hole with errorless play under ordinary weather conditions, as determined by the Director."
Because of the part after the comma, no TD can set par incorrectly. If I ever use the word "incorrectly", it is my mistake. I'm just trying to get the part after the comma to be equal to the part before the comma. That's what I mean by "properly" or "accurately".
There are a few methods to get there. Whether the TD gets the opinions of experts, or uses CRP, or the PDGA guidelines, or any formula applied to scores, as long as they truly try to set par according to the first part of the definition (and not some other way, like use the recreational tee sign pars) we will get good pars.
It's understandable that the charts give another impression. I probably don't say often enough that no one should use those figures as the final par without review by the TD. They just highlight holes where par could be re-examined.
The idea that par isn't "doing its job" is merely another argument that subsumes an incorrect definition of par by essentially arguing that par set by the actual definition isn't conforming to Steve's definition.
"Doing it's job" has to do with being consistent across courses and all that. I'm asking for opinions on how to recognize that, in an effort to possibly change my method. That's the opposite of what you said.
But Steve West will continue to stevewest about par. As noted earlier, this thread is really just a big ego stroking exercise for the OP who has no doubt, by now, convinced himself that par is what he wants it to be because most everyone else has grown so tired of this thread that they can't be bothered to open it anymore.
Maybe. Even if true, that doesn't give anyone a reason to keep setting par poorly.
I suspect most understand that the only benefit of par is as a marker. Draw a line anywhere and you get to tell everyone how far they are from it. The mystique associated with a Tiger Woods record 15 down at Pebble Beach doesn't attach to par in disc golf, but it's not because par is different in golf as opposed to disc golf. It's because disc golf is easier.
I agree that par is a marker, and that disc golf is easier. I don't buy that at some tournaments disc golf is not any easier than golf (relative to par) while at other tournaments disc golf is dozens of throws easier than golf (relative to par).
The mystique comes from knowing that 15 down actually means something, no matter which course it happened on. Disc golf can and will have that, too. More and more events are already getting there.
The apparent benefit of Steve's definition, to Steve, lies in the very fact that it is different from the actual definition. As a result, Steve and everyone else who knows that par is really different from what the masses understand it to be, can have a sense of pride in being smarter than the rest of us, and especially smarter than all the TD's out there who have better things to do in preparation for their tournament than to worry about how to set par so that they don't get publicly shamed in the Part Talk thread at DGCR.
All the benefits of my method (actually, all methods) derive from that fact that it tries to replicate the definition before the comma.
All the other methods will also have most of those benefits. More importantly,
all these methods are moving toward the par that the masses already understand intuitively.
Listen to the discussions among players and announcers. The masses know the holes where "a par feels like a bogey", and all the other ways of saying that the official par is not the score an expert would expect with errorless play. The masses know winning scores should not be 76 under after four rounds. The masses know par should represent about the same level of difficulty across all courses. The masses know the under/over number should change slowly. The masses know over/under should be a good way to keep track of who is really doing well or poorly even compared to other players who haven't played all the same holes.
Yes, TD's have better things to do than worry about how to set par. But, after they've done all those other more important things, worrying about par is still on the to-do list. We're just providing tools to help them quickly set better pars.
