Par vs Pro Par

[DiscChainBasket18]

Told to me by a local 'open' player during a club weekly singles tourney: "Pro" par is 3's on everything regardless of hole listings. Of course this guy could hit everyting in at least 3 throws. He also gets mad when he asks for your score & you say "2 over" (par), etc. He then says "that was a 56 right?", and I say "no, there were two baskets in the long today (par 4's) today"! Then he comes back angrily with "so you shot a 58, right?" I sheepishly relpy "yes" but secretly decide to do that to him every time now just to see him get upset. Isn't Disc Golf fun?

 

[timg]

Sounds like a fun guy.. although I'd do the same thing as you just to mess with him Also, the "all par 3" thing isn't really a great system. Sure, it makes scoring easier but you could always just write your score down.

The sport is progressing and holes are becoming longer and more challenging. Eventually the idea that everything is par 3 will have to be dropped. Playing #15 at Idlewild or #11 at Baker Farm as par 3 would be ridiculous. Each of those holes clocks in at 900-1000ft.

 

[magictenor1]

I always play par as listed. I have never seen anyone at a ball golf course say:" I know it says par 5 but I play everything as a 3". It doesn't happen. Par is not that consistent in our sport but there is also wide variation in BG courses. A US Open course is a lot harder than my local municipal course.

 

[ERicJ]

How do ball golf courses determine par? Distance alone?

Primarily it's "effective distance" to the green, plus two strokes for putting on the green.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golf#Par

ERic

 

[ERicJ]

Told to me by a local 'open' player during a club weekly singles tourney: "Pro" par is 3's on everything regardless of hole listings.

That's not really true.

Check out the fantastic Caddy Book for the USDGC. There's lots of Pros there playing holes that are not par 3.

He also gets mad when he asks for your score & you say "2 over" (par), etc. He then says "that was a 56 right?", and I say "no, there were two baskets in the long today (par 4's) today"! Then he comes back angrily with "so you shot a 58, right?" I sheepishly relpy "yes" but secretly decide to do that to him every time now just to see him get upset. Isn't Disc Golf fun?

I guess you can have all the fun you want at his expense, but just be aware that if you get into the habit of doing that it can come back to bite you in a tournament.

If your score is added/reported incorrectly it will result in penalty strokes.

If you say the exact number to the scorekeeper there's no ambiguity involved. But if you start saying anything else, e.g. "two over", "par", "bogey", etc. the scorekeeper may not interpret that the same way you meant it. Just a head's up if you plan on playing serious DG.

ERic

 

[ERicJ]

I always play par as listed. I have never seen anyone at a ball golf course say:" I know it says par 5 but I play everything as a 3". It doesn't happen. Par is not that consistent in our sport but there is also wide variation in BG courses. A US Open course is a lot harder than my local municipal course.

Ball golf course pars seem to be in a very tight range: 70-72.

Disc golf course posted pars are all over the place. I love the Hudson Springs example with par 67. Where was the last 18-hole ball golf course you saw that had a par of 13 strokes over the "norm"?

As many have said before: for casual play, par is irrelevant. It's your final score that matters.

ERic

 

[DiscChainBasket18]

That's not really true.

Check out the fantastic Caddy Book for the USDGC. There's lots of Pros there playing holes that are not par 3.




I guess you can have all the fun you want at his expense, but just be aware that if you get into the habit of doing that it can come back to bite you in a tournament.

If your score is added/reported incorrectly it will result in penalty strokes.

If you say the exact number to the scorekeeper there's no ambiguity involved. But if you start saying anything else, e.g. "two over", "par", "bogey", etc. the scorekeeper may not interpret that the same way you meant it. Just a head's up if you plan on playing serious DG.

ERic

No 'habit'.
I just do it with him (& a lot of other people do to) because he gets all bent about it. Everywhere else (PDGA tourneys included) I write down & tell my actual score.

 

[Innovadude]

Sounds like a fun guy.. although I'd do the same thing as you just to mess with him Also, the "all par 3" thing isn't really a great system. Sure, it makes scoring easier but you could always just write your score down.

The sport is progressing and holes are becoming longer and more challenging. Eventually the idea that everything is par 3 will have to be dropped. Playing #15 at Idlewild or #11 at Baker Farm as par 3 would be ridiculous. Each of those holes clocks in at 900-1000ft.

Though it was wicked to witness a '3' on #11 at Baker Farm in the '99 Worlds, and I was within 80' last time on my 2nd drive.

 

[ERicJ]

The sport is progressing and holes are becoming longer and more challenging. Eventually the idea that everything is par 3 will have to be dropped. Playing #15 at Idlewild or #11 at Baker Farm as par 3 would be ridiculous. Each of those holes clocks in at 900-1000ft.

Yesterday Tim Skellenger tossed a double eagle on the 901' par 5 hole #12 at the USDGC:

http://www.usdgc.com/10/02/jared-pennington-double-eagle-on-12

Pretty sweet. 900' in two throws... just thinking about that makes me want to run out and start heaving discs!

ERic

 

[JR Stengele]

It makes me realize how much more work I need to do to EVER get that distance.

 

[magictenor1]

Ball golf course pars seem to be in a very tight range: 70-72.

Disc golf course posted pars are all over the place. I love the Hudson Springs example with par 67. Where was the last 18-hole ball golf course you saw that had a par of 13 strokes over the "norm"?

As many have said before: for casual play, par is irrelevant. It's your final score that matters.

ERic

I did say par is not very consistent in our sport but who says that 54 is the magic # ?

 

[Geoffro]

I am relatively new to the game, but I think a lot of this depends on the course. There are lots of courses out there where there are par 3 holes that realistically should be par 2. Typically, this occurs on short courses where room is not available for 18 realistic par 3 holes. We've also seen courses where the pars are clearly listed for casual players (par 4 on all holes), with no pro par listed. Other courses, no par is provided, though there is a clear difference between one hole to the next (hole 3 should be par 3, and hole four is 500+' with several turns and should be par 4).

If you're playing a course where the pars are realistic for the holes, I think you have to play the pro pars listed, be they 3 or 5. If you aren't, then I guess the 3 par rule applies?

The difference between ball golf and our sport is that unfortunately, disc golfers are often left to the course designers (or lack thereof) to determine par. This is often a very subjective determination, and in some cases, the determination never gets made.

I think it would be cool idea if a forum like this could begin to establish realistic pars for courses reviewed on the site. I know this could lead to endless argument and discussion on certain holes, but on many holes on many courses an established par could be established. When reviewing a course, we could enter a par for each hole - clearly most of them would be 3's, but when most of us agree that a certain hole should be a 4 or a 2 par, that would stand, as least with us. When you would pull up a course on this site, and look at a particular hole, the average par rating could be displayed - if a bunch of people rated the hole par 3, and one rated par 4, the average rating would come up "par 3.08," and we would all play this as par 3. Just an idea.

Until then, or some entity takes responsibilty for consistently rating all courses, I will play pro par when available, and make it up as I go along otherwise

 

[Lewis]

The pdga website offers guidelines, though they don't really give us a rule of thumb:

http://www.pdga.com/documents/PublicPar.pdf

Boil this down as you like, but here's how I like to think of it:

From the middle tees (white), you begin to see par 4 around an effective distance of 400 feet (corrected for obstacles or slope), and you begin to see par 5 around 700 feet. The "red" or "recreational" distance guidelines are shorter, but if red tees exist, they are going to be designed as shorter fairways anyway. The inverse holds for the "gold" or "pro" tees: par 4 and 5 are supposed to be longer, but so are the gold fairways.

Another way to estimate par is to think of how many throws it would take the normal player to throw as far as the basket, and add one putt.

 

[ERicJ]

...Disc golf course posted pars are all over the place. I love the Hudson Springs example with par 67. Where was the last 18-hole ball golf course you saw that had a par of 13 strokes over the "norm"?

...who says that 54 is the magic # ?

I didn't say there was anything mystical about it, just that it was the typical value.

Tim, if you're listening would you pull some stats from the DGCR database and tell us what the mode is for the Par value listed for 18-hole courses. (It might be interesting to pull the value from the Course Info field and the other value from the Hole Info sum to see if they're the same.)

ERic

P.S. djex1 said 54 was the "magic number".

 

[ERicJ]

I think it would be cool idea if a forum like this could begin to establish realistic pars for courses reviewed on the site. [...] When reviewing a course, we could enter a par for each hole...

But... par for who? A novice player, a REC player, INT, ADV... Pro? Male or female?

And... from where? From which tee? To which pin position?

DGCR is not set up to hold different par values for all those combinations.


I would rather see DGCR report the average score on each hole (from the DGCR Scorebook entries) per tee. But just like the other raging thread on course difficulty if you wanted an accurate number you'd need to know the skill of the player shooting those hole scores.

You could restrict the reported data to only players with PDGA ratings, but that limits your sample size... and has the added complexity that you really want to know the rating of the player at the time they played the hole. (Players get better and worse over time.) I guess DGCR could add a field to each scorebook entry that was "Player Rating at time played" and it would default to your current value. Knowing the skill of the player recording the score is the only way to qualify the data to something meaningful.

ERic

 

[ERicJ]

Adjusting Par based on empirical data

I was impressed looking at the Maple Hill site.

http://www.maplehillopen.com/courses.html

They adjust their course par and hole layout based on the empirical data gathered from rounds played. E.g. see hole #3.

My $0.02 is that's the way courses should be designed, adjusted, and have par defined. A course designer can have the best intentions for claiming a par value they think is realistic... but there's no substitute for bringing in a bunch of good players and seeing what really happens.

ERic

 

[DannyM]

I fully agree with having the "actual par" of a course as determined by what it was averaged after say 2 tournaments. There are going to be holes that rec. players will probably average 4's or 5's, where pros may average 3, but I have seen pros take a 5 on a hole at my course last tourney, that every round I got a 2 on. <and I play adv. Master>. Having doing the "stats" for my local course after tournaments, I was surprised to see that the most variance on holes was not the "longer" holes <over 400'>, but actually the tighter, technical holes, some as short as 180'. There are a lot of players who can drive incredibly, BUT, they lack the "finesse" touch shots.

 

[Olorin]

That all being said there really isn't a standard for what DGCR par vs. pro par is... much less what par is in disc golf in general. [Cue Olorin].

I'm trying to hold back here. One par discussion at a time is all I can handle.

 

[Olorin]

Second! Or third - whatever number I am. I play all Par 3 unless I know otherwise.

Uggghh! Could y'all please differentiate between scoring and par? For ease of keeping your score I can see how people track scores relative to 3, but to say that every hole is par 3 is nothing but ludicrous! Among multiple examples look at Winthrop Gold and Renaissance Gold. Saying that every hole is a par 3 is totally untrue and adds tons of needless confusion. Can we please get past this?

 

[Olorin]

I use the par system that the park has set up.

Double Aaaarrggghhhh! Can we please get rid of Recreational Par too??? There should only be one par. (And that should be CR Par-- had to get that in.)