What is Par?

[Olorin]

The issue of Par is a pretty big one that it would be good to tackle. I firmly believe that quantifying course difficulty depends on an accurate par. I'd like to make sure that we're in some kind of agreement about how to determine par because there are a couple of hundred ways to do it out there. They all basically follow one of 3 philosophies, though.

 

[Olorin]

Abolish Pro par and Rec par distinctions

Personally, I'd like to see the "Pro Par" column taken out of these reviews. There should only be one par per layout of a hole, just as in traditional golf.
"Pro par" assumes that there is also a "Rec Par" and I think that's counter productive.

 

[timg]

Well a lot of courses mark both on the score card/signs which is where the pro par came from and I wanted the site to reflect that accurately. For example, Baker Farm has a few holes with different pars for different tees. From what I've seen so far, pro par is used when you shoot from the far tee and the regular par from the next, closer tee.

Also, the way I usually figure out par is to find a score card or check the course signage. If neither of the two are available then I tend to leave out that info.

 

[MattK]

Baker Farm has a 911' par 4! One of the courses I added has the opposite problem. Monroeville Park has some so-called Par 5's under 300', though this is what the course designer supposedly wanted since it was on the signs that were originally posted.
This short community park course has two sets of tees, which I would generously call "Red" and "White". But this website only has a place for "Par" and "Pro-Par" as well as length and pro-length. It would be nice to see columns for red, white, and blue since many of the better courses seem to have all of these tees, perhaps with an "other" column as well to cover the occasional "gold" tees, etc.
FWIW, the PDGA does seem to have criteria on what "Par" should be, but unless we can find bona-fide numbers indicating what a course designer has designated as par (from signs or official scorecards, etc), then I agree we best leave that column blank rather than take our best guess at what we think par should be.

 

[timg]

I was actually thinking about adding more spots for tees just yesterday.. in my area the colors tends to be yellow/red/blue. Maybe I could just label them tee #1/tee #2/tee #3 or something along those lines.

I've been using the long tees and the next closest for par/pro par and leaving out the closest set of tees. I'll have to add these in when I get a chance

 

[timg]

Just implemented the various tees. I think it turned out pretty nice, not too crowdy.

 

[MattK]

Just implemented the various tees. I think it turned out pretty nice, not too crowdy.

Looks good, Tim. I've updated data for a few of the courses accordingly.

 

[Olorin]

I was actually thinking about adding more spots for tees just yesterday.. in my area the colors tends to be yellow/red/blue. Maybe I could just label them tee #1/tee #2/tee #3 or something along those lines.

Tee colors vary wildly around the country. Courses should be moving toward the PDGA standard designations (from longest to shortest) of Gold, Blue, White, Red, Green, Purple, but it's a very slow process as people get educated about these standards.

 

[timg]

Wow.. are green and purple right next to the baskets? Usually the reds are fairly close (around here).

I just went with the standard colors for the site that I looked up on the pdga site. It seemed like a safe bet.

 

[Olorin]

Purple Courses

I never saw a purple course.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than play one.

 

[Olorin]

Wow.. are green and purple right next to the baskets? Usually the reds are fairly close (around here).

I just went with the standard colors for the site that I looked up on the pdga site. It seemed like a safe bet.

You might not have seen too many Gold courses either, since there are very few of them.

 

[Olorin]

Remove "Pro Par"

Personally, I'd like to see the "Pro Par" column taken out of these reviews. There should only be one par per layout of a hole, just as in traditional golf.
"Pro par" assumes that there is also a "Rec Par" and I think that's counter productive.

I'd like to reiterate this point.

Lowe

 

[Olorin]

Par for each layout

Would it be possible to have a column for par for each layout? Right now there is only on par column, but if you have 2-3 layouts the longer layouts sometimes have par 4s or 5s that can't be designated as such. The only layout to have par match the holes is the first column.

Different layouts can have different pars, so I'd like to be able to show this.

 

[timg]

Disc golf courses unfortunately don't follow any standard from course to course so it's tough to design a system that will fit every possible situation out there. Pro par in my mind (some scorecards do list it) would either be because there is a amateur par or it can be assumed that it is for the farther tees.

In retrospect I could have had a par go with each tee (xxx ft./3) but entering all that info would have been incredibly tedious for people (~150 text boxes!).

As far as other layouts, I could make a tabbed interface for the holes area but really, how many courses have alternate layouts? Also, I have my doubts people would take the time to fill in all that information (if they could even find it). I'd just put the most popular layout on the site and alternates could be mentioned in the course description or they could be viewed on an uploaded scorecard/score map.

 

[magictenor1]

pro par

Most course I know that have so called pro tees have the same par as the other tees. I agree that it probably not really needed in the course description but not a big deal. I do sometime go to courses where the signs might say a hole is a par 4 but some locals say par 3. I once went to a course in Texas where there was a running argument over whether everything was a 3 or not with people writing over the signs.

 

[timg]

I know at a few courses I go to the pro tees have different pars than the regular tees so that number was really intended for that purpose. So the sign says par 4/3 based on where you're throwing from. I've noticed quite a few courses have different pars for the same hole possibly based on the tee so I definitely don't think it hurts to have the number there.

 

[MattK]

Like it or not, what course designers post as "par" often makes no sense, but that is what we have to report here. I've played a course with a 262' par 5, and I cringed when I had to post that value under "pro-par", but I did and in my review commented that, in my opinion, the quality of the course was degraded somewhat because of it - misleading beginners into thinking their play is better than it really is. Just as we can't have people writing on tee signs with sharpies regarding what par should be, we shouldn't have people posting what par "should be" in the par sections here. What I think we are looking for here is a way to convey the information that the course designers wanted as "par" for their course, despite the fact that the way this is designated varies greatly from course to course.
I agree with Lowe that ideally there should be only one par per hole. Unfortunately, many courses do not adhere to this standard. For some holes it's a tee difference, like a 220' p3 from the reds and a 380' p4 from the whites. For others it will be a basket difference: p4 for pin position A and p5 for B. In either case a particular hole of a course may have up to two differing pars, which we should be able to report using the current two column format. (If anyone finds a hole that has three different pars posted, let us know) I think the header for these columns may be the sticking point, as the term "pro par" may be misleading. There has been a lot of thoughtful discussion on the PDGA web page about what par should be, but unfortunately the par designated on many if not most courses is not up to...standards (I wanted to say not up to par), and I don't want what is posted here to mislead anyone into thinking the par we are listing is anything but what is posted for the course on signs or official scorecards, even though the origin of these numbers may be nothing but arbitrary.
For lack of a better idea, I throw in the possible headings of "PAR (short)" and "PAR (long)" for discussion. I'm trying to find words to convey that a hole may have two differing designated pars, but which are generic enough to encompass the possibility that the differing numbers are as a result of different tee lengths, different tee classifications, or different pin placements.

 

[Olorin]

Could the columns be relabeled and rearranged? It would make more sense to me to see the columns as:
Layout A -- Par A-- Layout B -- Par B -- Layout C -- Par C -- Layout D -- Par D

I also vote to drop the label "Pro Par".

 

[timg]

Matt hit the nail on the head. We're trying to reflect the information the course designer gave as far as par, etc. and often time that involves 2 different numbers. I know I've played par 5's in the past that I made in 2 shots but the sign still says par 5 so that's what we put here. I'd be willing to relabel Pro Par as Par (Long) or something along those lines though. Often the back tees are referred to as the "pro tees" around here which is where pro par came from.

Lowe,
Your idea doesn't account for multiple tees (unless that's what you mean by layout) and most holes have either one or two numbers for the par so it would be kind of pointless to enter that same information 4 times. As for different layouts of a course, the best I can do at this point is recommend a local player update the distances and pars based on whatever the current setup is.

Trying to come up with a system that will account for every possibility in something that doesn't have standards that are adhered to isn't that easy. I know that I posted a recent course that had up to 6 alternate pin positions per hole which would be headache inducing to figure out how to account for all those possibilities. Plus, even with the alternate pin positions, I've noticed that some pins are left in the original spots and some in the alt. spots so there isn't a really good way to reflect that other than a dedicated local updating the course info.

I think if the site takes off that the various local clubs may make the effort to keep the course info current (in an ideal world ).

 

[Olorin]

Lowe,
Your idea doesn't account for multiple tees (unless that's what you mean by layout)

I used the word "layout" because some courses have Alt tees, some have Alt baskets, some have both. If you want to stick with the word "Tees" then 3 columns should be enough. Of the ~200 courses I've played I've never seen more than 3 tees.

My point in rearranging the columns was to put the length first (which is the more objective and impt number) then the par that it matches with. It just seems clearer to me that way.

Lowe