Par 2 versus Par 3 on Really Short Holes?

[Ed Faits]

What's the opinions on what to call the par on holes <150' with no major obstacles? I can think a of few on course near me:

Hole 3 at School St Park in Agawam, just over 100' and labeled a Par 2
Holes 1 and 8 at Sunrise Park in Suffield, both listed at Par 3's
Hole 3 at Northampton, a par three, but with some trees and elevation to deal with
The 6th hole at The Ledges at Gateway High School in Huntington, 140' but downhill through a tunnel with OB long. A Par 3.

I've evolved in my thinking on these really short holes. I didn't think there should ever be a Par 2 IE: A par 2 can't be 'birdied", (just aced), but I'm surprised how often these holes can be critical for competitions between rec level players and I think now that listing a hole as a Par 2 is legit.

Sometimes these holes are all that will fit in the course design. I have no problem with them being listed as a Par 2, since a simple approach shot and a tap in putt should really be all that is needed, and I also think it's no less of an "Ace" thrill just because it's listed as a par 2.

The par listed on the scorecard might be irrelevant for some players, but I like to use it as a guide to how my round went. Even on an easy course like Sunrise Park I still like to be under par... and a really tough Par 3 (I'm thinking of hole 16 short basket at Crane) can frustrate me.

Steve Dodge did a great video essay "What is Par? http://www.vibramdiscgolf.com/blog/vibram-disc-golf-video-blog-what-is-par, but it doesn't really address the reality of course design that requires a short hole.

What do you think?

[Todd Eddy]

Every hole is par 3. Makes it easier.

[Jeff Wiechowski]

Par is useful in ball golf because most all courses are par 72. It's basically a line that you measure your game against.

Par in disc golf is all over the place because of the large difference in difficulty levels of courses. Pretty useless IMO.

[Jasan Lasasso]

I feel like including a Par 2 in a layout is a poor design. Why not make Par 1s at 20 or 30' away? It just takes away from the essence of the sport.

Layouts should be designed for a particular skill level / rating in mind. The pars should correspond to that skill level / rating.

If a layout is designed for an 850-900 rated player, a 150' hole is a par 3. If the layout is designed for a 1000 rated player, you should not have a 150' hole.

With such a large spectrum of skill levels in disc golf, we have to design to a specific rating; otherwise, the pars are completely meaningless.

[Titan_Bariloni]

tully opened up 11 years ago with 2 par 2's

holes 3,and now what is 16

it was lol a ranger had the idea

heck 16 was a tough 3 when it started

we told themhow lol it was to have par 2's they changed

[Karl Molitoris]

I feel like including a Par 2 in a layout is a poor design. Why not make Par 1s at 20 or 30' away? It just takes away from the essence of the sport.

Layouts should be designed for a particular skill level / rating in mind. The pars should correspond to that skill level / rating.

If a layout is designed for an 850-900 rated player, a 150' hole is a par 3. If the layout is designed for a 1000 rated player, you should not have a 150' hole.

With such a large spectrum of skill levels in disc golf, we have to design to a specific rating; otherwise, the pars are completely meaningless.

Jasan,

This person agrees with your first 3 sentences. Your 4th is tenuous and your 5th is wrong IMO. "Par" (invented WAY before dg was invented) is basically "...what an expert player is expected to do with errorless play...". The VAST majority of players are NOT "expert"...and thus should NOT "expect" (nor usually get) par.

People have to realize that EVERYONE can't "get par". Coddle, coddle....

Karl
Ps: This should open up some "discussion"

[Dave Jackson]

There should be par 2's without a doubt.
Karl is right with what he's saying.

Not to mention, par is meaningless in most formats used these days.

At Sherwood Oak DGC, there should have been two to four par twos, but it doesn't matter, so they ended up being par 3's.
For some of the students who play it, I'm sure some are par 4's. Lol.

[Franklin Sullivan]

There should be par 2's without a doubt.
Karl is right with what he's saying.

Not to mention, par is meaningless in most formats used these days.

At Sherwood Oak DGC, there should have been two to four par twos, but it doesn't matter, so they ended up being par 3's.
For some of the students who play it, I'm sure some are par 4's. Lol.

I think your response to this thread fully demonstrates that especially in disc golf, which is such a community sport, par is all relative to who you play with

[Jasan Lasasso]

With respect to "par"

While I agree with using traditional ball golf as the template for disc golf (mostly), there are many contrasts with respect to the actual mechanics of the game.

For instance I've heard players say that a 6' ball putt is equivalent to a 30' disc putt... This would imply that a putt constitutes 1% of a ball golf hole and 10% of a disc golf hole. It's not apples to apples.

Also, every ball golf course I've ever been to has multiple tees: sometimes referred to as ladies, senior, junior, mens, champion...etc. with similar colors to what the pdga recommends. Yet, all the pars are the same. Obviously the course designer included multiple layouts for different levels of play; just like we do in disc golf.

If you're putting a short course in behind an elementary school to be used by its students, a 150' wide open hole should be a par 3 (red tees). If you're designing a pro-level championship course, the hole should be closer to 500' (gold tees).

But regardless of difficulty, a par 2 doesn't seem right to me: for the same reason a par 1 doesn't.

[Dave Jackson]

One of the best disc golf to ball golf putting correlations I've ever been able to make is 10:1

example:
A six foot ball golf putt is about the same as a 60' disc golf putt. Real pro's make those.

A 3' ball golf putt is about the same as a 30' disc golf putt, because no 3' Ball Golf or 30' DG putt is a gimmee.


Par don't matter.

Add up your score and try to have a score that is less next time you play.

Yesterday when I played Brewster Ridge in VT on both layouts, every hole I played was a par three in my mind. Even the one's I got 6's on.

I wanna design a course with 18 holes, all Par 1 or 2's.
Makable putt's from every tee, tricked out to test all putting abilities.

Kinda like mini golf.

[Ed Faits]

I wanna design a course with 18 holes, all Par 1 or 2's.
Makable putt's from every tee, tricked out to test all putting abilities.

Kinda like mini golf.

Dave, I played a course that fits the bill, the Tiki Course http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=2763 at the Blockhouse in Spotsylvania, Virginia. It's set up with all kinds of gimmicks and its lite with Christmas lights for night play. It was a blast! Unfortunately it's only open a few days a year now.

The first hole has a spinning blocker, kind of like a windmill hole in mini putt.

[Thomas Bentley]

I wanna design a course with 18 holes, all Par 1 or 2's.
Makable putt's from every tee, tricked out to test all putting abilities.

Kinda like mini golf.

Pyramid Pinks?

[Dave Jackson]

I wanna design a course with 18 holes, all Par 1 or 2's.
Makable putt's from every tee, tricked out to test all putting abilities.

Kinda like mini golf.

Pyramid Pinks?

That course makes me want to puke.

No, nothing like it.

Better and more thoroughly thought out.

[Jeff Prendergast]

I wanna design a course with 18 holes, all Par 1 or 2's.
Makable putt's from every tee, tricked out to test all putting abilities.

Kinda like mini golf.

Pyramid Pinks?

That course makes me want to puke.

No, nothing like it.

Better and more thoroughly thought out.

[James Lane]

Disc golf = par for the course, not the hole.

I have yet to find a way to properly account for tightness (trees) in a hole's given par.
These types holes don't have consistency for the vast majority of players. Essentially the same shots don't end up doing the same things when repeated. This makes par for a hole on anything but significantly open holes, hard!

If you start to consider a course overall "par" (we should change the name), it starts to get a lot easier. i.e., a player will quite easily be able to tell you what they average, or expect on a specific course. A designer could easily tell you what a certain level player should shoot on a course.

That said, if keeping on the hole pars, I think par 3.5s have a fitting place in our game, as a tough 3.

[Dave Jackson]

Imagine this crazy idea:

Wipe out Par all together?

Imagine if there was no par?

You'd just be playing for a total score and nothing would change.

Par only applies to the stableford format.

[Josh Connell]

Imagine this crazy idea:

Wipe out Par all together?

Imagine if there was no par?

You'd just be playing for a total score and nothing would change.

Par only applies to the stableford format.

And penalizing late players at the start of a round (par + 4).

[Dave Jackson]

I hear ya on that one Josh.

There's an easy remedy for players that show after the start of an event:
Disqualified for first round or maybe even the tournament.

That would be a very easy rule change for people to adhere to and help par go away.

[Craig Cutler]

Ball golf has "course rating" and "course slope". Defined here:

http://golf.about.com/cs/rulesofgolf/a/ ... perate.htm

http://www.leaderboard.com/abcs.htm

Ball golf is decades ahead of us so they already figured this all out.

90 % of our Disc Golf courses aren't really "designed", so you are right, par is most likely meaningless on most courses.

[Karl Molitoris]

We (the disc golfing community overall) can determine what our "par" should be but the use of the word "par" HAS been changing - at least from that of which ball golf originally (and still does) used it. Example: The colloquial term "Par for the course" means for all intents and purposes "average". This is NOT what it means in ball golf...never has...and I doubt ever will. But the common man (or woman) who probably never HAS played ball golf plays disc golf and 'expects' (and I use this word rather loosely) to "get par" if they "do good" (on a hole or for the day overall), because they feel they're at least "average". For this reason alone, a lot of people unfamiliar with ball golf, believe that "par" is attainable by most - some of the time at least.

Understand that par is directly related to 'attempts made' and thus are measured in whole integers. And with numbers like 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 as "typical" scores, a little difference (in a situation) CAN make a big difference (in the score). There are no fractions! People in general look to compare themselves with a 'norm'. Any norm. And ANYTHING related to "golf" DOES have for its norm the concept of par. IMO par should be VERY hard to get. It's the carrot at the end of the stick. If par is indeed attainable by "the masses" then we'll have cheapened the sport. The reason ball golf has always attracted people (at least in part) was because it WAS hard to "hit the norm".

Karl

[Glenn Hause]

From my BG dictionary (substantiated by Wikipedia)...."Par - The number of strokes a first - class player should normally require for a particular hole or course".

"First - class"...hmm, you guys probably have that one figured out.

"Normally"...hmm, statistics ( ie... accumulated scorecard input leading to handicaps and slope handicaps)

To me its all a sign of a sport growing in relevance and significance. You guys should all be proud of what your accomplishing in such a short time. My old sport of BG has been taking eons to do what you guys are doing in seeming minutes. Wow.

[Titan_Bariloni]

I am finding that BG and DG are actually light years away from each other in almost every aspect from players,equipment,difficulty and courses

actually currently I have never been more conflicted and confused in regards to what DG is all about

I see a baggy, rock, brook, sandwich in my near future to ponder

[Dave Jackson]

The future of competitive disc golf was displayed at the St. Jude tournament a couple weeks ago.
They played it on The Bayonet (ball golf) course in Seaside CA.
Another ball golf course right there called Blackhorse, is one of the very best we have in America.
We're talking about a disc golf event being held on a savage amazing ball golf course!!! The design was amazing as well.

I've been saying for over ten years how the pdga large scale events will eventually take place on ball golf courses. After watching the St. Jude event at Bayonet, I'm realizing the future is now and ball golf lends more to the game of disc golf than any other sport/group/business etc.

Par someday will carry more weight than it currently does and someday is coming sooner than later.

[Glenn Hause]

Titan...All I can tell you is at PCC we built a DG course to help save a BG course. Tim and I well understood that BG interest and participation was in desperate decline due to many factors. Obviously both sports have there own pros and cons and levels of comparisons, but the most obvious to me is one sport (DG) has a bright future and one(BG) is stagnant and in decline.

I would hope that your energy and focus for DG would never be compromised...good luck on your walkabout.

ps... I would think that a big part of DG's future would involve entrance into school systems to grab the kids. Your sport is fun, affordable and encourages physical fitness. Winning combination.

[James Scanlon]

The future of competitive disc golf was displayed at the St. Jude tournament a couple weeks ago.
They played it on The Bayonet (ball golf) course in Seaside CA.
Another ball golf course right there called Blackhorse, is one of the very best we have in America.
We're talking about a disc golf event being held on a savage amazing ball golf course!!! The design was amazing as well.

I've been saying for over ten years how the pdga large scale events will eventually take place on ball golf courses. After watching the St. Jude event at Bayonet, I'm realizing the future is now and ball golf lends more to the game of disc golf than any other sport/group/business etc.

Par someday will carry more weight than it currently does and someday is coming sooner than later.

Let's put Jussi in charge of everything, he is very passionate about wanting par to be more like ball golf. I think he did a great job at St. Judes with only like 10 pros out of the field shooting par or better. With his new venture in mind, I would very much agree it will be sooner than later.

[Titan_Bariloni]

link?

[Jeff Prendergast]

link?

http://www.stjudediscgolf.com/

[Titan_Bariloni]

link to event?

[Dave Jackson]

http://www.pdga.com/tour/event/7290


I think there were ten players to break par that year. Lol.

[Titan_Bariloni]

I need to build a short course
That is what will cleanse my soul

Wendell is calling my name

please tees at RFG, and gardner breaks ground