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Do away with Par for pros?

Vegan702

Vegan702

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I finally got around to watching Feherty with Peter Alliss and in it he suggested eliminating Par for the pros. Whatever number they shoot for the day is their score, add them up over 4 days and you have your winner. His reasoning is it would help solve having to lengthen courses, trick them up, etc. I think I like this idea once I thought about it. With so many courses obsolete for the pros with the current scoring system it could bring back some courses that don't get played anymore I would think. Maybe even get away from 520 yard par 4s, 240 yard par 3s, etc.
 
That makes no sense to me. A 256 is a 256 whether it is 24 under par or nothing relevant to par. Who really cares what the number means? I don't think it would do away with length. Right now the lowest total score over 4 days wins. Taking away par would do nothing because that would still be the case.
 
I dont think its a good idea. Casual viewers relate to certain terms and those terms get reused on a golf course.
 
Damaikis said:
A 256 is a 256 whether it is 24 under par or nothing relevant to par. Who really cares what the number means?
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I think the argument is based on tournament committees and members of certain clubs wanting the courses to play as difficult as possible to make it tougher on the pros. Members do not want their course destroyed (in relation to par). If you eliminate par, you stop having par 5's turned in 500 yard par 4's for the pros.
 
50 Eggs said:
I think the argument is based on tournament committees and members of certain clubs wanting the courses to play as difficult as possible to make it tougher on the pros. Members do not want their course destroyed (in relation to par). If you eliminate par, you stop having par 5's turned in 500 yard par 4's for the pros.
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The pros will still be destroying the courses. If the pro shoots a 65 with no relation to par and then a member goes and shoots a +16 for an 88, the pro still beat the member on the same course by 23 strokes, par or not.
 
Damaikis said:
The pros will still be destroying the courses. If the pro shoots a 65 with no relation to par and then a member goes and shoots a +16 for an 88, the pro still beat the member on the same course by 23 strokes, par or not.
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Members, in my experience, have no problem losing to a pro by 23 strokes. They do hate to hear that the winning total was 23 under par for a tournament. It's an ego thing. No one wants to think their course is a pushover. Think about how difficult the PGA has been setting up the PGA Championship courses. They are getting like the USGA where par is considered a fantastic score.

I believe Alliss' point is that there shouldn't be 500+ yard par 4's and 270 yard par 3's strictly to keep the scores closer to someone's definition of "par." The idea of hitting a perfectly struck drive down the middle of the fairway only to have it run off into 4 inch rough because the course is set up to eliminate low scores. He seems to think the level of play suffers.
 
50 Eggs said:
Members, in my experience, have no problem losing to a pro by 23 strokes. They do hate to hear that the winning total was 23 under par for a tournament. It's an ego thing. No one wants to think their course is a pushover. Think about how difficult the PGA has been setting up the PGA Championship courses. They are getting like the USGA where par is considered a fantastic score.

I believe Alliss' point is that there shouldn't be 500+ yard par 4's and 270 yard par 3's strictly to keep the scores closer to someone's definition of "par." The idea of hitting a perfectly struck drive down the middle of the fairway only to have it run off into 4 inch rough because the course is set up to eliminate low scores. He seems to think the level of play suffers.
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Yeah I sort of get it, but I just don't see it. Par or not, those guys wreck. The reason the holes are getting longer is that the guys hit it further. Dial back equipment if that's your gripe. I just don't understand eliminating par.
 
All I'm going to say is this, one time I was playing a round with my head pro-we were on a downhill par 3 that plays 160 off the tee. I hit my 6 iron and landed dead into the middle of the green, about 15 feet from the hole. Jason, my club pro, hooked his ball into the rough on the left.

He hit his ball into the green about 5 feet from the hole, I putted to the hole and missed, he tapped it in for par. Even though I was about 5 feet from the hole, I failed to get par.

The point of the story-it doesn't matter what the par for the hole is or not, either way a pro will get to the hole and make whatever score they get with ease and wether a 500+ hole is a par 4 or par 5, they will score better than you or I whether par exists or not. . .
 
Thainer21 said:
I dont think its a good idea. Casual viewers relate to certain terms and those terms get reused on a golf course.
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I agree 100%.... With golf shedding golfers every year I think changing terms would be detrimental.....

hackin
 
This would hurt golf ball sales, but scale the ball back for the pros. They have way too much control over it now and it's obvious that changing the grooves didn't slow them down. They already have limited flight golf balls for driving ranges, so that would be a start.

I hate seeing old courses "lengthened" just to be able to host a PGA tour event.
 
I like par, it keeps things relative.

They're right that, especially at the pro level, par means nothing. what's the difference between olympic club having a 256 yard par 4 and oakmont having a 288 yard par 3? what the hell is that, right.

Thing is, par doesn't mean anything at the pro level and doesn't have to, total score wins. What par does is makes everything more easily understood for everybody. When I play, when most of us play, I add up my score at the end of the round via par. If I finished 5 over on 9 holes, I know I shot a 40, easy enough. It keeps things relative.

What it does at the pro level is keep things relative for the viewer. If, say, tiger has played 17 holes and because of a weather delay it's friday and ernie els has played 36 holes, how do you relate to the viewer how tiger is doing in relation to ernie? do you say ernier is at 145 and tiger is at 67? what sense does that really make to anybody? if you say Tiger is -1 to par and ernie is +1, now we can all reasonably understand what is happening. To me, that is the real purpose of par and I think it would be a terrible idea to do away with it
 
i can see how it might help, but i doubt it would work out. when i clicked on this thread, i thought it was going to be something about how pro's shouldn't be able to shoot that much (more than 10) under par- make the courses harder. make it so that the "Tiger-Era" (winning with 25 under par) doesn't even have a chance at making a comeback
 
and if they did take away the "par" terminology, it would be hard to keep up with the scoreboard. "Phil has --- total strokes after the 3rd hole, during this 2nd round, while Tiger has --- strokes after the 16th hole." it just wouldn't work. and it takes away relevance- how to tell yourself how you compare to scores the pro's get per round.
 
This is pretty much what I do now. I don't care nearly as much about hole scores as I do the total at the end.
 
justhackin said:
I agree 100%.... With golf shedding golfers every year I think changing terms would be detrimental.....

hackin
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I'm confused, it's the terminology that keeping people in the game or their level of dedication based on their talent
 
You need par to get to a number. 256 does become 256 without designation to each hole
 
As stated several times before, par is useful to understand the relative position of players at different points during a tournament. How would I know who is leading if Tiger is at 144 and Ernie is at 138 with Tiger two holes ahead?

Par is useful in quota point games and stableford games and an easy way for me to know my score without adding the total each hole,

What annoys me is changing par on a hole from 5 to four "to make the hole harder". The hole is the hole, a 4 is a 4, its even or one under. It also bugs me to hear that a par 4 is the "hardest hole on the course"; this is unlikely; the hardest hole is the one on which the highest average score is posted.

Don't do away with par; it has valid uses.
 
I don't think it would be that hard to figure out if 1 guy is finished at 280, another guy is on the 15th hole and is at 270, he needs to play the last 3 holes in less then 10 strokes to win.


I have established what par for me is on my course for each hole. After keeping track of my scores for 3 months and what I score on each hole, I can tell you my par is quite a bit different than par on the card. There are just certain holes that I either always play less then par or over par when compared to par on the card. Knowing this when I step on each tee box has really helped me, as I am now not trying to beat a number on a card but my own personal number.
 
Vegan702 said:
I don't think it would be that hard to figure out if 1 guy is finished at 280, another guy is on the 15th hole and is at 270, he needs to play the last 3 holes in less then 10 strokes to win.


I have established what par for me is on my course for each hole. After keeping track of my scores for 3 months and what I score on each hole, I can tell you my par is quite a bit different than par on the card. There are just certain holes that I either always play less then par or over par when compared to par on the card. Knowing this when I step on each tee box has really helped me, as I am now not trying to beat a number on a card but my own personal number.
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I'm confused youve created your own par? Based on what, your average score per hole? How do you get better if you've adjusted para way from what was already called out. Just because you make a 7 on a par 5 doesn't mean that's your par. It means you need to work to get to a 5. Not saying you make 7s but you get what I am going after. And unless you are rounding up or down your par should have percentage points.
This line of thinking with out par means you count the number of strokes from the first tee to the 18th hole. All that does is do away with under par or over par rounds. What do you do with penalty shots?
 
Jeanthemachine said:
As stated several times before, par is useful to understand the relative position of players at different points during a tournament. How would I know who is leading if Tiger is at 144 and Ernie is at 138 with Tiger two holes ahead?

Par is useful in quota point games and stableford games and an easy way for me to know my score without adding the total each hole,

What annoys me is changing par on a hole from 5 to four "to make the hole harder". The hole is the hole, a 4 is a 4, its even or one under. It also bugs me to hear that a par 4 is the "hardest hole on the course"; this is unlikely; the hardest hole is the one on which the highest average score is posted.

Don't do away with par; it has valid uses.
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I agree with this completely. In tournament golf, we need par in order to understand the relative position of dozens of players at any given time. Par is not going away for tournament golf. I have read that The Masters was the first tournament to post the players' current scores relative to par, and it quickly caught on as a way to keep track of things. Maybe The Masters was just the first major tournament to do so.

Anyway, I also agree that you do not make a hole harder or easier just by changing value of par. The first hole at Olympic in the US Open was a prime example. The last time the US Open was there, it played as a par 5, and was considered the "easiest" hole on the course because the average score was 4.6, or 0.4 under par. This year, the same exact hole was declared a par 4, and players actually shot a little lower by averaging around 4.5 on that hole....making it one of the "hardest" holes on the course, even though the players scored lower on it this year than last time.

The real problem is that the pros pay too much attention to par. In tournament golf, par should be for the viewers to be able to keep track. The pros shouldn't pay any attention to it at all. Just shoot as low as you can on every hole and move on.

I always think of Billy Casper in the 1959 US Open at Winged Foot. The Par 3 third hole was long and tough, and Casper thought that trying to reach the green made bogey come into play. He laid up, all four rounds, just short of the green, and got up and down for par all four rounds.
 
Rusty said:
I agree with this completely. In tournament golf, we need par in order to understand the relative position of dozens of players at any given time. Par is not going away for tournament golf. I have read that The Masters was the first tournament to post the players' current scores relative to par, and it quickly caught on as a way to keep track of things. Maybe The Masters was just the first major tournament to do so.

Anyway, I also agree that you do not make a hole harder or easier just by changing value of par. The first hole at Olympic in the US Open was a prime example. The last time the US Open was there, it played as a par 5, and was considered the "easiest" hole on the course because the average score was 4.6, or 0.4 under par. This year, the same exact hole was declared a par 4, and players actually shot a little lower by averaging around 4.5 on that hole....making it one of the "hardest" holes on the course, even though the players scored lower on it this year than last time.

The real problem is that the pros pay too much attention to par. In tournament golf, par should be for the viewers to be able to keep track. The pros shouldn't pay any attention to it at all. Just shoot as low as you can on every hole and move on.

I always think of Billy Casper in the 1959 US Open at Winged Foot. The Par 3 third hole was long and tough, and Casper thought that trying to reach the green made bogey come into play. He laid up, all four rounds, just short of the green, and got up and down for par all four rounds.
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Had the first hole at olympic played as a par 5 it would have played easier then it did the last time out. They changed it to a par based on how easy it was in the past. So it didn't play easier then it did because it was no longer the same hole.
Having hole designation allows officials to trick up the course one way or the other.
 
Thainer21 said:
I dont think its a good idea. Casual viewers relate to certain terms and those terms get reused on a golf course.
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My thought exactly, there are terms and comfort with the existing culture. You would have to learn almost everything all over again. A 3 on a par 3 would be weird rather than a par on a par 3.
 
Tadashi70 said:
Had the first hole at olympic played as a par 5 it would have played easier then it did the last time out. They changed it to a par based on how easy it was in the past. So it didn't play easier then it did because it was no longer the same hole.
Having hole designation allows officials to trick up the course one way or the other.
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No, they changed it to a par 4 just for the mental challenge it presents to the pros....even though it shouldn't change the way they played the hole at all. In addition to changing the first hole from a par 5 to a par 4, the USGA changed the 17th hole from a par 4 to a par 5, without making any other significant changes. In past US Opens, it had always been a par 4, and hardly anyone could birdie it. By making it a par 5, they opened up some birdie chances, but they didn't really change the overall scoring on that hole at all.

The first hole played slightly easier this year than the past Open. That could have been due to course conditions, or it could have been the little mental nudge all the players' had to try to reach the green in two even if their drive wasn't that great. If was the mental nudge, then that's not very smart golf.....tournament players should not let the par designation effect their course management decisions.
 
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