Assigning pars to a course without them

[Steve West]

As determined by the Director, the score an expert disc golfer would be expected to make on a given hole with errorless play under ordinary weather conditions, allowing two throws from close range to hole out.


This is why I've never liked the idea of "close range" par. It seems to be some means of transferring the whole notion of ball golf putting (up and down) to disc golf. An expert disc golfer on most holes 325' or shorter does not need two shots after his drive, as he is most certainly inside the circle by then and should be able to finish with one. Inside of 250' intermediate level ams are accomplishing this regularly.

The actual Close Range Par concept is good; it's not the same thing as the "...Then Add Two Putts" concept a lot of people think of. Adding two putts makes no sense. But, there is a distance where a player would expect two more throws (an upshot and a putt).

The definition just makes clear that to make par you don't need to sink every throw that has a slim chance to go in. On the other hand, if you need two putts after the upshot you didn't make par.

I think the length of what is Close Range is definitely farther than 100 feet, but not as far as 325 feet.

 

[gdub58]

I personally like par. I think they're done fairly well in Pittsburgh. Moraine State Park is a par 66 from every tee. And that score of 66 usually rates around 900 (white) 950 (blue) 1000 (gold) Deer Lakes same par 66 and rates around 875 (red) 925 (white) 975 (blue). I think par is a good way of knowing where you are in relation to that score (66) at any point in the round. Also the +/- to par is a great way to see a leader board in golf, especially at tournament play at different tee times or courses with different difficulty ratings (like a Moraine to Knob Hill)

You reference course par, and I like that too. Putting a score in reference to round ratings is exactly what I want to know you tell me your score. You can throw in details like "I got a three on #7", but that will only be meaningful to me if I've played the course.

Talking birdies/pars/bogeys is like speaking a local dialect - if you tell me you birdied hole X, I not only have to know the hole you are talking about, but I also have to know if you are a "all par 3" speaker or not.

Pars on individual holes in disc golf is a silly cause IMO. If you define par as what a 1000-rated player averages then most courses will have par 2 holes in order to make the math work on your course par, which is the point of reference we use for all meaningful milestones, isn't it (throwing a 1000 rated round, being rated over 900, whatever)?

Well, that and aces but there's another 200 pages somewhere on how to define one of those...

Face it - disc golf doesn't have the convenience of ball golf's "2 putts plus number of ~250 yard increments" rubric that allows you to assign a consistent par to virtually any hole in ball golf for a particular skill set based on distance alone (pros are playing more 500 yard par 4s these days while most weekend golfers play anything that length as a par 5). The concept of hole par is meaningful in ball golf because of this, and disc golf doesn't have it.

Disc golf holes have tighter routes which impact any simple distance equation. That's okay - that's part of what makes disc golf more fun than ball golf.

 

[HarkeyPuck]

Well we have hole par as well. Hole par helps the scoreboard during tourneys as well.

 

[HarkeyPuck]

Like if you tell me you 3'd #3 @ Deer Lakes…


…I would be impressed.

 

[discflip53]

Par Mt. Apo Gardens

Since this is the only place in the southern Philippines, the sport is relatively new to this area, there are no pros, we can only assign par based on the amateur players we are.

 

[Nemmers]

Since this is the only place in the southern Philippines, the sport is relatively new to this area, there are no pros, we can only assign par based on the amateur players we are.

Maligayang pagdating sa laro!

 

[gdub58]

Well we have hole par as well. Hole par helps the scoreboard during tourneys as well.

How so? If you mean you can see how many under par a player is, I would guess that's just so you can see how each of them are doing vs. the rest of the field. If that's the case, then par can be anything - that's precisely my point.

I'm not saying that having a par established for a hole means nothing, but that debating what par should be on any hole is pointless.

 

[DavidSauls]

How so? If you mean you can see how many under par a player is, I would guess that's just so you can see how each of them are doing vs. the rest of the field. If that's the case, then par can be anything - that's precisely my point.

I'm not saying that having a par established for a hole means nothing, but that debating what par should be on any hole is pointless.

If the goal is to have a scoreboard, either online or on site, that reflects relative standings of competitors on different parts of the course, then the hole par needs to be pretty close to what the top players are averaging.

Otherwise, if two players have the same score relative to par, but one is on hole 17 and the other on hole 12, you can't really say they're tied. The player on 12 may be facing a string of likely birdies or bogeys.

For what that's worth. I'm not terribly concerned about active scoreboards.

 

[HarkeyPuck]

Yeah it's nothing major. But it's nice to have a legitimate goal to shoot for. Knowing that a 4 will keep you on pace for a "good" final score is nice mentally on a 600ft hole. But what I was referring to was say you have a big field and group A is playing Moraine (par66) and group B is playing Knob Hill (par60) Player C shoots a 60 at Moraine and player D shoots 60 at Knob Hill. For someone who doesn't know those courses they have no distinction between a good round at Moraine (-6) to a ok round at Knob (E) without the +/- to par. Like I said it not that big of a deal though for courses you know. Because after playing a course so many times you know what a good score for a hole is.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Comparing Round Ratings is an even better indication than comparing over/under par values between courses, even if the pars are pretty accurate.

 

[HarkeyPuck]

During rounds there is no ratings, and ratings aren't official right after rounds, but yeah whatever floats your boat.

…and I'm not the biggest fan of the rating system. But that's another can of worms.

 

[Steve West]

Since this is the only place in the southern Philippines, the sport is relatively new to this area, there are no pros, we can only assign par based on the amateur players we are.

Or, you could use one of the tools that are available. Here's one:


http://www.pdga.com/files/ParGuidelines_1.pdf

Figure out pars for all four skill levels, and measure your progress as you beat Red par, then White par, etc.

 

[araytx]

How so? If you mean you can see how many under par a player is, I would guess that's just so you can see how each of them are doing vs. the rest of the field. If that's the case, then par can be anything - that's precisely my point.

I'm not saying that having a par established for a hole means nothing, but that debating what par should be on any hole is pointless.

That's not exactly correct. No par can't be anything if you're trying to keep up with how different golfers compare to each other during a round that's going on. Both ball golf active scoreboards and our own PDGA Live Scoring shows that to be true.

Accurate pars would really help the ability of the sport to be watchable (as a spectator) on live streaming or TV. Now if that's not your bag, if you don't care about the watch-ability of the sport on television or live streams, than yeah it could be anything.

 

[ljerome]

I'm with all of Ronnie's post on this one. I think par really matters. I think if you just default to all par 3 then you are devaluing the sport in general.