Difficulty

[biscoe]

The new No. 16 tee sign at Waller Mill Williamsburg, Virginia now listed long to long as a Par 3 at 660 feet is insane. After passing over the gully the hole levels out, but is narrow off the tee, dogleg's right, then dogleg left, then a hooking dogleg right where the basket sits behind a wall of trees. Out of the dozen or so courses I play frequently, its now the most difficult hole and I'll never see par again when it was a Par 4, and only had one par. My last visit a few weeks ago playing long to short, my jaw dropped when I saw the new pars, except for short to short.

Udisc has long to long as a par 5, and next month a tournament will be played, I'll be looking to see where par is set on 16.

left photo: Tee sign

Center: Tee to dogleg right. Decided to throw a Proton Wave for distance on a fade this morning but crossed thru the dogleg and hit a tree. Double bogey today with two more tree hits. Maybe a Plasma Volt next visit.

Right: About 375 from hole the fairway doglegs left and hooks right, the basket sits behind those walls of trees at the end of photo on middle right.

Any pars among you

That hole is in no way, shape, or form a par 3. I have played it a number of times and with the OB in place it is a par 5 for any level of player below gold . I wonder who screwed up the sign.

 

[biscoe]

USDGC #17?

Very interesting choice and possibly an outlier. Physically not super demanding but might be the hardest hole in the game psychologically.

 

[Steve West]

For me, a difficult hole is one I normally roll and the park dept hasn't mowed for a month or has lots of spiny foliage bordering the fairway and is also uphill.

Wait 'til you see Sterling Hills. Bwahahahaha!

 

[Rastnav]

That hole is in no way, shape, or form a par 3. I have played it a number of times and with the OB in place it is a par 5 for any level of player below gold . I wonder who screwed up the sign.

This highlights the central issue with the idea of "par". Expected score on a given hole depends very much on who is playing the hole and what skillset they possess .

Now, the described hole doesn't seem like it would be a par 3 even for DGPT MPO fields, so, yeah, the tee sign is "messed up". But then lots of the tee signs on DeLa and tons of old courses are probably "messed up." They are legacies of a time when the sport had par 3s, period, end of story.

The fact that we have a sport where a hole has a "long to long" option, but the expectation is that anyone might show up and play it, means that setting par "correctly" is something of an impossible task. Sure, the PDGA has set some guidelines for various levels of tees and the ratings they are designed for … but this doesn't fit into that.

So talking about difficulty as related to par doesn't necessarily make sense. As was mentioned previously, would changing the par on the sign change what shots were required to achieve a given score on the hole? Of course not.

If we were to remove the OB from Emporia CC #1, the hole would be easy no matter that I could only throw 225. It would just be an easy 6. Conversely, if we go back and look at hole #17 at the Open at Austin, it's a hard hole whatever par you give to it because you have to be very precise with your shots and if you miss the small gap between you and the pin, you are lost in a maze of of twisty little passages that go off in all directions (old reference alert).

Of course, par does seem to have a psychological effect on people's decision making, and that frequently extends all the way up to the elite pros, so I guess I shouldn't discount par completely, but I still think it distorts the notion of difficulty to think of it in relation to par rather than individual scores.

 

[lee76007]

That hole is in no way, shape, or form a par 3. I have played it a number of times and with the OB in place it is a par 5 for any level of player below gold . I wonder who screwed up the sign.

It looks like a sign screw up, I went back and checked last year's Colonial Fall Colors it's listed as a Par 5 660 feet. Also went back to look at what Paul McBeth scored on the hole in the 2020 tournament which he won, a birdie 4. McBeth shot -18 on the 54-hole tournament, -5 on the one round played at Waller Mill. Somebody on the 757 facebook page commented that Waller Mill was one of McBeth's favorite courses, and that's why he has played in two tournaments on the course. Anyway, it's likely a mistake, somebody would have had to notice, shrugged their shoulders, and hung it anyway.

So far a total of 5 new signs. #2 and 14 no changes. #7 to long basket from both tee's now a par 4. #10 now has correct distance and par to long basket from both tee's, Long par 5 816 feet, and short par 4 621 feet.

 

[Steve West]

That hole is in no way, shape, or form a par 3. I have played it a number of times and with the OB in place it is a par 5 for any level of player below gold . I wonder who screwed up the sign.

Tournament results say par 5 for Gold, too. Par 6 for 800-rated and below.