distance question

[thechamp]

Accurate pars are important to me because they help to describe a hole/ course. If I'm going to a new area to play some new courses I generally go to the courses that are par 72,70,62 etc. before I think about hitting the 18 hole par 54 courses.

 

[rocthecourse]

I consider all holes par 3 no matter the distance/difficulty. 300ft wide open par 3. 400ft straight then 200ft left to pin, still par 3. 1000ft wide open, Par 3, 1000ft completly wooded, par 3. Easy to remember and gives you something to strive for on those tough holes.

Par shouldn't be determined by what is easy to remember.

 

[UnitedPuppySlayer]

Par shouldn't be determined by what is easy to remember.

And congress shouldn't be getting a raise right as we hit another fiscal cliff, but they did anyway.

 

[Happablap]

When I play gold to gold at Iron Hill, I play all the holes as 4's. opcorn:

 

[Toro71]

Fairly certain he is playing Begg Park and is referring to hole 1.

I'm not sure if I have met or played with you before but I am from kalamazoo which is obviously right next door to battle creek. Battle creek has a lot of good disc golfers and quite the active club. A great guy to talk to about leagues and stuff is Chad curtis at Getaway sports, also plenty of discs and bags etc there for purchase as well. I'd be glad to meet you for a round at begg park sometime and help you work on distance. I always told myself I was going to park and birdie that hole one day. I can get to almost a jump putt. Would be happy to help you out with your throwing form from short to long throwing.

You guys from the "Mitten" in the habit of dropping beer cans on the ground 5 ft from a trash can? LOL. He have those guys here too.

 

[Toro71]

^this.
Par defined (Google):The number of strokes a first-class player should normally require for a particular hole or course.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/par: The number of golf strokes considered necessary to complete a hole or course in expert play.

Neither first-class nor expert connote "average" or "typical."
More like, "What should a 1000 rated player get on this hole?"

Truth be told, there are many Par 3 holes that should be par 2's... pretty much any hole a good player dueces on a regular basis should be a Par 2.

That being said, the subject of par has been thrashed to death in other threads, and in tourneys, it comes down to playing better than the competion that day, reagrdless of what "par" is.

This makes sense to me.

The one caveat, or other point, or whatever....

DG is at a wierd phase, because of the leap in disc technology over the past, what, 15 years, even 10 years, as well as course design. IMO, the whole "every course is par 54, period" mentality is like the Edsel. It's fine if that's how you like it, go play supercalss. The designer(s) in my town will whole-heartedly disagree. Outside of tournament play, relation to par or numeric score are equally useful to track one's development. I do agree that a course that the average newish player can score close to "par" on is a dinosaur, or putt-putt.

"Par" almost means something different in ball golf, where a) there's a long established idea of how to determine "par," b) most ball golf courses have 4-5 sets of tees, so that variations in skill level are easy to adjust for.

I agree with what someone else said about a relatively flat 600+ par 3, even wide open. That's a pro-level par 3. Only the baddest of the bad can even pretend to think about getting inside the circle for a birdy putt there. A par three shouldn't be EASY to duece, NOR should it be nigh on impossible to get a reasonable look at a birdie.

To the OP, I'd say that I can feel you as far as carding a 7 or something on a "par 3" can make you want to retire, but you shouldn't feel bad about it as a new player. Better to play some with people near your skill level to get an idea of what "par" is on that hole. The best yardstick for me w/r/t developing my game is neither score relative to par, or total number of throws, but the fact that the guy that turned me on to the game, and used to own me, has only beaten me once in well over a year.

 

[Toro71]

Accurate pars are important to me because they help to describe a hole/ course. If I'm going to a new area to play some new courses I generally go to the courses that are par 72,70,62 etc. before I think about hitting the 18 hole par 54 courses.

It matters a lot to those who like to vary what they're bagging for a course, also. If you're going out to play a par 54 you've never played, and take your "small bag," and half the holes are 400+, you might be a bit steamed...of course, that's what this site was designed for, not just to try to get me fired for slacking on the job.

 

[Halcón]

It matters a lot to those who like to vary what they're bagging for a course, also. If you're going out to play a par 54 you've never played, and take your "small bag," and half the holes are 400+, you might be a bit steamed...of course, that's what this site was designed for, not just to try to get me fired for slacking on the job.

All you need to know is total distance.

If you go to a new course that's 18 holes, and 4,500 total length, you know you're in for a putter only round. And if it's 7,000 feet total, some of the holes are obviously long.

Accurate measurements from the tee should be more important than the listed "par".

 

[New013]

are we really having the par debate again...

par does matter, every time we have this argument somebody posts how it affects lots of different aspects of play and everybody ignores it because they suck at math. it matters in tourneys if a player misses a hole. you get penalized a certain number of strokes over par, are you telling me that missing a 200' hole should be the same penalty as missing a 800' hole? that's just one place it matters.

the top designers in our sport reference par when they create courses, are you going to argue with Houck about how all of his courses are par 54... i'd like to see that.

 

[Toro71]

All you need to know is total distance.

If you go to a new course that's 18 holes, and 4,500 total length, you know you're in for a putter only round. And if it's 7,000 feet total, some of the holes are obviously long.

Accurate measurements from the tee should be more important than the listed "par".

Yeah, good call. When I'm road tripping, and plan to try to get in a couple of "drive by" rounds, I look the courses up on here. It's how I disc-overed (get it!) this site.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

When Disc Golfers say they're "(X) over" or "(Y) under", it's just a way to reference their game versus 3*number of holes on the course. Quick, snappy, effective nomenclature...because it reflects our sport.

You can go ahead and determine an actual par like they do in ball golf if you want. Given the abundance of short, easy public courses we have, it's going to average near 3 anyway. That's what most of us get near. There aren't many courses 75% filled with 800' double-dogleggers with abundant obstacles that make us add two extra strokes per hole and need to proclaim some to be "5" and some "4," etc. That's what you'd need to have a meaningful par system, I would believe. (and I would welcome it...It would be a different game than what we're used to playing, which is essentially darts.)

Face it...We're a lot different than ball golf when it comes to how dynamic our scores vary from hole to hole under most circumstances. In our game, it's easier to make the projectile go. When you double the distance of a Disc Golf hole from 350'-700', you're typically only adding one stroke to what an experienced player normally gets on the 350' version. In ball golf, you know what would happen if you doubled a 350 yard hole. It wouldn't be adding just one stroke. They have to hit a round ball off the ground with a stick! Their scores are all over the place on a scorecard. Ours aren't. It's more like 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 2, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3. Unless it's the rare very difficult course, or you're a 99th percentile pro player who deuces every other hole, or the opposite - someone new who really can't throw a Disc effectively yet and shouldn't be worrying about how an experienced person scores on that hole anyway.

Those of you yearning for real ball golf-type pars, I join you in spirit. Let's get abundant courses in the ground where that would matter.

 

[scarpfish]

are we really having the par debate again...

par does matter, every time we have this argument somebody posts how it affects lots of different aspects of play and everybody ignores it because they suck at math.

No, we ignore it because in most circumstances involving the results of competitive play it's irrelevant. Next time you play a tournament or league round try adding up scorecards 3, 6, 9, 13 etc, versus ignoring all the 3's which fill more than half of the boxes and treating deviations from 3 as a +1, +2, -1 and see which method is faster and causes less mistakes. Its not about sucking at math, its about not working harder than one has to. I can assure you most experienced tourney players, and people who check scorecards at tourney HQ use the latter method almost exclusively.

it matters in tourneys if a player misses a hole. you get penalized a certain number of strokes over par, are you telling me that missing a 200' hole should be the same penalty as missing a 800' hole? that's just one place it matters.

Okay, you've announced one circumstance, which only involves tournament procedure for late players. In six years of tournaments, I've had to deal with that like...once. So what are the other places that it matters?

the top designers in our sport reference par when they create courses, are you going to argue with Houck about how all of his courses are par 54... i'd like to see that.

No, but the next time I play one of JH's courses, I'm still going to use the Par 3 method to add up my scorecard.

 

[jongoff09]

All you need to know is total distance.

If you go to a new course that's 18 holes, and 4,500 total length, you know you're in for a putter only round. And if it's 7,000 feet total, some of the holes are obviously long.

Accurate measurements from the tee should be more important than the listed "par".

Actually, even the par on courses over 7,000' matter. If it is a par-72 and only 7,000', then you may be looking at a majority of holes where a mid off the tee is still the best play because of how the hole is set up. If it is a par-54 and 7,000' long, then there are a lot of long drives needed, but those drives should leave you with a putt at the basket instead of another approach.

Selah seemed like the former to me. I was throwing a lot of mids and fairway drivers off the tees even though the courses get to over 9,000'.

 

[rocthecourse]

are we really having the par debate again...

Yup, because some people think how they keep score or add up scores has something to do with par.

 

[Shipley]

It doesn't have to be anything. He should know that he's not going to get a 3 on it, and should strive for that 4 for now. "Bogey" or "Par" shouldn't be in a player's mind on holes like that. If I'm standing on that teepad, I'm thinking 4 all the way, no matter what the tee sign says. If I happen to get a 3, then I'll be extra thrilled.

I think you're in the great minority in believing a 619 ft hole should be holed out in 3 throws.

So then by your logic if you can't shoot par on a hole, you should raise par for that hole.

Anyone who's developed their game should be able to throw 300 feet, or close to it. A 619 foot hole can be reached in two 300 foot throws, so yeah, I think it should be a par 3.

 

[iacas]

So then by your logic if you can't shoot par on a hole, you should raise par for that hole.

Anyone who's developed their game should be able to throw 300 feet, or close to it. A 619 foot hole can be reached in two 300 foot throws, so yeah, I think it should be a par 3.

That doesn't take the accuracy of the throws into account. Requiring someone to get up and down from 300 feet for par is not really how the system tends to work. (As in golf with the putting green, the actual distance varies, but if I had to guess an average it might be 100 to 125 feet or so - outside of that it's unreasonable to expect the average to be below 2 throws.)

If a wide open 619-foot hole is a par three, you're going to have almost no pros birdieing the hole. They'll all make threes. And that might be fine - calling it a par four would be dumb (though it's a dumb hole to begin with).

If there are any trees or mandos or anything, though, and even skilled players are going to take two throws to get within 50 feet or so, calling it a par three makes no sense. It DEMANDS super precise play, removes the option for birdie almost entirely, and rewards nothing but "ace" level luck.

Calling it a par four means, psychologically, you're "rewarded" for placing your first two 300 foot throws accurately, or for making a longer birdie putt.

Calling it a par three removes any reward and slants the equation far more towards "punishment."

That's not fun, or exciting. Birdies are more exciting than bogeys and pars (so long as birdies aren't too plentiful).

 

[Shipley]

That doesn't take the accuracy of the throws into account. Requiring someone to get up and down from 300 feet for par is not really how the system tends to work. (As in golf with the putting green, the actual distance varies, but if I had to guess an average it might be 100 to 125 feet or so - outside of that it's unreasonable to expect the average to be below 2 throws.)

If a wide open 619-foot hole is a par three, you're going to have almost no pros birdieing the hole. They'll all make threes. And that might be fine - calling it a par four would be dumb (though it's a dumb hole to begin with).

If there are any trees or mandos or anything, though, and even skilled players are going to take two throws to get within 50 feet or so, calling it a par three makes no sense. It DEMANDS super precise play, removes the option for birdie almost entirely, and rewards nothing but "ace" level luck.

Calling it a par four means, psychologically, you're "rewarded" for placing your first two 300 foot throws accurately, or for making a longer birdie putt.

Calling it a par three removes any reward and slants the equation far more towards "punishment."

That's not fun, or exciting. Birdies are more exciting than bogeys and pars (so long as birdies aren't too plentiful).

I can appreciate your POV as a new player, that Disc Golf should be easy and fun. However, for those of us who've played long enough to develop our approaches, drives, putting, forehand & back hand throws, rollers, course management, the mental game, etc. we derive our fun from the challenge of the sport. Sometimes it's more exciting to save par.....than to birdie a hole, since not every hole you play will be a potential birdie.

 

[Hampstead]

I don't care if par is a shape, letter or color, I still try to play each hole to the best of my ability.

 

[Halcón]

So then by your logic if you can't shoot par on a hole, you should raise par for that hole.

Anyone who's developed their game should be able to throw 300 feet, or close to it. A 619 foot hole can be reached in two 300 foot throws, so yeah, I think it should be a par 3.

It's the PDGA's logic. Actually that hole, by the guidelines, she be a Par 4 for everyone except Gold (970+)

And even 970 rated players average over 3 on that hole. I'd like to see some scoring data from tourneys. Bet the average for MPO is 3.5