I met a Par loving dufus

[CaptainAnhyzer]

The words Bogey and Birdie don't fit on the scorecard so when I ask what you shot on the last hole, PLEASE respond with a number.

 

[Cgkdisc]

"Skill-level based par" :thmbdown: :thmbdown:

A. "...what an expert golfer would expect to score on a hole..."
B. 850-rated 'expert'

Yeh, A. and B. go together well.... :wall:

Surprised you don't know that ball golf has established par/handicap standards for several "expert" levels: Championship, Men, Women, Senior and Junior. The ball golf approach was the impetus for defining our skill levels in DG but more PC using colors instead of age/gender discrimination.

 

[Atvizory2000]

I dont even use score cards or even numbers. I just say good or bad depending on how i think i played the hole. smh

 

[Steve West]

"Skill-level based par" :thmbdown: :thmbdown:

A. "...what an expert golfer would expect to score on a hole..."
B. 850-rated 'expert'

Yeh, A. and B. go together well.... :wall:

Your point is valid.

The skill-level based pars are extensions of the basic definition. Which is why I say only Gold/Open/1000-rated par should be just "par" without a qualifier.

All other skill level pars should always use a qualifier. You could call B. "Red par", "850 par", "Recreational par", etc., but it should never be called just "par".

 

[ScottyLove]

I've come to understand that "par" is irrelevant. Whether it's twelve-down or three-up, a 57 is a 57, no matter how you slice it.

I agree that it makes people new to the sport feel better (knowing they can shoot "par"), but in the final analysis only the total amount of strokes are what matter. The rest is just semantics and ego-strokes.

Do you play tournaments often?

Par is VERY important when folks miss holes and the penalty is par+4. Depending on the skill level of the player, this matters quite a bit. Missing a Par 5 and carding a 9 is way different than missing a Par 3 and carding a 7 especially in your total score scenario.

 

[gdub58]

Skill level based par is a pipe dream. Par is ball golf has a very solid foundation - number of strokes to get to the green + 2 putts. Differences in skill level are accounted for by different sets of tees to give those with extra distance/skill a more appropriate challenge with the same par.

Ball golf also has one spatial variable - length. Sure, there are open courses and tighter courses, but unless you have hit your ball in an unintended spot, you don't have to hit it between two trees or keep it low. This makes it easier to standardize the notion of par based almost solely on length.

50 years ago, ball golf courses were much shorter than they are today because the equipment was significantly weaker, and over time many courses have been modified to adjust to today's game. This has allowed "par" to remain fairly constant, with adjustments to the acceptable length of par threes and fours. A significant number of courses which could not afford to change or did not have the land to do so have closed down, because they don't present an appropriate challenge to people who are paying to play them.

Disc golf and disc golf course design may get to a similar place as ball golf one day to make par a universally meaningful number, but we are nowhere near that today.

For the high-level tournaments, I think publishing pars is a fine thing as long as the course being played is appropriate for the top pros. When you see them shooting -14 on a course with a bunch of 250-350' holes par quickly becomes irrelevant unless you have a bunch of par 2 holes (which nobody seems to like).

Overall, disc golf needs to evolve into something quite a bit different than it is today for par to become a meaningful idea across the board. Today we don't even have decent signage on a lot of courses (we all have played those courses with 250' par fours), much less any agreement on what a "standard" course should look like (par 72? 65? 54?).

This kind of standardization takes a lot of resources and would result in a pay-to-play system, which is anathema to the mainstream disc golf culture. And, given that "par" is by definition a standardized measure, we just aren't there yet.

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

Par is unit of measure, like calories.

 

[gdub58]

Do you play tournaments often?

Par is VERY important when folks miss holes and the penalty is par+4. Depending on the skill level of the player, this matters quite a bit. Missing a Par 5 and carding a 9 is way different than missing a Par 3 and carding a 7 especially in your total score scenario.

Fair point, but if pars are not included on the scorecards and the tee sign par is something absurd (open 300' par 5), the penalty could be quite different depending on what hole you happened to be starting on.

In a way, this is an argument against par. Perhaps the PDGA should consider modifying the penalty for missing holes, or make it a requirement that a "par" be included on tournament scorecards for the sole purpose of determining the score given to players who miss holes...

 

[gdub58]

Par is unit of measure, like calories.

I'd say a throw is a unit of measure, and like calories, I consume too many of them.

But it's a good comparison for another reason. Trying to assign a par to a hole in disc golf is like trying to standardize the daily calorie intake across all people...

 

[KniceZ]

I've come to understand that "par" is irrelevant. Whether it's twelve-down or three-up, a 57 is a 57, no matter how you slice it.

I agree that it makes people new to the sport feel better (knowing they can shoot "par"), but in the final analysis only the total amount of strokes are what matter. The rest is just semantics and ego-strokes.

I honestly think par is typically too easy in DG, and maybe that's a result of the current "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. But that's not what I want to focus on.

I would like a more standard par across courses. Let say I'm a 900 rated player, when I play a new course and shoot a 57, did I shoot better or worse than my usual 900. If par is set correctly I can get a general idea but there's currently so much variation it often doesn't help. So to really know - first I've got to get onto DGCR look up the SSE, then try to guess at the conversion of points / throw and do the math. (Or you can use the DGCR scoring app that give you an estimate; but let's put that aside for sake of argument.)

I know some will say, it doesn't matter, I had a good time watching the flight of the mystical disc and chilling out. And if you always play the same course you get to know what's good for that course. But for those that like to play new courses and are trying to improve it's a PITA.

If disc golf would standardize like golf and say every course should be a certain par - 54, 60, 72 - I don't care. Then I'd be able to instantly know. I'd get to know that a +whatever is typically what I get regardless of the course I play. This would also allow DG to develop a handicap system so that players of different skill could compete against each other in local leagues at different courses. Yeah I know we have the rating system but that's not easy to translate to a handicap.

Bottom-line : the actual number doesn't matter to me so much as standardization in setting the number and consistency from course to course.

 

[Karl]

Your point is valid.

The skill-level based pars are extensions of the basic definition. Which is why I say only Gold/Open/1000-rated par should be just "par" without a qualifier.

All other skill level pars should always use a qualifier. You could call B. "Red par", "850 par", "Recreational par", etc., but it should never be called just "par".

People will always talk about "par" because...
a. we play 'golf' (and 'golf', i.e. ball golf, uses the concept of 'par')
b. we like to 'compare' scores (in all the ways we do)
c. other reason(s)??
...but unless a consensus is reached (personally, I'm not holding my breath) we'll always be 'confused' a bit - or maybe a bit more than a bit.

My most recent course design (in a town park / forest in CT) has 18 holes of which 5 of them "could not be aced" due to a combination of lengths / elevations / angles / tree canopy heights and the limitations of flight that humanly thrown discs have.

If it were up to me, the course "par" would be 59 (as 5 holes COULD be 2'd by "just-less-than-divine-intervention" and the rest aced. The 'locals' feel one of the holes (a pretty severe downhill 570'er) should be a par4 and one (a 850'er) should be a par 5. They've probably never really seen a top-ten world player throw though. But it's not MY course (it's this town's)...so I'll acquiesce and assign a "par 61" to the course. Perfect IMO, no (a 'little coddling') but all the holes are good and we'll score on them what we score on them REGARDLESS of the par assigned!

A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY good player (yes, even better than PMc) will think "There's no reason why I can get "1 more than 'human perfection' (no, not GOD perfection - he aces EVERYTHING!) on every hole"...understanding that fairway hole-outs and aces aren't REALLY always feasible...and thus tries to. And then a tree jumps in the way of his shot.
But you get my point.

To me it's a case of:
a. place a teeing area here
b. place a basket there
c. what is the least amount of throws it could take a human to complete the hole?
d. add 1 more than c. and THAT is a great score!

I care little about scoring spread and whether (or not) that tee-basket combination is "correct" for 'any certain "playing level"'. A hole is a hole is a hole. Some more 'fun' than others, some more 'challenging' than others, but ALL holes are to be played to try to score the lowest number one can on it.
I'm not of the camp to over-complicate things by 'scoring analyses', etc. Like that judge who said he knew pornography when he saw it, WE all know a good hole when we see (play) it. Let's design THOSE!

Karl

Ps: As for the "need for 'par' because it's in the rules", just one more reason to DQ (like the PGA, LPGA, etc.) 'late-sters'.

 

[SonicGuy]

Par doesn't really matter for rec play since "default par 3" is simply an easy way for scoring without a card. It specifically matters in competitive play with regard to late penalties, tracking over/under for live scoring which will eventually be available for every player at every event, and the relatively untapped realm of tracking your personal stats in competition such as birdie, par, bogey percentages or par saves. Without legit par values, those stats either cannot be tracked or are meaningless.

Those stats are already meaningless, and strokes saved/earned stats are the only really meaningful stats to track in any golfing activity. Live scoring works fine with +/- on all par 3. Penalties that add x strokes to par are silly and should be removed anyways.

Your move.

 

[dashiellx]

Penalties that add x strokes to par are silly and should be removed anyways.

What should the penalties be for players who are late and miss a hole?

 

[SonicGuy]

What should the penalties be for players who are late and miss a hole?

I would never allow a player to have a finalized score on a course without playing one of the holes. Either make them replay it or DQ.

 

[grodney]

I'm like Ty Webb, I don't really keep score.

Then how do you measure yourself?

 

[Phlick]

What if Ball golf only had par 3's? What would that look like? A bunch of holes not exceeding 300 yards. The idea for a par 3 is that you can hit the green on your drive and then get down in two putts. The whole idea of golf is based on the idea of hitting the green and then two putting for par. IMO, if you can't hit the green in Disc Golf - either because of distance or angle/obstacle limitations on the drive, it shouldn't be a par 3, and statistics (average/mean scores on a hole) will generally reflect that. Why is Par important in ball golf? Same reason it is in disc golf, to be able to roughly (as accurately as possible actually) determine a players capability to score on that course without having to know which course that applies to. As long as Disc Golf never aspires to have statistical metrics ascribed to courses or players, then it's not important. Chuck was dead on when he said that Par only matters to disc golf it aspires to evolve from game to sport. Probably the best argument I've heard on this topic yet.

 

[DanJon]

Then how do you measure yourself?

With a tape measure.

 

[Improbably]

What should the penalties be for players who are late and miss a hole?

I would add four strokes to the mode score for that hole within the players division.
If the data set is bimodal and one of the modes is a median I would take that plus 4.
If neither or both modes are median I would take the higher of the two plus 4.
If there is no mode I would take the median value plus 4.
If the median value is based on a calculation of two middle values I would take the higher of the two plus 4.

AND I would make the player do this calculation adding the appropriate two strokes if they get it wrong!

 

[pappabearlee]

Par is simply a number to make my ego soothed or inflamed over the events that transpire on a hole.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Those stats are already meaningless, and strokes saved/earned stats are the only really meaningful stats to track in any golfing activity. Live scoring works fine with +/- on all par 3. Penalties that add x strokes to par are silly and should be removed anyways.

Your move.

Not irrelevant when hosts need to attract spectators. If/when that happens, over/under appropriate par will be more relevant to spectators than the geeky shots saved/earned stat. Did you see big scoreboards at the Masters with shots saved stats or on the online leaderboard even though they have the resources to do so? And as mentioned already, over/under appropriate par will be better for tracking live scoring of other players in their division while playing the round.

Regardless if you think par+x penalties are silly, they actually exist for now.