PAR

[Dave242]

What?! Nikko only threw 400' on his drive. I thought all the top pros throw like 500-550' on command!

 

[Pete Kwaz]

Every hole is a par 3. Posted pars are for wimps. LOL

 

[Dave242]

It's only realistically possible on wooded courses like Charlotte's Web and Renny to get the gold level par close to SSA. For more open long courses, other than Winthrop Gold with it's unrelenting OB penalties, the proper gold par is more likely 3-5 higher than SSA.

Using some of the reasoning skills I have learned recently:
You are wrong. I am right. There are no open holes. Everything is wooded and long. SSA always matches Par.

Seriously though - why is that? That does not seem intuitively obvious to me (but it is late on a Friday afternoon).

 

[Cgkdisc]

Well designed wooded holes produce a scoring spread with a decent percentage of scores on either side of "true" par on the holes. Well designed open holes are more likely to only have two scores with significant percentages with par having the higher percentage and the other main score being lower (birdie). So the gold scoring average diverges toward the lower side of par on more open courses.

 

[bikinjack]

Well designed wooded holes produce a scoring spread with a decent percentage of scores on either side of "true" par on the holes. Well designed open holes are more likely to only have two scores with significant percentages with par having the higher percentage and the other main score being lower (birdie). So the gold scoring average diverges toward the lower side of par on more open courses.

At the risk of starting a new debate in this thread, I'll ask this:

So, in other words, open holes are easier?

 

[mashnut]

At the risk of starting a new debate in this thread, I'll ask this:

So, in other words, open holes are easier?

More like, open holes don't have much risk so they don't do a good job of separating scores.

 

[hedfan1]

There are a few courses where when I play I add my score up assuming that all holes are par 4's because the course is that difficult. By the end of a round I was at -1 and he was +1. We felt pretty good about our game then added the +18 that we had added to the course and then the score was +17 to +19 as if we had played all par 3's. We both kind of laughed at our scores and went on.

But when I was on hole 16 with a 45 foot shot at the pin I felt good about my game because my score was at even so I shot with confidence and made it to -1 on that shot. If I was counting them all 3's I would have been sitting at +15 and that kind of number can really throw you off your game and just give up really trying. So it helps keep the counting easier and the confidence up! False confidence it might be but whatever...

 

[hedfan1]

What?! Nikko only threw 400' on his drive. I thought all the top pros throw like 500-550' on command!

Your DogFace is pretty sweet!

 

[Cgkdisc]

More like, open holes don't have much risk so they don't do a good job of separating scores.

The table of scoring distributions for open holes displayed below is not uncommon for a specific skill level. Every 30 feet of added length adds 0.1 to the scoring average. The scoring spreads look OK for the first three lengths in the table. However, once you get where one score is 70% or more of the scores, it's not considered a good hole for that skill level. You can see that the better spreads are when the scoring average is less than the par of 3 for all of these holes. That's why I said that "well designed" open holes will have scoring averages below par so the SSA comes in 3-5 shots below par for the course. For wooded par 3 holes, when the average is around 3.0, there might be 60% 3s and maybe 20% 2s and 20% 4s or even a percentage of 3s less than 60. But the point is, the average score on well designed wooded holes can come close to matching the par for those holes.

Percentage of Each Score - Open Holes				
2s	3s	4s	Avg	
42	56	2	2.6	Length
34	62	4	2.7	Length+30'
27	66	7	2.8	Length+60'
20	70	10	2.9	Length+90'
13	74	13	3.0	Length+120'
8	75	17	3.1	Length+150'

 

[Steve West]

...For more open long courses, other than Winthrop Gold with it's unrelenting OB penalties, the proper gold par is more likely 3-5 higher than SSA....

Tsk, tsk, tsk. "800. Definitions ... Par means errorless play".

So, you can't count those scores that have an OB penalty when figuring par.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Except that the SSA incorporates the OB penalties automatically and that's what's being compared with par, not adjusted scoring averages. The par on those holes would be the same regardless whether there were OB or not on those holes whether using CR Par or scoring averages adjusted after removing the OB penalties.

 

[Steve West]

Except that the SSA incorporates the OB penalties automatically and that's what's being compared with par, not adjusted scoring averages. The par on those holes would be the same regardless whether there were OB or not on those holes whether using CR Par or scoring averages adjusted after removing the OB penalties.

Yeah, my response was a little messed up because I was reading your response inside out.

So, we agree, there's no "OB" in par, right?

No, if you'll excuse me, I must go do my penitence for allowing myself to succumb to the temptation of discussing the definition of par - especially on a thread not devoted to the topic.

 

[Cgkdisc]

So, we agree, there's no "OB" in par, right?

Yes. I try to design where OB occurs no more than 1/3 of the time and hopefully much less like 10%. If players go OB so often that it raises the scoring average so it's closer the next bigger integer par value, I believe the OB is too punitive anyway for that skill level.