The Par 6

[Dana]

I have a pretty nice par 6 at a golf course (Pine Hills in Ottawa, IL) that I set a temp course up at. Roughly 1250 ft w/dog leg. There have been a few looks at eagle (4) over the last 4 years. In the winter, that hole usually turns into 3 par 3's, or a short par 4 and two par 3's.

 

[sloppydisc]

You gotta birdie that one!

Yea it seems like par 6 doesn't make sense because it would throw off the par for the course. But I don't really know enough about golf rules and standards to have a valid opinion on it.

I typo'd! Otmis Burlington, NC. Never been to ND.

And I probably wouldn't birdie there either.

 

[grodney]

Great chart grodney. I do think you mean longer on the elevation factor or rise instead of drop. One of the two qualifiers seems backwards though.

Yeah, bad wording. A 10-foot drop makes it PLAY 30 feet shorter. That's what I meant.

 

[ThomasOrion]

It all depends on the terrain and the obstacles.

I think having more higher par holes would be interesting and fun. So its not always about parking the drive....there should be more to disc golf than either hitting the drive or hitting a putt, Placement shots, preparation, using multiple discs on a hole, finding the best route.
I think that makes the course and the hole in particular more of an adventure.

So I say 1,000+ or obstacles depending.


I did play a true par 5 it was a 1,025ft hole, but basically wide open, but uphill a little bit so it was still a challenge

 

[Steve West]

Yeah and being a "gold" course it should have fitting pars.

DG needs way more par 2s, too!

All courses should have fitting pars.

I think there are probably enough par 2s right now. The trouble is, they haven't usually been labeled.

Also, few have dared to create the ideal par 2 for good scoring spread for gold players. That would be a hole where half the 1000+ rated players get a 2 and half get a 3. That's about 190 feet or so.

Seven of those in a row with a variety of lines (on a 24 hole course) would be a lot more interesting than one par 6 (on an 18 hole course).

 

[Aim For The Chains]

I couldnt agree more.

 

[BrotherDave]

Springwood in Burlington, NC has or had one. It is or was a pointless filler hole. Although it would make a decent hole for kids or beginners. I played it once and got par. :\

It had two originally, holes 5 and 17. Hole 5 is completely gone and hole 17 is still there but it's not really considered a par 2 anymore. Nearby Beth Schmidt's hole 1 is about as par 2 as it gets though.

 

[jeremyhilss]

I think a rare par 6 is good. I wouldnt want too many of them all together though.

I believe Highbridge Gold's no. 8 is a good fit because it's so long, but wide open and downhill, so it's not a PITA to throw. And that thing is in the upper realms of the lengths you provided for the poll, over 1400 feet, so in this rare situation I like it. It obviously leads to areas where the rest of the course makes for 5 star rated holes, so if that one hadnt been as long as it was, would you have the rest of the holes on that course at all? Im not saying "oh just make a long par 6 just as a filler", but it seemed to work fine here.

 

[simpletwist]

Par 6 is just plain dumb. The allure to all of us was how easy the game was to play. I'm not saying easy to master, just easy and of course FUN. This is the antithesis of growing the sport.

There is a place for pro caliber courses, but par 6 is not the way to go at any distance.

 

[thrembo]

Par 6 is just plain dumb. The allure to all of us was how easy the game was to play. I'm not saying easy to master, just easy and of course FUN. This is the antithesis of growing the sport.

There is a place for pro caliber courses, but par 6 is not the way to go at any distance.

Agreed. Courses are long enough already. I don't care if you make a 10,000 ft long course, but please put in some short tees too, for us "typical" disc golfers.

 

[jjtwinnova]

Ban the Par 6

In ball golf, there is no such thing as a par 6. Same should be in Disc Golf. Nobody should go through the pain of a Par 6...

 

[Cgkdisc]

In ball golf, there is no such thing as a par 6. Same should be in Disc Golf. Nobody should go through the pain of a Par 6...

Wrong. That's where the idea for par 6 in DG came about.

 

[biscoe]

DG par 6 is like a BG par 7. I like DG par 4s, which are like par 5s in BG. Some par 5s are ok, but begin to lose something and is mostly why hardly anyone builds par 6 in BG.

Agree 100%. Almost all of the best holes I have ever played are par 4's.

It is really hard to design good par 5 holes imo, par 6 even moreso.

 

[Dana]

Pine Hills in Ottawa, IL is now setup for the IL State Doubles event on 11/6. Come play the course and see for yourself what a (fun, challenging) 1218 ft par 6 looks like.

 

[Kuantrz]

Hole 1 at 2015 Scandinavian open was played as a par 6 (they say 5 in the video but thats wrong) 350meter, 1150feet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-BSTksSSvA

Only Will Schusterick got a 4 and most of the top guys scored 5-7. Legit par 6 because of the shape and how easy it is to go off the fairway.

 

[Steve West]

Hole 1 at 2015 Scandinavian open was played as a par 6 (they say 5 in the video but thats wrong) 350meter, 1150feet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-BSTksSSvA

Only Will Schusterick got a 4 and most of the top guys scored 5-7. Legit par 6 because of the shape and how easy it is to go off the fairway.

I would not have called it a 6. Because 43% of the 1000-rated players got a 5, I'd call that "the score an expert disc golfer would be expected to make on a given hole with errorless play under ordinary weather conditions." I'd bet those that got a 6 felt they dropped a throw.

Par at the SO seems to have been set according the false rule that "every hole must be birdie-able".

 

[TYVEK]

you should add the following option to your poll- "I don't want par 6 holes in disc golf". that way everybody can be included in the poll. im not going to choose any of the length options on the poll because I believe that there should not be par 6 holes. there is just no reason for something like that.

 

[loki the trickster]

I dont exactly believe in a par 6 so i did not vote. So why not make a tough par 5 and use the extra length to make a better par 3, 4 or 5 elsewhere on the course.

 

[DavidSauls]

Pondering what might make a good par-6---good enough to warrant having one. And trying to think of what par-5 I know, that could be extended to a par-6.

It seems to me that neither sheer distance, nor the number of doglegs, would do it. The ratio of long throws to putts is just too great. And it seems to be to be too much of the same thing.

(Disclaimer: At my current point of deterioration, some holes are already essentially par-6s for me. And they're not all that much fun.)

But if you had a landscape with enough different features---with a lake to throw over, maybe an island to land on and then throw from, a hill to throw down, a hill to throw up, or a hilltop-to-hilltop throw, or something else---you might be able to cobble together a par-6 that made a variety of demands on the players, enough to justify it.

Then, of course, you'd have to have terrain for 17 other great holes, to avoid thinking that this one par-6 should have been split up into two good holes, instead of using all that great stuff at once.

 

[SonicGuy]

But par is 3...