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- Dec 19, 2009
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The 1050-foot hole #12 is a par 5 because that's what the TD set.
It has usually scored like a par 6 according to the methods Par by Average Score (of the 1000-rated expert), and Par by Scoring Distribution.
However, it is not clear why it should be scoring as a par 6. It would seem a smart player could be expected to do something like make three 300-foot placement shots and then lay up from 150 feet for the drop-in par.
Perhaps players have been overreaching to try to get a 4 and getting burned. If so, then over time they should be figuring out to not do that.
And it seems they are figuring it out.
At the 2023 Greater Peoria Open (which presumably had more local players who knew better) the scores supported par 5 under both methods mentioned above. (Barely.) 1000-rated players averaged 6.12 which is below the 6.19 maximum for par 5, and 29% of 1000-rated players got a 5, which is above the 26% minimum for par 5.
And there were no 4s at all.
However, at the 2023 DGPT - Discraft Ledgestone Open it seems the big egos came to town and played for the 1% chance of getting a 4 and mostly lost the bet. The prototypical 1000-rated player ended up averaging 6.59 and getting a 5 (or 4) only 20% of the time.
So, if I were in charge, I would call it an unbirdieable par 5 that the players aren't playing in an errorless manner.
It has usually scored like a par 6 according to the methods Par by Average Score (of the 1000-rated expert), and Par by Scoring Distribution.
However, it is not clear why it should be scoring as a par 6. It would seem a smart player could be expected to do something like make three 300-foot placement shots and then lay up from 150 feet for the drop-in par.
Perhaps players have been overreaching to try to get a 4 and getting burned. If so, then over time they should be figuring out to not do that.
And it seems they are figuring it out.
At the 2023 Greater Peoria Open (which presumably had more local players who knew better) the scores supported par 5 under both methods mentioned above. (Barely.) 1000-rated players averaged 6.12 which is below the 6.19 maximum for par 5, and 29% of 1000-rated players got a 5, which is above the 26% minimum for par 5.
And there were no 4s at all.
However, at the 2023 DGPT - Discraft Ledgestone Open it seems the big egos came to town and played for the 1% chance of getting a 4 and mostly lost the bet. The prototypical 1000-rated player ended up averaging 6.59 and getting a 5 (or 4) only 20% of the time.
So, if I were in charge, I would call it an unbirdieable par 5 that the players aren't playing in an errorless manner.