So now that I'm looking back on some of hte rounds at Amateur World's last week, it appears the PDGA has Longs with Par 4s (hole# 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, & 14).
However, the scorecard and other sites list it the same as shorts at ALL Par 3s...who makes the decision to change that on the scorecard? Curious what the PDGA used to determine those as Par 4s vs 3s.
it's generally based on the Par guidelines the PDGA has in place for designing a course. You can check out the details here (http://www.pdga.com/course-development) then click on "Par Guidelines Based on Skill Level, Hole Length and Foliage Density"
Curtis, it is the tournament director's discretion to assess par for an event. The guide listed above is for designing a course with a particular skill level of player in mind.
Dang I've been throwing a better score this whole time!
@Larry & Dan - makes sense regarding the guide. So really, the Par is set by the Course designer(s) but with any Tournament it's up to the TD's discretion to make changes...and if they do it should be following the guidelines the PDGA has listed there.
@Jacob - exactly!! ;-)
@curtis. If you look at the guide it has different ratings/colors. If the course is designed for blue it would reflect blue par. However if the tournament has gold level players it wouldn't be appropriate to have blue par for gold players and such if there is only novice players playing par ... more
@curtis. If you look at the guide it has different ratings/colors. If the course is designed for blue it would reflect blue par. However if the tournament has gold level players it wouldn't be appropriate to have blue par for gold players and such if there is only novice players playing par would be reflective of the players. So for am worlds ostemo would be reflective of blue heavy wooded. Thus anything over 400 feet would be par 4. Rec level players would be considered anything over 260ish to be par 4. Gold players on the other hand should be par 2 for anything 220 and under. For our events (essential discs) we typically set par to gold so people can see what is expected from a top level player shooting the course.
Interesting...thanks @Larry!