Do all 18 hole golf courses have the same par number at the end ?

Either 72 or 74 or 78 or any other arbitrary number ?

Or do pat numbers vary from course to course ?

They vary. 72+/-. Don't think I've seen one below 70.

I've seen quite a few below 72, but not many over 72. I'd go so far as to say that 70 is now more common than the traditional 72 in a lot of places.

The little 9 hole muni course where we all learned to play as kids was par 31 - 4 par 4s, 5 par 3s. Greens fee weekdays before 4PM for 14 and under was 25¢.

Nope. They are not all the same. They tend to fall in a range though. Most holes will have a par of 3 or 4 with a smaller number of the holes being 2 or 5, and they try hard to have 9 or 18 holes, so you end up with totals ending up in a fairly narrow range. There are exceptionally hard holes and courses with unusual numbers of holes due to space constraints, but most places try for an overall par between 3 and 4 per hole.

There are also some requirements a course has to meet to be able to officially submit your scores on it to calculate your handicap, but I don’t remember them all off the top of my head. I could ask our GM if you really needed to know, but I wasn’t involved when they were building the course.

- Bret

quote:

Originally posted by jaaron11:
I've seen quite a few below 72, but not many over 72. I'd go so far as to say that 70 is now more common than the traditional 72 in a lot of places.

I think we'll probably see more of that as distances shorten. The days of 200 yard drives with persimmon woods are long gone.

Imagine how good those guys had to be to par those courses with the technology (or lack thereof) of the day.

I read not long ago that the average par rating in the US is 72 - mathematically it’s something like 71.82 and it’s rounded up.

The par rating is what a scratch golfer sound shoot playing the course. If you are a bogie golf player like I am my expected round is to play 1 over par on every hole so my average would be a 90. But even bogie golfers get lucky and get a par or two in every round, and getting a birdie is cause for celebration.

Most are 72 but some are 71 and some are 70 and one PGA Tour stop is 73, Plantation Course at Kapalua.

There are also executive length courses that have mostly par 3s and you don't ever hit driver. These are smaller courses made for practicing your iron shots.

The standard course is a par 72 and has 4 par 3s (12) and 4 par 5s (20), the rest par 4s (40).

Normally, most regulation courses are par 72, with 4 par threes, 4 par fives & 10 par fours. Many of the courses that the pros play are par 72 for its members, but it's not uncommon for them to change a couple of the shorter par fives to par fours for tournaments, making them par 70. It used to be that any hole over 500 yds was a par 5, but more and more of the pro tournaments have par fours that are over 500 yds. due to the length of the players these days.

This is a timely question for me! I am off to Scotland in a few weeks for 10 days of golf.

One of the courses we will play is Kilspindie, par 69. It has only par five hole. Two trips ago, we played Kilspindie in the pouring rain, getting soaked to the skin… having a total blast.

It’s a compact course near it’s more famous cousin, Muirfield, with a par 71 golf course.

In the misty history of golf it is a generally accepted claim that golf courses have 18 holes and par of 72 because the Old Course at St. Andrews EVENTUALLY settled on a course of 18 holes…. Which has a par of 72.

The reason I ask:
I over heard four swingers at lunch and each were claiming that they shot 76 at Barnum
Or 79 at Bailey or three under at Bullfarb,
On this day or that day

So from your help I guess I have to conclude that these four guys know all of the courses mentioned and their pars.
Thanks
For taking the time to share

So coming up even on one course might be considered great because of it's more difficult design.

And 4 under par on another course might be considered just ok because of it's much less challenging design .

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
So coming up even on one course might be considered great because of it's more difficult design.

And 4 under par on another course might be considered just ok because of it's much less challenging design .

Yes, plus I would add the conditions of play aka weather.

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
....with a smaller number of the holes being 2.....

Bret - you're gonna have to show us some examples of this. You play a course of just putting greens where you drop your ball there to start?

Par range is 3-6 per USGA I believe. Assumption is always two putt plus some reasonable number of shots tee to green based on distance.

Let's have someone explain course ratings in relation to par! I grew up on a par 71 course that was rated (as I recall) something like 69.7.

You picking up golf bendy?

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
So coming up even on one course might be considered great because of it's more difficult design.

And 4 under par on another course might be considered just ok because of it's much less challenging design .

Shooting the rated par on any course would be quite a high achievement for any but the very best of golfers. Only the very best golfers - the touring professionals, in essence - can expect to shoot under par on any given golf course with any frequency.

Shooting four under par would be almost never be "just ok."

I was never a great golfer. When I was playing my best, I once shot an even par 36 for nine holes, and then promptly blew up on the back nine, and shot a 47 (as I remember), for a total of 83 for the whole round. That is 11 over par. My best round ever was 81. At the time I had that round, my average on the courses I played then was about 87 to 89, which was consistent with my handicap of 14.

Handicap is a complicated system and topic, but it is the number of strokes you get against par so that any golfer can play a match against any other golfer. A golfer with a handicap of ten gets ten strokes, which may lead you to think that a 10 handicapper will normally shoot an 82 on a par 72 course. However, the system is designed to give you slightly fewer strokes, so a ten handicapper will normally shoot around an 84 or 83.

Any handicap under ten is quite good for an amateur. Anything under five is excellent - truly rare. The closer you get to a zero handicap, the harder it is to go down one more level. The touring pros don't really have handicaps, but would be somewhere in the -4 or -5 handicap range. It is hard to say, as the system isn't designed for golfers with that skill.

Par is not merely a good score. For all but the touring pros, it is a great score.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jhe888,

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

Any handicap under ten is quite good for an amateur. Anything under five is excellent - truly rare. The closer you get to a zero handicap, the harder it is to go down one more level. The touring pros don't really have handicaps, but would be somewhere in the -4 or -5 handicap range. It is hard to say, as the system isn't designed for golfers with that skill.

When you move to the better side of par it begins with + numbers +1,+2 etc. I play in weekend competitive money groups with several players who shoot under par.

I’ve played two rounds with a golfer in our league where he actually gives back 3 strokes on one course.

Only time I’ve ever seen that. He is a really sharp player and his swing is ridiculously so repeatable that it’s just fun to watch him work his way around the course. And he will offer advice if asked but won’t ever offer any unsolicited advice.

Now ask yourself: How are courses compared or rated? How are players compared or rated? How do players of differing skill levels compete on different courses?

Pretty good explanation

Not only are the pars maybe different for each course, the difficulty of getting that par is different depending on what tee you use and to a lesser degree for the average golfer, where the hole is placed on the green for a particular day.

I tried golf once. Par 72. I did it in 68 (beginner's luck?).

One of these days I'll go back and try the second hole.