"Par always has been irrelevant, and it still is."

Catching up on a few articles I have been wanting to check out and I enjoyed this Doug Ferguson breakdown of the absurdity of the par protection mindset, which seems to be less of a defining USGA trait these days...but still a defining trait of the U.S. Open.

It could have been worse at Torrey Pines.

Rees Jones Jr., who buffed up the course to attract the U.S. Open, was among those who wanted the par-5 18th hole to play as a par 4. With a pond in front of the green, there would have been more gore than glory on the final hole. Davis deserves credit for persuading the blue coats to make it a par 5, which could be the most exciting closing hole at a U.S. Open.

Imagine an eagle on the last hole to win.

"As far as protecting par, I firmly believe the USGA wants to make the golf course as difficult and as testing a golf course as they can without going overboard," Furyk said. "For the best players in the world, that's going to be shooting somewhere around even par. But if it's 5 under or 5 over, I don't think it really matters."

Par always has been irrelevant, and it still is.

Comments

[jneu]

When "Tin Cup" came out, a lot of golf purists (probably including me) pointed out that the USGA would never put the Open on a course that finished on that kind of hole -- a par-5 with a green guarded by a pond. Has Mike Davis ever acknowledged his debt to Ron Shelton?

[Chuck]

I don't wish to be merely contrarian, but I think it is both an overstatement to think that the USGA is too obsessed with "protecting par," and that "protecting par" is a pointless exercise.

At some level, protection of the golf course and shot values are of great importance, and those worthy goals may be mistaken for efforts at "protecting par."

Basically, with US Open courses, it comes down to turning shorter Par 5's into long Par 4's, and I'll be the first to agree that that is often a pointless exercise. At the same time, I'll be among the first to join the chorus against overgrown rough and single-file fairways too. Those are terrible ways to "protect par."

But it also seems silly to me to hold a US Open at a 6900-yard golf course, and see a winning score of -28. It all comse back to sensible equipment regulations, intelligently designed to fit the game to the courses. It could hardly be simpler, at least in terms of the general goal. The regulations themsleves might be very complicated, indeed, but I guess that is why you do an eight-year-long study of golf ball performance.

[iacas]

:::yawn::: Chuck, don't you ever get tired of banging the same drum? And must you make EVERY comment about the same old topic?

How about we just talk about the topic at hand?

[thusgone]

Chuck: Brad Faxon says there's nothing wrong with the modern golf ball, and my sources* tell me that the overwhelming majority of active players at all levels agree with him.


*My 'sources' are, me myself and I.

[F. X.]

What if the ball rules made 7000 yd courses the equivalent of 8000 yard courses today? Nobody would be bitching about the ball making any course under 6800 yards obsolete, and nobody would be trying to hold championships on courses under 6200 yards. Golf courses would not need to be reworked with ridiculous tees or mown in ways that destroyed the original design intent of the hole.

It's all about the ball.

[Matt]

A three is a three is a three, whether it is an eagle on a short par five or a long par four. Nicklaus had it right - he didn't try to figure out how many under or over, he just tried to shoot a score or 276 or 282.

[Rob Turner]

“More gore than glory”. Now that is what is called a brilliant subtitle and I can already see some of these major championship organizers rubbing their hands with glee at the very prospect of such a tagline. I can already see it, 20th century Fox presents The Masters- More Gore than Glory!

For some reason as much as people complain I think there is some sadistic pleasure that amateurs like us can derive out of seeing the big pro’s being beaten into submission by a course that bares its fangs. Of course there is a certain method to the madness. A hole should not be setup in such a manner that a player plays completely within himself without taking that creative route to the pin. Unfortunately very few setups actually succeed in getting players to play in an imaginative manner. A “good” course should not be judged on what a player shoots but how he managed the course.

Shooting a score without worrying whether you are over par or under par! Well I am not sure how many of these modern players think along those lines, more often than not we hear them keeping a target of how low they can go below par instead of figuring out whether it is going to be a 275 or a 270!

Ultimately it was a great decision to have the 18th play as a par 5, the result was an amazing eagle putt in the 3rd round and birdlie putt in the 4th from Tiger.

I for one will remember the 18th for all the right reasons - the hole came into its own,

http://www.golfswingsecretsrevealed.com/blog/2008/06/16/tiger-nails-last-gasp-putt-to-take-mediate-into-play-off/