{"id":3691,"date":"2021-08-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/?page_id=3691"},"modified":"2021-08-02T14:53:20","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T14:53:20","slug":"what-does-par-mean","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/sports-betting\/golf\/what-does-par-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does Par Mean in Golf?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our broader article focusing on golfing terms such as birdie, eagle and indeed par, we explain how golf, like many sports, can sometimes seem to have a vocabulary all of its own. That feature looks more briefly at a number of the many golfing terms you might see should you be betting on golf, playing it, or watching it on the television. Here, however, we will look in more detail at par, a concept which is central to the way golf is played and scored and crucial if you want to understand the sport and how to bet on it.<\/p>\n

What Is A Par?<\/h2>\n

\"ParIn golf, the word par is used in a few closely related but slightly different ways. In general terms, par is how many shots in which a good player (i.e. a scratch golfer with a handicap of zero) should expect to complete a given hole. So a hole may be described as a par four, and this means that players will be attempting to take no more than four shots to get from tee to cup. Should they manage to complete the hole in four shots they have scored a par or can be said to have \u201cparred the hole\u201d.<\/p>\n

If they take just three shots on a par four hole, this is called a birdie and thus they are now described as being \u201cone under par\u201d. Alternatively, should they make five, they would move from level par to one over par. All standard courses are made up of a small number of par three holes, a majority of par fours and a small number of par fives.<\/p>\n

The most common structure sees a course have two par threes, two par fives and five par fours on the outward nine holes and the same on the back nine. This is not set in stone however but the majority of courses are structured this way. The number of each of these types of hole can be altered slightly but it is almost unheard of for a top-level course to have fewer than two par fives and two par threes.<\/p>\n

You will never see a par two on a course, for reasons that we will explain shortly, whilst holes with a par above five do not feature on any of the major pro tours and are more of a novelty. In theory, clubs could create a hole with any par they wanted but anything above a par five is extremely rare. That said, the longest hole in the UK is thought to be a par six on Westray<\/a>, one of the Orkney Islands. What\u2019s more, the longest hole in the world<\/a> is said to stretch to almost 1,100 yards and is a par seven.<\/p>\n

Par For The Course<\/h3>\n

\"GolfThe phrase \u201cpar for the course\u201d has come into the wider lexicon and means that something is about what you expected. It sometimes has a slightly pejorative tilt, for example, one might say \u201cDave has eaten all the cheese\u201d, to which someone else might say \u201cWell, that\u2019s par for the course\u201d. In golf though, it illustrates how par can be both hole- and course-specific.<\/p>\n

Just as each hole on a course has an allotted par, so too does the course itself. The literal par for the course is simply the cumulative total par for each of the 18 holes. The standard structure that we mentioned above creates a course with a par of 72 and the majority of courses worldwide are par 72.<\/p>\n

However, as we said, that structure is not fixed and a small number of top-level golf courses have a par that is 71 or 70, with an even smaller number being par 73. However, if we assume a course has a par of 72, then a player who completes their round in 66 is said to have been \u201csix under par\u201d for the round, or just \u201csix under\u201d, or possibly \u201cminus six\u201d (or -6). If they have a much poorer day and shoot 74 they are \u201ctwo over\u201d, whilst a 72 would see them stay at level or even par.<\/p>\n

How Is Par Set?<\/h2>\n
\"Par
danperry.com<\/a>, CC BY 2.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each club sets the par for itself, assigning each hole a par score and thus creating an overall par for the course. There are no hard and fast rules, but par is essentially based on how many shots it is expected it will take a player to reach the green, with a further two shots allowed for putting once the ball is on the putting surface. Given there is always allowance for two putts, par three is the lowest you will see.<\/p>\n

As a result of improved technology and sports science, players today hit the ball much further than they did just 20 years ago. The players of 20 years ago, of course, achieved greater distances than their predecessors and so distances used to help judge what par a hole should be. These have changed somewhat over the years. The current USGA guidance<\/a> for the distance of a hole and its par (for men) states the following:<\/p>\n