Opinion & Analysis
Par-3, Par-4 or Par-5 holes: Which is best?
If you asked a dozen golfers which type of hole they prefer — a par-3, a par-4 or a par-5 — I’d be surprised if any said they liked the par-4 best.
At least none did when I asked that question last week around some local courses.
The par-3 got some votes for its one crack at glory ethos; its closest to the pin competitions and the only semi-legitimate hope most golfers have for a hole-in-one.
Overwhelmingly though, in my admittedly small sample, the majority prefer a par-5.
[quote_box_center]“Especially if it bends a little left and maybe has an elevated tee,” G told me at Vellano Country Club. And it was instantly obvious. “If I catch my drive I can go after the green on my second shot.” Even if the 23-year old with a powerful, though ungainly swing mishits it a little, he’ll still have an attacking short wedge for his third. “Par should be the worst score I make then,” he said.[/quote_box_center]
“I like short par-3s,” Josh said. He’s probably in his early 30s in age and mid-teens in handicap and he was getting ready to play at Woodhaven. “But even when the par-3s are longer, over 165 say, I can still have a couple of ‘short par-3s’ if I hit two good shots on the par-5s.”
And he lost me there for a second, then I realized he meant he was playing the par-5s to make them into par-3s.
It’s true. A 520-yard par-5 sounds long and possibly intimidating to many golfers, but if you can hit two shots a total of 400 yards, your third shot on that par-5 will only be 120. And that’s shorter than three-quarters of the par-3s that most of us play.
The par-3 did get some outright love from the golfers I asked.
[quote_box_center]“Everybody in the foursome has the exact same shot, so it’s a chance to beat the other guys,” an older man, Richard, told me at Mesquite, a public course in Palm Springs. “Guys remember who hits it close on the 3-pars.”[/quote_box_center]
And I thought calling them 3-pars was something they only did on TV. Then I wondered away, wondering why no one ever mentions 5-pars during the telecasts.
[quote_box_center]“I like a golf course that opens with a par-5,” Luke told me at Shandin Hills, a course where the first hole is a 490-yard par-5 from the blue tees. “You can get a lot of roll here and have a shot at it, but with those traps in front of the green [on both sides] today I’ll probably lay-up unless I crush it.”[/quote_box_center]
On the PGA Tour, par-5s are the scoring holes, whether players are laying-up to their favorite distance or if they’re two-putting for birdie. Bubba Watson currently leads the Tour in percentage of birdies or better on par-5s, making a score of either 3 or 4 over 60 percent of the time.
On the par-3s, the leading pros are barely above 20 percent, though surprisingly to me, that’s slightly below the birdie or better percentage leader for par-4s. Then again, it’s Jordan Spieth leading that category, so maybe there’s no reason to be surprised.
[quote_box_center]“Par-4s don’t always give you a chance to recover from a bad shot,” Freddy told me at PGA West. And with that mindset, I told him I hoped he wasn’t playing the Stadium Course today.[/quote_box_center]
“With a par-5,” he said, “you can usually still recover from a not-so-great drive. Or if you hit a good drive but not a good second, you’ll still have a chance to get on the green in regulation,” he reasoned.
“But don’t most par-5s have more trouble than other holes?” I asked. “The greens are usually smaller on par-5s and there’s generally trouble around them.”
“There’s usually trouble on all the holes,” Freddy said, and I could see he was familiar with Pete Dye’s Stadium Course.
A woman named Jenny who was making the turn at Escena told me, “The par-4s and par-5s are usually too long for most women, so I prefer a par-3. I’ve made a hole-in-one before, in fact I have two of them, but I’ve never eagled a par-4 or a par-5.”
And with that she got in her cart to go try her luck at No. 10, a 260-yard par-4 from the forward tees.
The last golfer I asked was Damien, a deeply-tanned desert player wearing all white. “I’m pretty long off the tee,” he said, not bragging I knew since I’d seen him pound a few drives already. “I’ll usually have at least a short iron in on any par-4 or par-5. But sometimes, when par-3s are over 200-yards, then I’ll have to hit a 4-iron or hybrid.”
And thinking about hitting my driver from that distance on a par-3, I was sure Damien could feel my sympathy.
[quote_box_center]“I have a better chance on the par-4s and 5s,” he said. “But any hole, par-3, par-4 or par-5, if you hit a couple of good shots, or even a good chip, you should have at least a putt for par.” [/quote_box_center]
What’s your favorite par hole?
Let us know in the comments section below, and read the first three chapters of Tom Hill’s humorous golf book, A Perfect Lie – The Hole Truth: 18 Holes of Golf in Pursuit of the Round of a Lifetime, for free at 7-ironpress.com. Get free shipping on the paperback or $4 off on the e-book when you enter the code GOLFWRX1 at check-out.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview
The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under
After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Opinion & Analysis
The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1
Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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Dave N
May 6, 2015 at 9:57 am
Absolutely a short (drive able) par 4. So much variety based on where they put the tees, what the weather is doing, etc. especially like one that requires skill to hit the green… No straight aways, plenty of risk to go for it. Options to lay back with an iron but still a challenging approach. Hole 12 at Chambers Bay is an example. Used to play a course with a hole that was 275-290 with a sharp dog leg right, over trees, three bunkers short and right, two bunkers left, tri-level green with a hill in the back. So you could go for it, but usually ended up with a sand shot or a downhill pitch onto a downhill green. Laying up off the tee still required long iron or hybrid to get around the corner– 220-250 and still required a good pitch because the green was tricky. So much fun to play.
TheCityGame
May 6, 2015 at 8:58 am
First thought i had was par 4’s. Par 4’s are the thinkers. The risk-reward decisions on par 5’s are always obvious : Hit driver, then go for it or lay up.
Par 4’s challenge you with club choice, ball flight, taking on a trap, finding the best angle.
One course I play, the 5’s are long and straight with occasional bunkering. The 4’s challenge you to hit draw, draw, draw, then 2 in a row that demand a fade. Then, a draw where you can reach if you carry some trees followed by a 420 uphill par 4. On the back, the 4’s require a draw, a fade, a fade, a draw, a fade and then a draw.
On my home course, my club selection on the par 4’s from the whites is typically driver, hybrid, 4W, driver, 4W, 4 iron, 4 iron, hybrid, 4W, driver, 6 iron. On the par 5’s, every one of them is driver-4W, unless you catch a good drive on one and then it’s driver driver-whatever. There’s no logic in laying up on that hole.
Most par 3’s are just a matter of club selection and good contact. They might have options to be beautiful, but strategically, the only question is really “how aggressive do I want to be?”
Par 4’s are the spice of a golf course.
other paul
May 5, 2015 at 10:11 pm
All holes are par 3s… Sort of…
CRiley
May 5, 2015 at 6:57 pm
Definitely a 270-310 yrd par-4. I love the variety and challenge. You can lay up with an iron if you hit it long, or for sorter hitters hit driver or 3-wood of the tee. Either of these leaves you a short iron in and a chance at Birdie. If you can hit it 240+ you can bomb and leave yourself a pitch or try and drive the green. Either way this risk can lead to a tricky short side or easy pitch. I just love the creativity and options. A short hitting kid with a good wedge can beat a Big hitter straight up. That is one of the things I love about golf.
acemandrake
May 5, 2015 at 6:12 pm
Any hole where the approach shot is a 7-iron or less.
TJ Horton
May 5, 2015 at 7:14 pm
That’s 90% of the holes i play…
Mke
May 5, 2015 at 5:58 pm
A par 5 you can reach in 2.
Craigar
May 5, 2015 at 2:02 pm
The one thing I have noticed in my area are the some of the disadvantages for the people playing from the forward tees. Most of the par 4’s & 5’s with elevated tee boxes have some sort of forced carry. As you move forward and by the time you get to the forward tee box, not only can you not see the flag most of the time, there are a few holes you can’t even see the 150 yard marker due to the hill you have to hit over. I am not sure how you can reverse the tee boxes to where the forward tee boxes are at the highest point and the tips are at the lowest to challenge the better players. The problem I have witnessed is that the majority of the players from the forward tees have the length to get to the 150 yd marker on a par 4, but don’t have the height to make it over the hill. Theoretically these become a par 5 for most of those players. My wife doesn’t complain because that is just the way has been for decades, but I have seen younger women starting out get frustrated and quit after a couple of years. Unfortunately I don’t know if there is a cost effective way to rectify the situation.
MHendon
May 5, 2015 at 11:54 am
Well if you putt a gun to my head and made me pick one over the other I guess it would be a par 5 for the chance at eagle. However I like them all, a par 3 gives you a chance at one swing glory for a hole in one, long par 4’s give me the opportunity to stripe a long iron onto the green, and short par 4’s give you a chance to drive the green. Any one of the above scenarios will have you sticking your chest out a little more than usual. The one hole I don’t like is the supper long par 5 that even with your best drive you still have to lay up.