Play Smarter with Wayne ‘Radar’ Riley – Par 3s

14 November 2024

Next up in our ‘Play Smarter’ with Wayne ‘Radar’ Riley series we look at amateur golfers scoring on Par 3s.

Many golfers, incorrectly, see par 3s as ‘easier’ holes on the course with them being shorter, sometimes only requiring a flick with a wedge, but this is not the case.

In fact, for the average amateur golfer, par 3s typically play just shy of a full stroke over par!

From the continually growing Shot Scope database of over 350 million shots, 15 handicappers have a scoring average of 3.9 on par 3s (for all par 3s).

With a scoring average of 3.9, the typical amateur golfer is more likely to bogey the hole than par it! Let alone make a magic two! (birdie).

Why are players more likely to make bogey than par? Greens in Regulation.

On a par 100-150yd par 3, a 15hcp golfer has a 37% chance of hitting the green, basically finding the putting surface every 4 in 10 attempts.

So essentially, players are more likely to miss the green and be required to attempt an up and down which comes with its own challenges depending on lie type, proximity, etc.

Depending on how big a miss they have, their chances of getting up and down can change drastically, here we have the stats from two different distances.

In general, they have a 34% chance of getting up and down but as we can see from the data above, there is a significant difference between a near miss and a large one.

Should players miss the green by more than 25yds, escaping with a bogey in many respects is a ‘good bogey’ as it would be very easy to compound the error and make a double from this position.

Hitting the green, regardless of how close to the pin, should be your primary goal at a par 3 because putting isn’t easy – hole maps and green view available on the X5 and V5 allow players to identify the largest part of the green, making picking your target easier than ever.

For the typical amateur golfer, unless they hit their shot inside 6ft, chances are they will be looking at a two putt.

Continuing with our 100-150yd distance example, on a hole of this length, the 15hcp amateur has an average proximity of 57ft which unsurprisingly, they are not very likely to hole.

To avoid a three putt, they would need to get their first putt inside 6ft to have a 60% chance of holing the next putt – which is still not a gimme.

So with the data presented above, we would argue that a par on a par 3 is really like making a birdie because a lot of people will drop a shot, if not more – and that is for relatively short par 3s!

Quickly, for longer par 3s, the chances of the average amateur hitting the green in regulation drop significantly:

Those longer par 3s can cause some real problems for scoring so next time you are playing, bear in mind that finding the green is a good shot, and escaping with a par is gaining you strokes.

If you want to learn how you perform on par 3s, 4s, 5s and much more including Strokes Gained and Handicap Benchmarking, then check out some of the Shot Scope performance tracking products.

With no subscription fees and lifetime free updates, Shot Scope shot tracking technology makes game improvement accessible to all golfers.

On average, our tracking users improve by 4.1 strokes after 30 recorded rounds and you can too!

Get the most out of your game with Shot Scope.

_{To read more from Wayne ‘Radar’ Riley click here.}