GET RID OF THE WORD PAR IN GOLF

In order to encourage  more average people to try playing golf, I suggest the following. Get rid of the word .... PAR....

 Golf is a wonderful game. It  is a test golf your individual skills against a golf course. You don’t have a play against a competitor, you can just enjoy the game by improving your own skills. You could argue that keeping score is one of the problems because really who cares what your score is, if you’re enjoying playing.  But, people are driven to keep score. Plus, they want to compare themselves each round_to par for  a given hole.

 Par….. everyone who starts the game regardless of skill level wants to know what the par is for the course. Why Is that? The average golfer in their entire golfing life will never shoot par. Therefore,  the average golfer  should  drop the  par comparison and change to picking a Personal Goal for each hole. Now each person can compare improvements to their own per hole Goal.

  People are constantly complaining that “ golf is such a hard game”.  I think this statement, helps people rationalize why their score it’s so high when compared to par.    On the other hand, I think this statement creates a mindset that keeps people from continuing to play. According to the PGA,  the number of golfers has declined not  because of a drop in the number of new golfers starting the game but  because more existing golfers drop out than new golfers start  the game.

I’m suggesting that the word PAR be dropped and replaced with, GOAL. The scorecard should show the personal goal of each player for each hole.  Start by really getting your head around the fact that par doesn’t exist.  "What’s my goal  for this hole", that’s what has meaning for me.

 For example, the par on the hardest hole on the golf course that I play is a 4. My wife, who is a beginning golfer,  should have a goal of  9 or 10.  Some of the  purists would argue that she should not be playing golf if her goal  is so high. It’s easy to think this way, if you don’t own a golf course or if you’re not the PGA who is trying to  increase the number of new players. 

             ...     PG2  ...    Personal Goal Golf  

 Set your personal goal, then try to beat of meet your goal.