What Is Par in Golf? A Clear, Complete Guide

Par is the number of strokes a skilled golfer is expected to need to finish a hole, or a full round. Every hole on a course carries its own par, usually 3, 4, or 5, and adding up all 18 gives you the course par, typically somewhere between 69 and 73. Your score is judged against that number: fewer strokes than par is good, more is not.

What does par actually mean?

Think of par as the target, not a rule you have to hit. It tells you how many strokes a scratch golfer, someone with a handicap of zero, should need on a hole under normal conditions. That number already includes two putts once the ball is on the green. So a par 4 assumes two shots to reach the green and two putts to finish.

Most golfers, even good ones, don’t play to par very often. The average golfer in the United States shoots well over 90 for 18 holes, far above a typical par of 72. That gap is normal. Par exists as a fixed yardstick, not a prediction of how any one person will actually score.

Par also shows up as its own way of keeping score, separate from simply counting total strokes. In a format called par, or bogey, competition, you compare your result on each hole directly against that hole’s par rather than adding up an overall total. Win more holes than you lose against par and you win the round, the same logic used in match play against another golfer. It’s a common format for casual and club golf because a bad hole doesn’t wreck your whole card the way it can in ordinary stroke play.

How is par decided for a single hole?

Par is set mainly by distance, with the course architect and ratings bodies factoring in the hole’s layout too. The USGA sets yardage guidelines that most American courses follow when assigning par to each hole:

Those ranges assume a scratch golfer can reach the green in one shot fewer than the par number, then two-putt. On a par 3, that means driving straight onto the green. On a par 4, it means a tee shot followed by one approach. On a par 5, it means two long shots before the approach.

Distance is the starting point, not the whole story. A hole’s real difficulty, called its effective playing length, also depends on elevation change, prevailing wind, forced layup areas, and altitude. A 500-yard hole that plays steeply downhill can get rated as a par 4 instead of a par 5, and a short hole guarded by water or a blind green can play harder than its yardage suggests. This is why you’ll occasionally see a tournament hole with a yardage that looks off for its par. Course raters are adjusting for how the hole actually plays, not just how it measures on paper.

These yardage brackets have shifted over time as equipment and players got longer off the tee. When the USGA first put numbers on par in 1911, a par 3 topped out at 225 yards and a par 5 started at 426 yards, both noticeably shorter than today’s cutoffs. The brackets get revisited occasionally to keep pace with how far the modern game is actually played, which is one reason a course built decades ago can feel short by current par standards even though nothing about the layout has changed.

What’s the par for a full round?

Add the par of every hole you play and you get the course par. A standard 18-hole course mixes par 3s, par 4s, and par 5s, most often landing on a total of 70, 71, or 72. Par 72 is the most common figure for a full-length course, usually made up of four par 3s, ten par 4s, and four par 5s, though the exact mix varies by layout.

Shorter courses built for beginners, families, or quick rounds, sometimes called executive or par-3 courses, are almost entirely par 3 holes and carry a much lower total, often in the mid-50s. Nine-hole courses simply use half that number, so a nine-hole layout with a par of 36 mirrors the front or back nine of a full par-72 course.

Once you know the course par, your score makes sense as a single number relative to it. Shoot 78 on a par-72 course and you’re 6 over par. Shoot 68 and you’re 4 under. Professionals talk in these terms because it lets you compare performances across completely different courses. A player who shoots 66 at a par-70 course and another who shoots 68 at a par-72 course both finished 4 under, even though their raw totals differ by two strokes, and that shared language is exactly why par matters more than the number on the scorecard alone.

What do birdie, bogey, eagle, and the rest mean?

Every score in relation to par has its own name, and these are the words you’ll hear most on any course or broadcast.

• Eagle: two strokes under par on a hole.
• Birdie: one stroke under par.
• Par: matching the hole’s par exactly.
• Bogey: one stroke over par.
• Double bogey: two strokes over par.
• Albatross: three strokes under par, rare enough that most golfers never make one.

A hole-in-one on a par 3 is an eagle. On a par 5, reaching the green in two shots and sinking the putt for a 3 is an albatross, one of the rarest feats in golf. These terms work the same way whether you’re comparing a single hole or your whole round: an 18-hole score of 70 on a par-72 course is described as “2 under.”

Where does the word “par” come from?

Par has nothing to do with golf originally. It’s a Latin word for “equal,” and it showed up in stock trading long before anyone used it on a course, describing a share trading at, above, or below its normal value. Golf borrowed the term in 1870, when the Scottish golf writer A. H. Doleman asked two professionals what a perfect score would look like at the Open Championship in Prestwick. Their answer, a combined 49 strokes over the course’s 12 holes at the time, became the benchmark he called “par.”

For decades afterward, golfers mostly used a different word, bogey, to describe the target score, a name borrowed from a popular song about an elusive “Bogey Man.” Par didn’t become the standard term until 1911, when the USGA formally defined it as expert play under ordinary conditions, allowing two putts per green. Bogey survived too, but its meaning flipped: instead of the target score, it came to mean one stroke worse than that target, which is still what it means today.

Why does par matter beyond your scorecard?

Par is the backbone of how golf compares players, courses, and skill levels. A scratch golfer is, by definition, someone who plays to the course par on average. Your handicap, the number used to adjust your score so you can compete fairly against players of different abilities, is built around how far your typical rounds run above par.

Course difficulty also gets measured against par through two other numbers you’ll see on a scorecard: course rating and slope rating. Course rating estimates the score a scratch golfer would shoot on that specific course, while slope rating measures how much harder the course plays for an average golfer compared to a scratch one, on a scale from 55 to 155, with 113 as the baseline for standard difficulty. Both numbers exist because raw par alone doesn’t capture everything about how tough a course actually plays, factoring in hazards, green speed, rough, and layout in a way a simple 72 can’t.

For a casual round, none of this needs to slow you down. Just knowing the par of each hole tells you what a good result looks like before you even tee off, and it gives you a simple way to track whether your game is improving over time.

Conclusion

Par is the expected number of strokes a skilled golfer needs to finish a hole or a round, set mainly by yardage and refined by how a hole actually plays. It gives every score a shared reference point, from a single hole to an entire tournament, and it’s the foundation for handicaps, course ratings, and the birdie-bogey language you’ll hear on any course. Learn the par of the holes you’re playing, and your scorecard starts making a lot more sense.

Frequently asked questions

Is a higher or lower par better for a golf course? Neither is inherently better. Par reflects a course’s length and layout, not its quality. A par-70 course can be just as challenging or enjoyable as a par-72 course.

What is considered a good score compared to par for a beginner? Breaking 100 on a par-72 course is a common early goal for new golfers. Shooting close to par takes years of consistent practice, even for strong amateurs.

Can a hole have a different par for men and women? Yes. Because yardage guidelines differ by gender, the same tee box can carry a different par for men and women, especially on holes near a distance cutoff.

Why do some holes have a par of 6? Very long holes, generally over 690 yards for men, exceed the typical par-5 range and get rated as a par 6. These are uncommon outside a handful of specialty courses.

Does par change based on which tees you play? It can. Forward, middle, and back tees change a hole’s yardage, and if that shift crosses a par threshold, the hole’s par can differ from one tee to the next.

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