What Is Par in Golf? Par 3, 4 and 5 Explained
Updated July 2026
Par is the number of strokes a scratch golfer — a hypothetical zero-handicap player — is expected to need to finish a hole, including two putts once the ball is on the green. Every hole on a course gets assigned its own par, almost entirely based on yardage, and those individual numbers add up to the course's total par, which for a standard 18-hole layout usually lands at 70, 71, or 72. It's the single reference point everything else in golf scoring hangs off of: a birdie doesn't mean anything without par to compare it to, and neither does a bogey.
Key Takeaways
- Par is the expected score for a scratch player on a hole, factoring in two putts once the green is reached.
- It's set mainly by yardage: for men, roughly up to 250 yards is a par 3, 251–470 is a par 4, and 471–690 is a par 5. Ranges shift shorter for women's tees.
- Birdie, bogey, eagle, and every other scoring term are all defined relative to par — none of them are absolute numbers.
- A standard 18-hole course totals par 72 (typically four par 3s, ten par 4s, four par 5s), though 70 and 71 are common too, especially at shorter or resort-style courses.
- The USGA formally added "par" to the rulebook in 1911, but the word had already been borrowed from the stock exchange, where it meant the standard or expected value of a share.
How Is Par Actually Decided for a Hole?
A course rater or committee starts with the hole's measured yardage, then adjusts for what golf administrators call "effective playing length" — elevation change, forced layups, prevailing wind, even altitude, since a ball flies farther in thin mountain air. A flat 400-yard hole and a steeply uphill 400-yard hole don't necessarily play the same par, even though the scorecard yardage is identical. That said, yardage does almost all the heavy lifting. A hole reachable in one well-struck shot is a par 3. A hole that takes a tee shot and a full approach is a par 4. A hole that realistically needs three shots to reach in regulation, even for a strong player, is a par 5.
What Turns a Hole Into a Par 3, 4, or 5?
For men's tees, the widely used guideline puts par 3s at up to roughly 250 yards, par 4s from about 251 to 470 yards, and par 5s from 471 up to around 690 yards — genuinely massive holes past that are rare outside a handful of outlier courses. Women's tees compress those numbers: par 3s up to roughly 210 yards, par 4s from 211 to 400, and par 5s from 401 to 575. Where a hole falls right on a boundary — say 465 yards for men — the committee has some discretion, and course difficulty (green speed, hazards, prevailing wind) can nudge a borderline hole one way or the other. This is also why the exact same yardage can be a par 4 on one course and a par 5 on another; it isn't a hard mathematical cutoff, it's a guideline applied by people rating the course. For a full breakdown of how far each club actually carries, the club distances guide is useful context for figuring out which holes on a given course are realistically reachable in regulation.
How Does Hole Par Add Up to a Course's Total Par?
Add up all 18 individual hole pars and you get the course's total par. The most common configuration on a full-length 18-hole course is par 72: four par 3s, ten par 4s, and four par 5s. Plenty of well-known courses run par 70 or 71 instead, usually by trading a par 5 for a par 4 or adding an extra par 3 into the mix — it doesn't make the course inherently easier or harder, just differently structured. Shorter executive courses or par-3 courses obviously total much lower. When you hear a tour pro is "8-under" through a round, that's their actual stroke total measured against that specific course's total par for the round, not against some universal number.
Where Did the Word "Par" Come From?
It's older than golf. "Par" traces to Latin for "equal," and by the 16th century it was already common in commerce and the stock exchange, describing a share trading at its standard, expected value. Golf writers borrowed the word in the late 1800s to describe theoretically perfect play — reporter A.H. Doleman used it ahead of the 1870 Open Championship at Prestwick to describe the score David Strath and James Anderson had suggested would represent flawless golf. It wasn't official golf vocabulary yet, though. The USGA didn't formally codify "par" until 1911, defining it as perfect play "without flukes and under ordinary weather conditions," while allowing two strokes per green for putting — which is exactly why every hole par still assumes a two-putt.
Once par existed as the baseline, the rest of the scoring vocabulary followed naturally. One shot better is a birdie, two better is an eagle, one worse is a bogey — all of it defined against the number this article is about. If you want the complete rundown of every term above and below par, including how rare an eagle or albatross actually is, the golf scoring terms guide covers the whole ladder.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- No — par is fixed to the hole and the course, not the player. What changes is how a player's score compares to it. Shooting par is a career day for most recreational golfers and a routine outcome for a scratch player, which is really the whole point of using the same fixed number for everyone.
- Yes, by definition — par climbs with yardage. A hole long enough to need three full shots to reach the green in regulation is a par 5; one reachable off the tee is a par 3. The overlap only happens at the edges of the ranges, where committee judgment on difficulty comes into play.
- Shooting around 90 on a par-72 course — roughly a bogey per hole — is a completely respectable recreational standard, often called "bogey golf." If you're tracking your own scores against par regularly, it's also the raw material your handicap gets built from.
- Usually because the layout has fewer par 5s or an extra par 3 relative to a standard configuration — not because the course is necessarily shorter or easier overall. Total par is a function of how the individual holes are set, not a fixed requirement.
- Generally yes, since more total par usually means more total yardage and more shots per group. If pace of play matters to your plans, the how long does a round of golf take guide breaks down what actually affects round length beyond just the course's par.
- Yes. Courses occasionally re-rate holes after renovations, tee changes, or new measurements of effective playing length, and a hole can shift from a par 4 to a par 5 (or vice versa) as a result. It's uncommon but not unheard of, especially after a green is moved or a tee box added well behind the original.