A 550 yard par 5

What the hole costs

The published tee table prices a par 5 by its length: 4.695 strokes to hole out from 550 yards. The tour average beats par here by 0.31, which is why par 5s are where tour scoring is made.

The tee shot

The tee shot model prices a driver of 250 yards with a 22 yard side spread, a 3 wood and a long iron on this hole twice: once open, with nothing to fear inside 90 yards of the line, and once with water 32 yards from it. On the open version the driver prices lowest at 4.767 strokes; with the water in play the long iron prices lowest at 4.805. The trouble, not the fairway width, is what changes the club.

Three clubs off the tee on a 550 yard par 5

Expected strokes counts the tee shot and the hole from where it finishes, with a penalty priced as the stroke plus a replay.

The second shot

From 300 yards the green is out of reach for a 250 yard driver, so the second shot chooses the third. The published fairway table is nearly flat from 60 to 120 yards, which is why laying up to a comfortable number costs almost nothing against laying up to the closest one; advancing as far as a 3 wood goes leaves 70 yards, and the table prices the two against each other.

The second shot from 300 yards

Each figure counts the second shot plus the expected strokes to hole out from where it leaves the ball.

By handicap

The benchmark model adds a fixed per shot gap to the tour figure for each handicap, labeled Modeled. On a 550 yard par 5 the tour average is 4.695 from the tee; a 20 handicap starts at about 5.670. The whole hole gap is larger than the tee figure shows, because every later shot carries its own gap too.

Expected strokes from the tee, by benchmark

In PinFlag

On a 550 yard par 5 PinFlag prices the second shot before you hit it: put the aim on the green and read the strokes gained with your own dispersion and the water priced with the penalty included, put it on the lay up spot and read that. Shot Cloud draws your shots with the club around each target, so the share that reaches the hazard is your own pattern rather than a guess.

Related

• A 540 yard par 5
• A 560 yard par 5
• Par 5 strategy, priced
• Going for it from 280 yards
• Go for it or lay up?
• Every hole, priced

Sources

• PGA TOUR statistics
• Mark Broadie, Columbia Business School (Wikidata entity)
• Golf course, Wikipedia
• How PinFlag calculates strokes gained

Every figure on this page is computed from the published baselines, the same ones PinFlag prices your shots with. The scope of the figures: The tee figure is the published tour table for a hole of this length; the tee shot and second shot figures come from the site’s dispersion models with stated spreads, a stated green and a stated driver distance.