Okay, so the other day I got this random thought stuck in my head: just how many total pars were actually up for grabs during the entire 2023 Masters tournament? Not just the course par, but like, every par, for every player, across all the rounds they played. Seemed like a simple enough question, but figuring it out took a couple of steps.
Figuring it Out
First thing, I knew I needed the par for Augusta National itself. That was easy enough to find, everyone knows it’s a par 72 course. My first thought was, okay, just multiply 72 by the number of players. But wait, that’s not right. They don’t all play the same number of rounds.
So, the next step was figuring out who played how many rounds. I had to look up the specifics for the 2023 tournament.
- I found out that 88 golfers started the tournament on Thursday.
- Then, the cut happened after Friday’s round. I checked how many players made it to the weekend. That number was 54 players.
Alright, now I had the pieces. The guys who missed the cut only played two rounds (Thursday and Friday). The guys who made the cut played all four rounds (Thursday through Sunday).
Time for some basic math, which is about my speed.
First, the players who missed the cut:
88 total starters – 54 who made the cut = 34 players who went home early.
These 34 guys played 2 rounds each. So, 34 players 2 rounds 72 par per round. Let me see… 34 times 2 is 68. Then 68 times 72… comes out to 4,896 pars for those who missed the cut.
Next, the players who made the cut:
There were 54 players who played all 4 rounds.
So, 54 players 4 rounds 72 par per round. Okay, 54 times 4 is 216. Then 216 times 72… that gives 15,552 pars for the weekend warriors.
Finally, just had to add those two numbers together.
4,896 pars (missed cut) + 15,552 pars (made cut) = 20,448 total pars.
So there it is. Took a bit of digging around for the player numbers and the cut line info, but wasn’t too complicated once I broke it down. It’s kinda interesting to think about the total potential score relative to par over the whole event. Just a little exercise I went through.
