No opponent, no medal total. On every hole you play the card: beat the fixed score after your strokes and you win the hole, match it and it’s halved, do worse and it’s gone. A club-golf staple in Britain and Ireland, and the reason a bogey is called a bogey.
Each hole has a fixed score, par in a Par competition or bogey in a Bogey competition. Take your handicap strokes, then compare: lower wins the hole (+), the same halves it (0), higher or no score loses it (−). Holes won minus holes lost is your result, so +2 beats −1. A lost hole is only one hole, so you can pick up.
A par or bogey competition is stroke play scored like match play, with the course as your opponent. It’s written into the Rules of Golf (Rule 21.3): the committee sets the fixed score for each hole, and each player’s result is holes won minus holes lost.
It’s also where the word bogey comes from. The R&A credits the idea to Coventry Golf Club in 1891: Hugh Rotherham’s “ground score”, a target for each hole that members played against instead of each other. At Great Yarmouth the imaginary opponent became the “Bogey Man”, later promoted to Colonel Bogey. Bogey then meant the score a good player should make, usually par; in time it came to mean one over. The format is still a regular on British and Irish club calendars; Golf Australia notes it’s rarely played in Australia.
Worked example. A 12-handicap in a Par competition gets a stroke on stroke index 1 to 12.
Seven holes won, eight lost and three halved over the round is −1. In a Bogey competition the same round would be well into plus figures.
Par vs. Bogey. Same game, different target. A Bogey competition plays each hole against bogey (normally one over par), which suits higher handicaps and makes plus scores common.
Par & Bogey vs. Stableford. Both are played against a fixed score with strokes by stroke index, but a win is only a win: a net eagle is worth exactly what a net birdie is, one hole. In Stableford it’s worth more points.
Four-ball par. Partners play their own balls and the better net score on each hole takes on the target.
Under the Rules. Because it’s stroke play, the stroke-play rules and penalties apply, but breaches like not holing out cost you the hole rather than disqualification.
Par & Bogey isn’t one of the formats Duck Hook Golf scores yet. The free app scores 32 others — skins, Nassau, Wolf, Vegas, Stableford, Snake and the rest — and does the arithmetic and the settle-up for you.
Get the free app Browse all 52 gamesA par competition is a match against the course. On each hole your net score is compared with par: lower wins the hole, the same halves it, higher loses it. Your result is holes won minus holes lost, and the highest result wins.
Only the target. A Par competition plays each hole against par; a Bogey competition plays against a bogey score set by the committee, normally one over par. Bogey competitions produce higher plus scores.
No. Once you can’t beat or match the fixed score, you can pick up. A hole without a score is simply lost, and under Rule 21.3 not holing out costs the hole, not disqualification.
As in Stableford: each player takes their handicap strokes on the holes where they fall by stroke index, and the net score on each hole is compared with the target.
The bogey competition came first. In 1891 Coventry Golf Club played against a fixed ’ground score’, and at Great Yarmouth the imaginary opponent became the ’Bogey Man’, later Colonel Bogey. Bogey meant the score a good player should make; over time it came to mean one over par.
Same energy, different game. Everything below has a full rules guide of its own.
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