Historically, ‘even fours’ or, in other words, a total of 72, became the unofficial standard for stroke play scoring on an 18-hole golf course long before Scottish-born architect Alister MacKenzie incorporated the idea into his design of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia during the Great Depression. Today, a symmetrical balance of holes – that is, four par-3s, 10 par-4s and four-par-5s – with distance balanced, more or less, between the front and back nines, remains the most common configuration for an 18-hole golf course, championship or otherwise.
Consequently, longer, par-6 or even par-7, golf holes remain a curiosity for most golfers, especially for those in the professional ranks. They do, of course, exist; although not ‘officially’ tackled by professionals, the longest hole in the world is the 1,098-yard, par-7 third hole on the Jeongeup Course at the Gunsan Country Club in North Jeolla Province, South Korea. Professionals on the various tours in Europe and the United States get off lightly, by comparison, but still have to do their fair share of yomping from time to time.
On the PGA Tour, the longest hole played, so far, was the 690-yard, par-5 ninth hole on the North Course at The Gallery Golf Club in Marana, Arizona during the 1991 Tucson Open; the tournament was won by 21-year-old amateur Phil Mickelson. On the Korn Ferry Tour, the developmental tour for the PGA Tour, TPC Colorado, home of The Ascendant, features the longest par-5 in professional golf, the 773-yard thirteenth hole, aptly named ‘Longer Still’. The grandaddy of them all, though, is reserved for players on the European Challenge Tour. In the 2019 D+D Real Slovakian Challenge on the Legends course at Penati Golf Resort in Senica, Slovakia, the par-6 fifteenth hole measured 783 yards, making it the longest hole in professional golf.