How many pars do you need to break 100?
Mathematically, you can break 100 without making a single par. Breaking 100 is a total-score problem, not a par-counting contest.
The simplest break-100 maths
On a par-72 course, 99 is 27 over par. One perfectly valid route is nine bogeys and nine double bogeys: +9 plus +18 equals +27, giving a total of 99.
That does not mean you should aim to make nine doubles. It means a golfer can stop treating every missed par as evidence that the round is failing.
What a par is actually worth
If you use bogey as a simple baseline, a par earns one shot of breathing room. That shot can absorb a double elsewhere. Two pars can absorb two doubles. But the round never requires a particular number of pars; it requires a total of 99 or fewer.
This is why one ugly hole should be judged by what it costs against your plan, not by how many strokes over course par it looks. An 8 on a Target Par 7 has cost one shot against the target. The gross 8 still counts, but the damage to the plan is only +1.
Blow-up holes matter more than missing pars
A golfer can make no pars and still shoot 99, but a couple of 9s or 10s make the maths much harder. The quickest route to breaking 100 is often reducing penalties, reloads, repeated recovery attempts and three-putt chains rather than trying to manufacture more pars.
If a bad swing has already happened, the next decision should normally make the following shot easier. Turning a likely 7 into a 9 by chasing a miracle recovery is much more damaging than accepting one shot over Target Par.
How Target Par changes the question
Instead of asking “how many pars do I need?”, OKBogey asks “what score does each hole need for these 18 holes to add up to 99?” The extra 27 shots are distributed across the course using hole par and Stroke Index, giving each hole its own Target Par.
A par 4 may therefore have Target Par 5 or 6. On a Target Par 6, making 5 is one under the plan even though it is still a bogey against course par. That is much more useful information during the round.
You may have more shots to reach the green than you think
If Target Par gives you enough room to take three or four controlled shots to reach the green or get greenside, driver is not automatically required. A sequence of clubs you trust can be a better scoring route than forcing driver simply because the scorecard says par 4 or par 5.
The same principle works in reverse: if driver is reliable and removes a difficult long shot later, use it. The target should guide the decision; it should not impose a blanket “safe club” rule.
How OKBogey helps
OKBogey builds a 99-shot Target Par before the round and lets you compare each hole with that plan. You can see when a bogey has actually gained a shot, when a double is simply level, and when an ugly gross number has only cost one shot against the total.