It was a JOKE. Shorten a Par 3 and what do you get?
I went back and now see you wrote “The hole had to be converted to a par 3 from a par 4.” I thought you wrote converted a Par 3 to a Par 4.
Just nosing around a bit, at some point there were plans to build homes adjacent to the golf course. That got nixed for what ever reason at the time...