Why do sports use negative numbers?

Sports use negative numbers primarily in contexts like scoring systems and statistics. For example, in Golf, a player's score is often expressed as "under par," which is a negative number indicating how many strokes below the par score they achieved. In some sports, negative numbers can also represent penalties or losses, helping to quantify performance in a way that is easily understandable for fans and analysts. Overall, negative numbers provide a concise way to convey relative performance and outcomes.