Where you should play from!

[Billy-Bo-Jim-Bob]

2 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

Played back tees again this morning. It makes way more sense to me. I have a variety of shots going in. I can't just take driver and carry all the trouble and it means the par 5s are still getable with 2 good shots. 

Add to that my scores aren't that different and if anything I have played better when playing back tees. 

It was kinda fun today as well because each person of the 4some played different tees.

Good for you!

[Billy-Bo-Jim-Bob]

8 hours ago, Davey99 said:

I lettered in golf in high school in 1969.   I played the blue tees until I was 50.   I  played the white (next men's tee) until I was 65.  (sometimes went to senior tees on long courses when 63)   I will play the senior tees from now on.   I see some of my other 70+ year old buddies move back to the whites when we have a young man playing with us.   

They don't generally hit it as far as I do.   And I see them struggling to keep up.   They hit a lot of fairway woods into greens.   I don't really understand why they do that, but it's not my call.  

That's a shame.

[Billy-Bo-Jim-Bob]

9 hours ago, Golfgirl8350 said:

Sure, hit from tees that make the game enjoyable...except so many guys think that playing 5400-5600 yards would be embarrassing, especially if that means playing from tees forward of where their pals are teeing off. Ego and fear, ego and fear. And then there's the average woman golfer who hits her tee shots 150 yards or less. Most every golf course I've played over the last 30 years places forward tees between 5000 and 5400 yards. That's 600 to 1000 yards too long for most women and seniors. And you guys who barely make it 200 yards on a good drive...5600 yards should be your max course length. (Do the math!)

Could not agree more.....shorter is more fun when you can score.

[DrRob1963]

I like to mix it up! Sometimes the Tigers, other times the 'regular mens' tees and then also the 'short mens' tees. More places = more fun.

Our club runs competitions most days and they do vary the competition tee of the day as well. On the Monthly Medal days, they even run two comps - the "Medal' from the tips, and a Stableford from the 'short mens' tees - and you get to choose your comp.... How good is that???

Edited July 12, 2023 by DrRob1963
clarify that you get to choose your tees on Medal days

[Thegolfdean7]

While most of us play from the whites while we age, I came to realize that we were being shorted. It seems every PGA tour pro has a handicap under par on the par fives, why ? Well because they can reach them, but we can not. Par fours they come in with a medium or short iron, and here and there is a reachable par four, we or I never have seen one near where I play. They only place we get some kind of a break is par threes it seems, theirs seem very long today. Even playing the senior tees at my home course would not put me on the par fives in two, it does make the par fours reachable. Then when we play or club championship they put the 7’s and below on the blue tees, where there is today one player who could reach the fives, and a handful who can get to the fours. Not very well thought out it seems, I would think to keep it fair we need to rethink the tees or all courses could use a hybrid system and move the tees to make the par fives reachable on 2 real good swings. 

[GaDawg]

On 7/9/2023 at 1:14 PM, Wmyoungiv said:

My experience is carts are the biggest issue with pace of play and the users not understanding ready golf. 

Ready golf is one of the main issues. Most of the time in a foursome, three golfers are standing around waiting/watching the others get their yardage, select a club, check the wind, change clubs, put on a glove and maybe finally hit. Then go to the next golfers ball and do it all over again.

[Alan Scalzi]

31 minutes ago, GaDawg said:

Ready golf is one of the main issues. Most of the time in a foursome, three golfers are standing around waiting/watching the others get their yardage, select a club, check the wind, change clubs, put on a glove and maybe finally hit. Then go to the next golfers ball and do it all over again.

Wow played a round yesterday.  5hrs and 30min! With the strom thenight before it was cart path only, to keep pace we would  carry it seemed like half our bag with us sometimes just hit what we had in our hands because of the lie and distance! 

[Wmyoungiv]

On 7/16/2023 at 3:44 PM, GaDawg said:

Ready golf is one of the main issues. Most of the time in a foursome, three golfers are standing around waiting/watching the others get their yardage, select a club, check the wind, change clubs, put on a glove and maybe finally hit. Then go to the next golfers ball and do it all over again.

Yes! That I was just taking it a step further, because I feel like the cart has exacerbated that. When walking most people split up and go their ball, improving the shot time, but with a cart, most people drive to the first ball and then wait to drive to the second ball. 

When I am forced to use a cart I usually drop my playing partner off at their ball and either walk to mine with one or two clubs or take the cart and have them walk back to the cart. This is better than going to my ball and then having them sit there waiting on me. 

[Wmyoungiv]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:20 PM, Alan Scalzi said:

Wow played a round yesterday.  5hrs and 30min! With the strom thenight before it was cart path only, to keep pace we would  carry it seemed like half our bag with us sometimes just hit what we had in our hands because of the lie and distance! 

I feel like when it is cart path only they should encourage walking and or using a pull cart. But honestly, I think the research shows slower pace of play with a cart than walking. This could be flawed, as walkers are usually more seasoned players and sometimes better players. 

[Rygolf32]

At my club, all leagues are from the whites (for men) unless they are seniors. For tournaments, it's based on handicap/flight where the championship flight plays the blacks and the rest play the whites.

As for regular play, I rarely see golfers play the back tees unless there is a group of 4 very good golfers (low single digit hdcps generally). 

Many others have noted, pace of play needs to keep up and not playing ready golf seems to hinder pace more than the set of tees played.

[Golf2Much]

My club always seemed to promote the sex and age-based tee philosophy:  Men tips=blue, men's=white, senior men=gold and women=red tees.  The men had no ratings for the red tees while the women had no rating for the blue tees. 

That is until the senior-aged owner of the course seemed to be struggling a little from the senior gold tees and decreed that the reds were no longer solely for the women and asked if my Florida State Golf Association contact could develop a men's red tee rating and index.  Since they already had the data, within 2 hours we had the men's red tee information to go.  Having it in hand and having it used were two different things!

It took abouts three or four weeks after announcing the men could play from the red tees and post scores before a frustrated senior player finally stepped up to the red tee for the first time.  Everyone talked about it, but it took a brave soul to step forward (literally) and play the reds.  After that, the barrier was broken and more threatened to move up as well.

Now I need to work on getting the blue tees rated for the women!

[FallenSaber]

I've seen a trend of courses getting away from the Gender/Age based recommendations and focusing more on capabilities. Torrey Pines currently has up a sign that breaks down recommended tees by handicap and driving distance. For instance, if your handicap is between 18-24, they recommended the white tees. I think the green tees were for anyone between 11 and 17.

[Kenny B]

3 hours ago, Golf2Much said:

My club always seemed to promote the sex and age-based tee philosophy:  Men tips=blue, men's=white, senior men=gold and women=red tees.  The men had no ratings for the red tees while the women had no rating for the blue tees. 

That is until the senior-aged owner of the course seemed to be struggling a little from the senior gold tees and decreed that the reds were no longer solely for the women and asked if my Florida State Golf Association contact could develop a men's red tee rating and index.  Since they already had the data, within 2 hours we had the men's red tee information to go.  Having it in hand and having it used were two different things!

It took abouts three or four weeks after announcing the men could play from the red tees and post scores before a frustrated senior player finally stepped up to the red tee for the first time.  Everyone talked about it, but it took a brave soul to step forward (literally) and play the reds.  After that, the barrier was broken and more threatened to move up as well.

Now I need to work on getting the blue tees rated for the women!

We have some guys here that play from the Red tees, but I don't think they really care about handicaps.  Maybe the Red tees are rated for men, I don't know but it isn't listed on the scorecard.  I'm not sure how Corky manages since he plays in the daily Men's gangsome from the Red tees, but he's 94.  

Our Blue tees are rated for Women since we have some darn good junior players... 74.6/130

We have two par 3's that have teeing ground forward of the Red tees that have never been used in the 8 years since we've been members.  The Red tees on those two holes have been located with the White tees.  This year, they moved the Red tee markers up to those locations.  My wife refuses to play from there except in league events, because the course rating was determined with the Red tees at the White tee locations.  If she routinely played from those new locations, her index would likely drop since she would likely score lower (very short distances that reduces impact of bunkers).  That would affect their ability to compete with other clubs.

[ctg44]

On 7/11/2023 at 5:20 AM, GolfSpy_APH said:

Played back tees again this morning. It makes way more sense to me. I have a variety of shots going in. I can't just take driver and carry all the trouble and it means the par 5s are still getable with 2 good shots. 

Add to that my scores aren't that different and if anything I have played better when playing back tees. 

It was kinda fun today as well because each person of the 4some played different tees.

We have two (2) courses at our club, and on one of them, I'm almost always better from the back (gold) tees than I am from the next ones up (blue).  On the other course, the gold tees are a true challenge that I play when I'm feeling 100%.  This weekend, I played the blue tees on that course, as did some guys much older than me at not quite 50 years old.   They consistently were hitting their 2nd shots shorter than my drives and even shorter than my wife's drives most of the time.  These guys has ZERO business being anywhere farther back then the red tees (senior men's / women's) and were additionally so inaccurate at their short lengths that there was way too much time spent doing ball hunts in the trees or along fences.  Most of these guys were 15+ handicaps at least, because my 11-13 handicap wife would easily have beaten at least 3 of the 4 of them from the same tees (and Saturday was not her day w/ the driver even...she struggled mightily) no matter what tees they used.  Using the proper tees would at least have helped these guys get to at least 1 of the 12 greens they played in front of us in regulation...but since they played from the same tees as me, they couldn't even reach par 5s in 3 shots.  Given the complete lack of ready golf etiquette they also rampantly displayed, it made for a painfully slow 12 holes.  In contrast, my wife and I went back out for 9 holes Sunday afternoon and made it around in under 80 minutes, even though she was playing very poorly compared to her normal and I couldn't convert an up and down to save par at all.

[GaDawg]

I don't too worked up regarding which tees people play as long as they play ready golf. This past Saturday, we had a twosome in front of us, Father/Son. I noticed on the range that the son could not hit the ball out of his shadow, so we knew it was going to be a long day.

On the first hole, the Father started giving the son lessons in the fairway. It continued for almost every hole. By the time we reached hole 14, I had about had enough. We were standing on the tee waiting to hit and the son who was around 20 yrs old had been running from one side of the fairway to the other picking up his dribbled shots, then running back beside the cart dropping it for about the 4th time getting instructions from his Father who could not hit it beyond 100 yards. I just drove up and asked if we could play through? The Father looked at me like a mad maniac and yelled no. I replied that they should be back on the practice range learning how to hit the ball and golf etiquette. He huffed and puffed and proceeded to hurry up with their round.

Unfortunately, our club does not do much marshaling, someone's feeling might get hurt. LOL

[Kenny B]

1 hour ago, GaDawg said:

I don't too worked up regarding which tees people play as long as they play ready golf. This past Saturday, we had a twosome in front of us, Father/Son. I noticed on the range that the son could not hit the ball out of his shadow, so we knew it was going to be a long day.

On the first hole, the Father started giving the son lessons in the fairway. It continued for almost every hole. By the time we reached hole 14, I had about had enough. We were standing on the tee waiting to hit and the son who was around 20 yrs old had been running from one side of the fairway to the other picking up his dribbled shots, then running back beside the cart dropping it for about the 4th time getting instructions from his Father who could not hit it beyond 100 yards. I just drove up and asked if we could play through? The Father looked at me like a mad maniac and yelled no. I replied that they should be back on the practice range learning how to hit the ball and golf etiquette. He huffed and puffed and proceeded to hurry up with their round.

Unfortunately, our club does not do much marshaling, someone's feeling might get hurt. LOL

Why did you wait so long Marshal GaDawg?  

[Brooky03]

I’ve gotten in the habit lately of checking the par 5 distances to decide between the “men’s tees” (white) or “tips” (blue) as I’ve played more courses lately with my boss.  Based on a good (not great or exceptional, but maybe better than average) drive, I try to determine if I’m within 3wood distance on my 2nd shot on the shorter par 5’s.  If I am, I move back to the blues.  If I’m 3wood or longer, I play the whites.

I‘ve never calculated a handicap for myself, but best guess is somewhere in the high teens, so I don’t tend to score all that well.  That said, I wouldn’t enjoy playing driver, iron on par 5’s.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Brooky03

[MNMGA2023]

I've almost always played the white tees.  I'm an 11 handicap.  I joined a league this year that plays one set of tees back (not at the tips, though) and I've really enjoyed playing the longer distances...it's only 300 yards longer, but it's more of a fit for my game.   NOW, going back to the tips would not go will for me...adding ANOTHER 300 yards seems like too much.

 

 

So, play from where you feel comfortable, play ready golf and have fun!

[Jason Blank]

I used to always play from the tips, because I wanted to play the whole course. But being a 12 handicap a moved to the whites a few years ago and am so much happier with my game! 

[Ryan M]

On 7/10/2023 at 10:31 AM, Ryan M said:

Wasn't there an article recently talking about D/7# distance and how you should pick a tee box? Or at least your "default" tee box, the one you play the most rounds from.

I also try to play several other tees over the season to ensure I get different clubs in my hand and have to play holes differently.

FWIW, I find that I shoot similar scores from the Blue vs. White at my home course, and I get a handicap bump by playing blue tees. So I have been playing there more to improve my handicap. However, my home course isn't terribly long to begin with (Blue: 6,279; White: 5,855; and elevation of about 4,500 ft above sea level). To make up for the lack of length, the course has water in play on 13 holes, narrow tree-lined fairways, bunkers everywhere, and fast greens. So, you can't really overpower the course.

[Josh Parker]

At my course the big difference from the back tees and next set up, is the par 3's.  They all jump up to over 200yds with the longest being around 220.  I will play the back tees from time to time if its just me playing and want to get a different look at the course.  

[Preeway]

23 minutes ago, jdparker said:

At my course the big difference from the back tees and next set up, is the par 3's.  They all jump up to over 200yds with the longest being around 220.  I will play the back tees from time to time if its just me playing and want to get a different look at the course.  

I find this to be the case at many courses I play. The back tees don’t usually make a huge difference on the 4’s and 5’s but the par 3’s are usually quite a bit harder as they jump from mid iron to long iron/hybrid. 

[Josh Parker]

40 minutes ago, Preeway said:

I find this to be the case at many courses I play. The back tees don’t usually make a huge difference on the 4’s and 5’s but the par 3’s are usually quite a bit harder as they jump from mid iron to long iron/hybrid. 

Yeah a few courses around here the par 5s see a huge difference as well but my home course it may be 20 yards difference.  

[Preeway]

I try to play most courses at 6400-6500 yds so jumping to 6800+ doesn't usually result in the 4's and 5's seeing big jumps. And since I rarely go for the 5's in two shots, jumping from 480-500 al the way to 550+ doesn't mean much except for a bigger adjustment in the club used on my second shot. But dang, when a par 3 goes from 170 all the way to 210-220 it really messes with my mental game more than it probably should.

[Josh Parker]

1 minute ago, Preeway said:

I try to play most courses at 6400-6500 yds so jumping to 6800+ doesn't usually result in the 4's and 5's seeing big jumps. And since I rarely go for the 5's in two shots, jumping from 480-500 al the way to 550+ doesn't mean much except for a bigger adjustment in the club used on my second shot. But dang, when a par 3 goes from 170 all the way to 210-220 it really messes with my mental game more than it probably should.

For sure. I typically will play par 5s as three shots as well.  Unless I just have a killer drive. Most of the par 5s have trees in the way which makes going for it in two tough. 

Yeah it's a big jump and even though I'm loving my new zx5s in the long irons it's a higher risk shot on my course from the back tees. Our greens are mostly elevated with large slopes on one side. Ha. 

[vandyland]

I used to very militant about playing courses short. That was my favorite topic to debate with other golfers. I basically thought EVERYONE should be playing shorter than they were. I am have since backed off that take for several reasons. (1) As long as someone is keeping up with pace of play they can play as far back as they want, even if I think some people are insane to do that. (2) I do see what people mean when they say they like hitting a bunch of different clubs in a round. Especially when you are playing well. (3) It can almost be dangerous to play too close up if you are a long hitter. Or you look like a donkey waiting for several par 4s and par 5s to clear before you hit. 

So I am repeating what some people have already said but the TYPE of course matters a lot in what tees I play. 

Type 1: Parkland course without a ton of O.B., landing zones off the tee around 50 yds wide or so not a ton of water, etc. I am playing 6,300 - 6,600 yds here. (think Pursell Farms or Sand Valley)

Type 2: "Florida Golf" which is typically retention pond O.B. left and houses right (or vice versa) with 40 yd or less landing zones and just trouble everywhere. Or otherwise any TIGHT golf course, (think Harbour Town or Caledonia) I am playing 5,800 - 6,000 yds here. 

Type 3: Oceangolf which obviously has ocean OB and can play differently based on how much wind, etc. This just depends on conditions but I would play as short as 5,600 or as long as 6,400 (think Ocean Course at Kiawah or Pebble Beach)

If I am on vacation and just want to have fun I will typically play a little shorter. For a course I play all the time I tend to skew longer. Like @Ryan M said, I get a hdcp bump from the blue tees at my club and I never make many putts so I truly could shoot a very similar score from 6,000 yds or 6,500 yds. I don't play the tips out of principle but that would probably help my hdcp index even more (not looking for help there!).