Tees and Skill Level: Are We Playing from the Right Distance?

[KJano05]

Tees and Skill Level: Are We Playing from the Right Distance?

Golf has never been more popular, with so many new players joining the game in the past two years. But with this boom, we’re seeing slower play on the course. So here’s a thought: What if more of us chose tees that actually match our skill level? Could that make the game faster and more enjoyable for everyone?

If you’re a higher-handicap golfer, what’s stopping you from moving up to the forward tees? Think about it—hitting more fairways, reaching more greens, and enjoying your round instead of struggling. Not to mention, you’d be helping to keep the pace of play up, making the experience better for everyone on the course.

But beyond just keeping the game moving, could playing from the right tees boost your confidence? It might allow you to focus more on your short game, where the real scoring happens. As you build confidence with those shorter clubs, you can gradually work your way to the longer, more challenging ones.

So, what do you think? Should playing from the appropriate tees become the norm? Could this simple change make the game more fun and help all of us improve?

[Rob Person]

 

Lots of discussion here on this. It gets interesting...

[RetiredBoomer]

Just now, KJano05 said:

 

So, what do you think? Should playing from the appropriate tees become the norm? Could this simple change make the game more fun and help all of us improve?

Valid points, but is playing from the wrong tees what's really slowing up the game?

How about opening up the course and making it easier to play?
How about greens that are easier to hit, easier to hold, and easier to putt?

At least two-thirds of the courses I've seen
could have used more explosives and more heavy machinery
at the beginning phases of their construction.   
More than two-thirds.  Three-quarters.

If you want to get people through a round a little faster, 
give them a course they can play.  

Forward tees just don't cut it in my view, anyway.

[2puttbogey]

@RetiredBoomer has the right idea here. There’s a lot more that goes into golf than just the length of a course. 

[Purdyd]

I’ve run across people who shouldn’t be playing from the tips but still do.

as far as pace of play, I think it is more how people move between shots and how they stage their clubs and or cart

i do agree some courses could do a better job with accommodating different skill levels. Why is there a lake or ice plant in front of a tee box?  Any good player has no issue clearing that obstacle but take a young junior or elderly senior and it is a different story.

and I don’t understand putting a pin on the edge of a green when it’s not a tournament.

i have found myself this summer playing from the forward tees with a senior group.  It’s given me a chance to get back into playing shape after recovering from a pretty severe broken leg.

i suppose i could tee off separately from the whites but that seems to defeat the purpose of playing with people and the camaraderie at the tee box.

so I hit an iron off the tee.

 

 

[Rob Person]

4 hours ago, Purdyd said:

suppose i could tee off separately from the whites but that seems to defeat the purpose of playing with people and the camaraderie at the tee box.

Now this is something you don't see mentioned alot. 

I've done this a couple of times for FUN rounds.

Front tees, I let them drive, scope the longest one, and use a club that somewhat matches that distance.  It keeps everyone together-ish.

[Stuka44]

Many valid points.  I believe a few things are key.

First:  How bad you are, has no "real" correlation to how slowly you play. It is primarily about ATTITUDE, AND INDIFFERENCE!  Many good players are TERRIBLY SLOW.  Bad players can play adequately fast from any distance really.  It is incumbent upon those playing with the bad player, to NOT ALLOW them to waste time.  The same is true for good slow players.  In my weekend group, we remind everyone new, of many things.  There is no honor on the tee, if you are READY TEE OFF, on the green, unless you would LITERALLY be in my way, you can be on the other side, or off to the side and be lining up your closer putt, while I am putting my longer putt.  You don't have to wait until I am done to move in and line yours up. We don't care what score you keep, with that in mind, we do not take strokes for balls lost in play, (as we don't have galleries, or marshals) wherever you think it disappeared in the rough, drop another and play on NO STROKE.  After your approach you should never sit in the cart empty handed.  You know you are gong to need your putter, and/or a wedge, pull them while returning your approach club.

All these things, and I could go on and on.  There is the guy who is supposed to be hitting, is talking.   The guy closer who is ready to hit, not hitting even though he can be done hitting, before the guy farther away is even ready.  The list of wasted time amongst SLOW PLAYERS is truly endless.  Being bad, really has very little to do with it. It is the person, who plays with slow players, who don't say anything, who bears the brunt of the responsibility.  It requires the ability, especially if you have looked back, and haven't cleared the tee box, when the group behind is clearing the green, to say.  "John your ball is in the tee box, stop talking, and hit, the guys behind us are coming."  Now if anyone's buddy John takes offense, then John should get one of three things. 1 play by himself, 2 be grouped with people he doesn't know, like me, who will tell him "Jesus, come on, this isn't a USGA sanctioned event, I'll give you another ball, drop it and lets go, or 3.  Stop playing.  Sounds harsh I know, but this is the real issue with slow play IMO.  It is truly wasted seconds, which when multiplied by 4 individuals, add up to MANY unnecessary MINUTES to finish a round of golf.

Second:   Many people(good, and bad) take this game far too serious.   This slows their play down.  Many more need to make the primary focus having fun.  Doesn't matter what tee you play, have fun.  YOU ARE NOT, I REPEAT NOT,  A LESSER PERSON, because you play up.  And many I fear allow their, MEANINGLESS WEEKEND GROUP BETS, slow them down, like grinding over a 15 footer is IN ANY WAY GOING TO INCREASE THE LIKLIHOOD OF A MAKE.  It's not.  

Third:  Yes.  Mr. Head Maintenance Guy, I have a question for you.  Exactly, what vacation are you winning, for having un-puttably fast greens, and as we call them "CHAMPIONSHIP SATURDAY" pin placements.

Its not about BAD, its about JUST PLAIN SLOW, and often times these are BETTER PLAYERS, who are INDIFFERENT that their Saturday round starting at 9:30 is going to take them 5 hours to finish, even if they had NOBODY in front of them.  This is a SAD TRUTH.

It is why we play, wherever we can get in, the first 4 tee times of the morning, wherever that is.

Edited Tuesday at 02:01 PM by Stuka44

[Golfishard]

On 9/14/2024 at 10:17 PM, KJano05 said:

Tees and Skill Level: Are We Playing from the Right Distance?

Golf has never been more popular, with so many new players joining the game in the past two years. But with this boom, we’re seeing slower play on the course. So here’s a thought: What if more of us chose tees that actually match our skill level? Could that make the game faster and more enjoyable for everyone?

If you’re a higher-handicap golfer, what’s stopping you from moving up to the forward tees? Think about it—hitting more fairways, reaching more greens, and enjoying your round instead of struggling. Not to mention, you’d be helping to keep the pace of play up, making the experience better for everyone on the course.

But beyond just keeping the game moving, could playing from the right tees boost your confidence? It might allow you to focus more on your short game, where the real scoring happens. As you build confidence with those shorter clubs, you can gradually work your way to the longer, more challenging ones.

So, what do you think? Should playing from the appropriate tees become the norm? Could this simple change make the game more fun and help all of us improve?

As far as tees played I think most wont move up due to the terminology "ladies and senior tees". Lets just call the tees what their colors are. With using tee colors from my home course (red, black, white, blue, yellow) I like red= 100-ish golfer. Black= 90's. White=80's. Blue=70's. yellow= <70. Then when you go play other courses play the tees that are rated as similar difficulty as the course and tees where you play the most, regardless of distance.

All this is already figured out for us and lives on the scorecard. However I would venture to guess that a majority of golfers can't tell you the difference between slope and slope rating, let alone what handicap actually means.

Ultimately though if I ran a course I would just post a pace of play recommendation and etiquette surrounding letting faster players through on #1 and #9. Outside of that I'd like for golfers just to police themselves. People who golf can be a stuffy crowd and golf has enough rules as is. 

[ballhawk]

Play from the tee that gives you the chance to get to the green with your 2nd - par 4's and 3rd - par 5's with a normal shot that you don't have to come out of your shoes to hit. 

Slow play can be fixed via an on course marshal that can and will do the job. Now I know what some will say about those times that people will get mad at him and come close to being physical, but there is a real fix for that. Since it's mostly weekend play that falls into this, I've been to a course that has an off duty LEO as a marshal. The word gets out fast as to not become a jerk if your asked to quicken your pace of play and it's also reduced the amount of folks that tend to imbibe way more than they should. 

[tony@CIC]

On 9/14/2024 at 10:26 PM, RetiredBoomer said:

Valid points, but is playing from the wrong tees what's really slowing up the game?

How about opening up the course and making it easier to play?
How about greens that are easier to hit, easier to hold, and easier to putt?

At least two-thirds of the courses I've seen
could have used more explosives and more heavy machinery
at the beginning phases of their construction.   
More than two-thirds.  Three-quarters.

If you want to get people through a round a little faster, 
give them a course they can play.  

Forward tees just don't cut it in my view, anyway.

One thing I would add is penalizing rough. A rough cut so high that you can't find the ball until you're directly over it. Oh and the landscaping crew that then doesn't blow the rough or fairway after it's cut. I mentioned penalizing rough to our young pro up north a couple of years ago and his smarta##s retort was "well you shouldn't be in the rough" . 

[DaveP043]

On 9/14/2024 at 10:26 PM, RetiredBoomer said:

Valid points, but is playing from the wrong tees what's really slowing up the game?

How about opening up the course and making it easier to play?
How about greens that are easier to hit, easier to hold, and easier to putt?

At least two-thirds of the courses I've seen
could have used more explosives and more heavy machinery
at the beginning phases of their construction.   
More than two-thirds.  Three-quarters.

If you want to get people through a round a little faster, 
give them a course they can play.  

Forward tees just don't cut it in my view, anyway.

That's fine if you're building a new course, but its impractical for most of the thousands of courses currently in operation.  You're talking about taking holes, or entire courses, out of operation for months at a time, costing lots of money in construction, and losing lots of money from the revenue stream.  Are players going to willingly pay for those improvements in the form of higher dues or greens fees?  I'd say probably not.

[DaveP043]

On 9/14/2024 at 10:17 PM, KJano05 said:

Tees and Skill Level: Are We Playing from the Right Distance?

Golf has never been more popular, with so many new players joining the game in the past two years. But with this boom, we’re seeing slower play on the course. So here’s a thought: What if more of us chose tees that actually match our skill level? Could that make the game faster and more enjoyable for everyone?

If you’re a higher-handicap golfer, what’s stopping you from moving up to the forward tees? Think about it—hitting more fairways, reaching more greens, and enjoying your round instead of struggling. Not to mention, you’d be helping to keep the pace of play up, making the experience better for everyone on the course.

But beyond just keeping the game moving, could playing from the right tees boost your confidence? It might allow you to focus more on your short game, where the real scoring happens. As you build confidence with those shorter clubs, you can gradually work your way to the longer, more challenging ones.

So, what do you think? Should playing from the appropriate tees become the norm? Could this simple change make the game more fun and help all of us improve?

This is maybe the third post I've read that seems lifted from some other publication, or generated by AI.  Nevertheless, I'll respond.

As for Pace of Play, we have thousands of other posts discussing that, I won't go down that rabbit hole.

As for enjoyment, I think it might take a large change in attitude for many golfers before they willingly play a shorter tee.  For me, I can find challenge and enjoyment no matter which tees I play, but I've heard and read a lot of folks say "Its no fun (or no challenge) playing a shorter course".  They're just wrong, or they don't don't understand golf.  The goal is to shoot the lowest possible score from whatever tees you play, on whatever course you play.  At my home club, I play at about 6200 yards, those are the "normal" men's tees.  "Senior tees are something like 500 yards shorter.  When I play in Virginia State Golf Association one-day events, I play at about 5800 yards, because that's what tees my age group is assigned to.  I have fun either way, its just a different challenge.  In fact, the challenge from the shorter tees might be even greater, I have to shoot a significantly lower score to "play to my handicap".  

[RetiredBoomer]

28 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

That's fine if you're building a new course, but its impractical for most of the thousands of courses currently in operation.  You're talking about taking holes, or entire courses, out of operation for months at a time, costing lots of money in construction, and losing lots of money from the revenue stream.  Are players going to willingly pay for those improvements in the form of higher dues or greens fees?  I'd say probably not.

Our course shut down for two rears for a complete restoration.  Except for the immediate area around preserved, tactically situated old trees,  it looked like a complete moonscape. 
Even drainage routes were improved and re-routed.

The result was spectacular. The 1906 Donald Ross design was completely restored except for greens which were intentionally made easier to hit, easier to hold, and easier to putt, this to get people around the course more quickly.

[Admittedly, Mr. Ross might have not liked that on a course that barely stretches to 6000 from the tips.}

The declining membership exploded back to glory days.

However, everything you said about the expense is true.
But our club is a laundromat for revenues accrued elsewhere, allegedly but credibly,
and the membership benefits from that.

 

[DaveP043]

2 minutes ago, RetiredBoomer said:

Our course shut down for two rears for a complete restoration.  Except for the immediate area around preserved, tactically situated old trees,  it looked like a complete moonscape. 
Even drainage routes were improved and re-routed.

....

The declining membership exploded back to glory days.

Yeah, I know it happens, that's why I said "most" of the courses.  I'm happy it worked out for you.

3 minutes ago, RetiredBoomer said:

The result was spectacular. The 1906 Donald Ross design was completely restored except for greens which were intentionally made easier to hit, easier to hold, and easier to putt, this to get people around the course more quickly.

I know most of us wouldn't encourage this, but returning green speeds to something similar to what Ross had to work with would also speed up play.  Slopes appropriate for 1920s green speeds are somewhere between terrifying and impossible with currently possible speeds.

[RetiredBoomer]

9 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Yeah, I know it happens, that's why I said "most" of the courses.  I'm happy it worked out for you.

I know most of us wouldn't encourage this, but returning green speeds to something similar to what Ross had to work with would also speed up play.  Slopes appropriate for 1920s green speeds are somewhere between terrifying and impossible with currently possible speeds.

Thanks, Dave.

[vandyland]

On 9/14/2024 at 11:39 PM, Purdyd said:

camaraderie at the tee box.

Camaraderie on the tee box is wildly overrated, in my opinion. In fact people that start telling a story on the tee box so everyone else has to stop and wait to hit until the story is over is a further contributor to slow play, save that for the 19th hole.

[PrayingForPar]

Seems like your OP is about speeding up the round. Slow rounds are not due to handicap or ability, they are due to a lack of etiquette and courtesy; Like not letting groups play through, acting like it's the final round of a tournament on every green, or taking an extra 5-10 minutes to tell a story on the tee box, as  @vandylandstated.

It's also crazy that these courses are having foursomes tee off 8 minutes apart on the weekends! No wonder things get backed up and take forever to finish a round.

[Boris119]

I play with a senior group at our local course. Generally we keep our own score for handicap, but the score for our money is stableford. We generally play as 4 somes and tee off at 0800. In general all four 4somes are back at the clubhouse in 3.5 hours. There are a few days when we catch a 2 some in front of it, that teed off about 15 minutes before our first 4 some. We play ready golf. And spend less than 2 minutes looking for lost balls.

[Hacker60521]

I listened to an interesting podcast about this. They figured out that Rory McIlroy’s average drive is around 325 yards and the pga tour course is 7200 yards. So his drive is roughly 4.5% of the course length. So an average golfer who drives 225 should try a course length of around. 5000 yards to feel like Rory. I’m totally trying this just to see how it feels. 

[vandyland]

15 hours ago, Hacker60521 said:

I listened to an interesting podcast about this. They figured out that Rory McIlroy’s average drive is around 325 yards and the pga tour course is 7200 yards. So his drive is roughly 4.5% of the course length. So an average golfer who drives 225 should try a course length of around. 5000 yards to feel like Rory. I’m totally trying this just to see how it feels. 

This is a drum I bang a lot. I drive it about 265 so for me to experience the same the course length as a percentage of average drive that would be 5,900 yds. Do you want to guess how many people that drive it 260-280 yds play a sub 6,000 yd course? Other than me, I can't say I see it a whole lot. Also, don't forget that Rory hits hit 7 iron like 185 yds so we are giving up a ton of yardage there as well. 

[DaveP043]

23 minutes ago, vandyland said:

This is a drum I bang a lot. I drive it about 265 so for me to experience the same the course length as a percentage of average drive that would be 5,900 yds. Do you want to guess how many people that drive it 260-280 yds play a sub 6,000 yd course? Other than me, I can't say I see it a whole lot. Also, don't forget that Rory hits hit 7 iron like 185 yds so we are giving up a ton of yardage there as well. 

No doubt you're right, I'm much shorter and I still play about 6200 yards at my home club.  When I travel, I generally look for tees in the 6000-6200 yard range.  I said earlier, when I play VSGA one-day events, my age group (I'm 68) plays 5700-5800 yards, and I hit more short irons.  I'd have fun playing 5300 yards, which might be even more appropriate to my driving distance, although I hardly ever do that.