Correct Tee question ...

[inthehole]

I've seen some cases of guys who struggle to break 90 consistently playing from the blue tee's (typically 6500+ yds).    Doesn't it makes sense to get your score down to a point where you're shooting much lower than that from say the white tee's (+/- 6100 yds), THEN move back to blues if you really want to challenge yourself ?

Hey, its all good, but just seems kind of self defeating to play that far back if you're not breaking 90 with any regularity.   Thoughts ?

[joekelly]

Do what you like, if no objection from management.

[danL]

If you can't drive it 250 or more consistently, you shouldn't be playing from the blue tees. Pace of play is another thing to consider. At the public courses around here it's a bunch of people slicing drives less than 200yd long into the woods taking 10 or more strokes per hole that inappropriately play the blue tees.

[rdsandy]

I've seen some cases of guys who struggle to break 90 consistently playing from the blue tee's (typically 6500+ yds).    Doesn't it makes sense to get your score down to a point where you're shooting much lower than that from say the white tee's (+/- 6100 yds), THEN move back to blues if you really want to challenge yourself ?

Hey, its all good, but just seems kind of self defeating to play that far back if you're not breaking 90 with any regularity.   Thoughts ?

Maybe their challenge is to play from the longest tees that they can break 100. As long as their moving along at a normal pace, it shouldn't matter to anyone.

A better golfer might observe that those playing from the "whites" should move up to the forward tees until the can consistently shoot par.

[The Recreational Golfer]

The set of tees you choose should be more related to how far you hit the ball than your score.

Once they have a basic idea of how to swing the club, I think golfers waste more strokes around the green than they do getting the ball up to the green. Playing a shorter course doesn't help out in that regard.

[inthehole]

The set of tees you choose should be more related to how far you hit the ball than your score.

Once they have a basic idea of how to swing the club, I think golfers waste more strokes around the green than they do getting the ball up to the green. Playing a shorter course doesn't help out in that regard.

This makes more sense to me, thanks

[turtleback]

I've seen some cases of guys who struggle to break 90 consistently playing from the blue tee's (typically 6500+ yds).    Doesn't it makes sense to get your score down to a point where you're shooting much lower than that from say the white tee's (+/- 6100 yds), THEN move back to blues if you really want to challenge yourself ?

Hey, its all good, but just seems kind of self defeating to play that far back if you're not breaking 90 with any regularity.   Thoughts ?

What makes 90 the magic number?

[wmadoty]

I have spent my money, all of it. If I want to play at 7200+, score 200+, and take 5+ hours to play a round, is that not my business? I am not quite that bad and I do not play slow, but I do not have a problem with a guy hitting 150 yard drives into the wrong fairway or into the woods all day long if he is not holding me up. I even like watching it sometimes. Someone out there plays worse than I do.

[mmoan2]

I have spent my money, all of it. If I want to play at 7200+, score 200+, and take 5+ hours to play a round, is that not my business? I am not quite that bad and I do not play slow, but I do not have a problem with a guy hitting 150 yard drives into the wrong fairway or into the woods all day long if he is not holding me up. I even like watching it sometimes. Someone out there plays worse than I do.

I guess that depends on your philosophy. If you feel that paying for something entitles you to do whatever you want out there, you have a point. I try to think of the welfare of others when it doesn't impede my happiness too much. If I couldn't break 90 and drove the ball 220 into the woods consistently, I'd play the forward tees knowing that if everyone like me played from the back, we'd all have miserable 6 hour rounds.

[Mac62]

I have spent my money, all of it. If I want to play at 7200+, score 200+, and take 5+ hours to play a round, is that not my business? I am not quite that bad and I do not play slow, but I do not have a problem with a guy hitting 150 yard drives into the wrong fairway or into the woods all day long if he is not holding me up. I even like watching it sometimes. Someone out there plays worse than I do.

If somebody is playing a 5+ hour round (without being held up by groups in front of them), they are holding people up behind them.  I'd liken the above to saying "I have spent all my money on a nice car and have a driver's license just like everybody else.  If I want to drive 25 mph in the fast lane of the freeway, is that not my business?".  If the freeway is empty and you're not affecting anybody else, no harm done - but if there are other cars on the freeway, you're holding people up.

My  .02 - if you go out on a weekday when the course is pretty empty and you're not affecting the pace of play, play from whichever tees you want - hell, play two or three balls if you want to.  But if you're going out on a Saturday morning and the course is packed, I think one should play from the appropriate tees and keep things moving.

As to the OP - I rarely break 90, am not a long driver, and almost always play from the white tees - especially on a new course I'm not familiar with.  I score better, play faster and enjoy the round a lot more when I don't have a 5-wood as my second shot into every par 4.  On one of our local courses, there's a BIG difference in distance and difficulty between the white and blue tees.  I never play the blues there, even if the whole rest of my foursome does.

[wmadoty]

I have never had someone playing slow refuse to let me play through. Even on busy days I have seen very slow players let multiple groups play through. I fail to see what they are hurting. I have never played a course as busy as some of you must. Maybe my opinion would change if I was forced too, but until I see it happen I will stick with mine.

[Dave2512]

A golfer struggling to break 90 suffers from more than distance issues. The problem is inconsistent ball striking. No lesser skilled golfer is just bad around the greens. They struggle to get there and it seems like they suck at getting up and down because that's all they do. Their problems around the greens start on the tee, they don't hit greens because poor performance from the tee doesn't give them many opportunites. So yeah I agree score should be a deciding factor because that is an indicator of overall skill.

[inthehole]

Quote:

Originally Posted by inthehole

I've seen some cases of guys who struggle to break 90 consistently playing from the blue tee's (typically 6500+ yds).    Doesn't it makes sense to get your score down to a point where you're shooting much lower than that from say the white tee's (+/- 6100 yds), THEN move back to blues if you really want to challenge yourself ?

Hey, its all good, but just seems kind of self defeating to play that far back if you're not breaking 90 with any regularity.   Thoughts ?

What makes 90 the magic number?

No particular reason, just seemed a reasonable number to me.    What would you pick ?

[Dave2512]

I like handicap ranges better than scores just because it's a better indication of what you really do. I suppose you could use your average strokes over par if you know what that really is.

A course I play makes recommendations based on handicap.

0-4 Gold 7435 yards

5-11 Black 6950 yards

12-17 Blue 6589 yards

18-30 White 6032 yards

31+ Silver 5305 yards (these are the reds rated for men)

I often play blue tees there. The longest par 4 from the blues is 442 yards. That is definitely at the max end of what I can hack.

[GolfMaineiac26]

I have an interesting system of tee placement, I have pretty good distance (230 yards with a 5 wood) but I base my tee position on the difficulty of the hole and my play style, if I have a severe dogleg right that has multiple hazards from my tee shot I'll go to the white or red tee's, hit from there and when I am confident enough I'll play the blue tee's it's easier to do that then play the hardest position and base my performance off of how bad I do from said tee position. Work on one thing at a time and don't try to do it all at once. This has served me well as I have since opened up to the blue tees and have been playing well my biggest problem is an occasional slice/hook that finds the trees or the out of bounds area, had I started with blue tees from the get go I might have said "to heck with golf" but instead I was able to enjoy it and get better as I play more.

[Dave2512]

I have an interesting system of tee placement, I have pretty good distance (230 yards with a 5 wood) but I base my tee position on the difficulty of the hole and my play style, if I have a severe dogleg right that has multiple hazards from my tee shot I'll go to the white or red tee's, hit from there and when I am confident enough I'll play the blue tee's it's easier to do that then play the hardest position and base my performance off of how bad I do from said tee position. Work on one thing at a time and don't try to do it all at once. This has served me well as I have since opened up to the blue tees and have been playing well my biggest problem is an occasional slice/hook that finds the trees or the out of bounds area, had I started with blue tees from the get go I might have said "to heck with golf" but instead I was able to enjoy it and get better as I play more.

Is this course rated for combo tees?

[GolfMaineiac26]

Is this course rated for combo tees?

Yes it does have combo tee's though many holes have 3 seperate tee's.

[Fourputt]

I have spent my money, all of it. If I want to play at 7200+, score 200+, and take 5+ hours to play a round, is that not my business? I am not quite that bad and I do not play slow, but I do not have a problem with a guy hitting 150 yard drives into the wrong fairway or into the woods all day long if he is not holding me up. I even like watching it sometimes. Someone out there plays worse than I do.

That other guy paid the same amount, and may live by the same mistaken philosophy as you do, only he's comfortable with 60 hour rounds.  If we all thought that way, golf would have become extinct long ago.

I have never had someone playing slow refuse to let me play through. Even on busy days I have seen very slow players let multiple groups play through. I fail to see what they are hurting. I have never played a course as busy as some of you must. Maybe my opinion would change if I was forced too, but until I see it happen I will stick with mine.

Then you haven't been around golf enough.  I worked as a starter, I've played golf for 40 years, and forcing others to play through on a busy course slows everything down even more.  If a group is already slow, and they then have to wait for you to play through, that slows them even more.  Now somebody else has caught them, so they do it again.... lather, rinse, repeat.  Now they have a log jam behind them that will never get unstuck until the day is about finished.

Keep pace or pick up and move forward until you have caught up.  Then find a way to keep up with the group in front of you.  That is how it's supposed to work and if you are going to play much golf, you had better learn it now.