Help - Tournament Tee Boxes

[HonestyPolicy]

Hi all,

I am asking for your help in proposing to my tournament committee what tees persons should play from in tournaments. For some background; we have a very small membership and even smaller member participation in club events. We are in a remote area and unless a large employer suddenly sets up in the area, we will always have a small membership. So in our events we often times find people playing from different tees against each other and so we apply section 3-5 of the handicap manual so as to make net competition fair. (See section 3-5 of the USGA handicap manual if you do not recognize what I am talking about). The USGA does not have a recommendation for what tees to play from and seem to leave it up to the tournament committee to decide. Here's a cut paste from their website:

For competition purposes, a Tournament Committee may specify in the conditions of the competition that players must compete from a specific set of tees. Rule 33-1 of The Rules of Golf states, in part, “the Committee must establish the conditions under which the competition is to be played.” For example, at ABC Golf Club’s annual member-guest, the Committee may state in the conditions of the event that all players with a Handicap Index of 10.4 or less must compete from the back tees. Otherwise, the decision on what set of tees to use is up to the individual player.

The problem does not lie with the ladies really as they tend to play the same tee all the time, the problem is with the men because we are such a small club we can not generate enough participation to have flighted competition. So when we determine what tees the men must play from in competition, some see it as limiting their competitiveness in the event, and so they either don't participate or they complain about it afterwards. We have three sets of tees; tips, whites(members tees), and golds (sometimes called the senior tees). In the past we have limited single digit handicappers to the tips, members where their age + their handicap = 90 to the golds and others to the whites but if someone qualifies for the golds and wants to play the whites or even the tips we allow it. Some complain they want to play the golds but per our rules they can't. Others say people can't be playing golds in one tournament, and then play whites in another. Everyone seems to agree that single digits should be limited to the tips so that isn't a problem.

We have thought of changing to just limiting single digit handicappers to the tips and letting everyone else play from where they want but I sense there will be trouble even with the section 3-5 adjustments.

My question is how does your club do it and does it work or not?

Thanks for your help.

[DaveP043]

We have a similar tee situation, we have gold (back) tees, blue (regular men's) tees, and white (forward or senior) tees, plus the red tees that most women use.  For most of our tournaments, we play all men off the blue tees unless their age plus index is over 80, and then can choose to play the white tees.  We adjust handicaps per the USGA procedure.  We don't have a lot of complaints, other than a few of the low-handicappers who think they can't compete against strokes.  I know most of those guys, they have vanity handicaps, that's why they can't compete.

Sadly, I think you'll always have someone complaining, not matter how you do things.  And in my experience, most of the complaints come from people who refuse to get involved with planning the events.

[Dave2512]

My experience is even small leagues can be flighted and spread out over different tees. We only had around 10 guys in championship flight and it worked despite rarely having 100% participation in tournaments. I really didn't want the guys in flights 2-4 playing blues, flight 1 had an option. Even the guys that could occasionally bomb it were typically pretty rough all around. As slow as league tournaments are I would have been okay if they put them on reds.

[HonestyPolicy]

My experience is even small leagues can be flighted and spread out over different tees. We only had around 10 guys in championship flight and it worked despite rarely having 100% participation in tournaments. I really didn't want the guys in flights 2-4 playing blues, flight 1 had an option. Even the guys that could occasionally bomb it were typically pretty rough all around. As slow as league tournaments are I would have been okay if they put them on reds.

Well Dave's we have even less people. Our championship flight is off the tips and is 4 mostly and 6 if we're lucky and only two aren't seniors. We've got 15 or so others (sometimes on member tees, sometimes on senior tees) and all mostly seniors too so the desire to tee it forward at least for the guys on the members tees is pretty popular.

Our thought is to let everyone who is not a single digit handicap play from where ever they want. If we let everyone play from where they want and we flighted these 15 guys we'd have one 10 handicapper on the whites winning white tee gross and one 10 handicapper on the golds winning gold tee gross and everyone else playing for net places. I'm afraid all we're going to hear are "the same guys are alwayswinning", or worse yet "so and so manages his handicap to a 10 so he doesn't have to go back to the tips". You're right it's impossible to remove all the complaints, I'm just trying to get a consensus from others to see what small clubs do in these situations so that maybe we can see a common way of handling.....

Hope to see other comments, but thanks for yours.

[Cupcakus]

I belong to a men's club so no ladies to worry about we have two flights one for the single digit players and one for everyone else.  We all play from the same tees, sometimes it's the tips sometimes it's forward sometimes it's combo.  I can't make a par usually from the tips but my course handicap is much higher from there so it feels fair to me.