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Tee Restrictions by Handicap


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Should Courses Limit the Back Tees to Low-Handicap Players?  

78 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Courses Limit the Back Tees to Low-Handicap Players?

    • Yes, "seeing the whole course" is pointless when you shoot 115.
    • No, tee choice does not factor into the speed of play.


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I voted "yes," but I also feel that this applies largely to public courses that see a lot of play, not private courses. Members who fork up $4k/year (to $200k/year) should be allowed to play from whatever tees they like - there are other means of handling disputes within a membership.

Obviously policing this is an issue, but if a course said "white tees for everyone unless you bring proof" for their longer tees, it could be somewhat manageable.

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I voted "yes," but I also feel that this applies largely to public courses that see a lot of play, not private courses. Members who fork up $4k/year (to $200k/year) should be allowed to play from whatever tees they like - there are other means of handling disputes within a membership.

I'm going to have to "push" on this issue. I really don't know where I stand on it. Really good courses like Old Course at St. Andrews have handicap limits preventing hacks from tearing up the course and slowing down traffic. However, I know I would be royally peeved having to play the white tees at a course just because I left my GHIN card at home. Also, I think golfers should be able to push their skills by playing from tees they normally do not play from (although they shouldn't pick the busiest days to do so). The first time I broke 80 was the first time I played from the black tees, and I think the extra yardage really forced me to concentrate on every shot since I knew I'd need every yard I could get.

Pace of play should be dictated more by consideration for others rather than skill level. Although it may not be smart, even a 40 handicap can play from the back tees if he plays "ready golf" with his partners and decides to pick up his ball even though the hole may not be finished. There are days I agree with "yes" and days I agree with "no." If I had to choose, I'd say "no" because golf is the one sport where the participant is required to police himself, and players should exhibit the same practicality when choosing what tees to play from. JMHO
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The club I always plays at doesn't really care about what tees you play from, but I mean, if you went and played the womens tees, it might be a different story. Sometimes during leisure rounds I play a different set of tees on a different hole. For example, on very long holes (I am not a very long hitter) I'll move up to the white tees to make the game a little more enjoyable for myself. I get kind of mad when I walk up to a par 5 and then see that the womens and the white tees are nearly 150 yards away from the mens and the tournament tees.
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I've played a full round from the ladies tees (though I made myself hit 2I on every tee shot). It's an interesting thing to do, I've found, for discovering new ways to play a course and for hitting some shots you don't normally hit.

And hey, you're allowed to post the score.

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The sign reads The Black course is extremely difficult and only recomended for highly skilled golfers.And every hack in the world comes and takes 6hours to play the damn thing,and yes they will start out on the blues.But like you said they paid 40.00 to play it so we all take a beating.

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The sign reads The Black course is extremely difficult and only recomended for highly skilled golfers.And every hack in the world comes and takes 6hours to play the damn thing,and yes they will start out on the blues.But like you said they paid 40.00 to play it so we all take a beating.

I definately think the black course is one which should have a handicap limit . . . or a price limit like pinehurst #2 or pebble beach. Courses that high dollar end up using price to regulate who ends up on the courses. I don't think many 20 handicaps would want to pay $320 to end up getting eaten alive by #2 or TPC sawgrass.

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I beg to differ, Kiran. I think plenty of bad golfers would pay that much. "More money than sense" my mom used to say about some people...

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Yes, I think tees should be restricted by handicap. Plain and simple. One of the members on the course I work at went and played The Prince Course out in Hawaii and was asked his handicap for just this reason. The course is just too tought from the championsip tees for your average player.

On top of that, I think people who can't break 100 shouldn't be allowed to play during peak hours. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, poor play does affect pace of play.

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I think people who can't break 100 shouldn't be allowed to play during peak hours. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, poor play does affect pace of play.

I disagree BIG TIME with this statement. There IS a difference between golf skills and pace of play. I play very often with my wife, who never broke 100 and I can tell you two things:

1. As 4+ HCP scoring in mid 70's - I NEVER was held up by her 2. We finish a round as twosome (if not held up) in around 3 hrs. I think there is a image created, that arrogant a-holes with no regard to other people on the course (attitude of "I payed green fees, I've right to do whatever I want") very often are accompanied by low skills. It in no shape of form is the same thing. It only appears to be. Golf course ettiquette and simple pace keeping procedures can cover up for several duffed shots. If you want to.
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I disagree BIG TIME with this statement. There IS a difference between golf skills and pace of play. I play very often with my wife, who never broke 100 and I can tell you two things:

That's fine and dandy, but find me a public course in L.A. County that sends out twosomes, let alone a course that plays in 3 hours and then we'll be talking apples and apples.

L.A. is oversaturated with players who can't play for "S" that feel the need to play whenever their hearts desire. Screw that! Nothing worse than your tee time being 20 minutes late, and playing behind a group of people knocking their balls all over the course. These are the types of groups that cause the back up in the first place. You only need 1 group like that every half an hour to cause a traffic jam on the course. But yes, proper etiquette does account for something.

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  • 11 years later...

I voted no mainly because I don't like being told what to do. Realistically, my hacker butt stays off the tips anyway. On a couple of my longer courses, I'll push up to the golds (senior) tees. 

The idea that a rule needs to exist for people to behave rationally is kind of frustrating. 

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On 1/25/2005 at 4:37 PM, Ben said:

That's fine and dandy, but find me a public course in L.A. County that sends out twosomes, let alone a course that plays in 3 hours and then we'll be talking apples and apples.

L.A. is oversaturated with players who can't play for "S" that feel the need to play whenever their hearts desire. Screw that! Nothing worse than your tee time being 20 minutes late, and playing behind a group of people knocking their balls all over the course. These are the types of groups that cause the back up in the first place. You only need 1 group like that every half an hour to cause a traffic jam on the course. But yes, proper etiquette does account for something.

People should be allowed to play whenever the course is open regardless of their handicap. Peak time is peak time for a reason, that's when a majority of people have time to play. So just because they don't play as well as you then they shouldn't be allowed to play when they have time? Don't get me wrong, I understand the frustration of slow play, but I don't believe that it's fair to restrict when someone can play based on their handicap.

As for restricting tees by handicap, I'm not sure really. I think if it's a slow day or you play the course a lot then I don't see the harm in playing the back tees because there is less chance that of disrupting the flow on the course. However, someone who's new to the course or if the course is busy then of course there's no good reason to play those tees. This seems to be another of those common sense things, like not taking a full 5 minutes to look for a ball that's probably lost, picking up once ESC is reached, etc when playing a busy course.

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11 yr old thread bump, noice. 

Yes and the couple courses I know of that require permission from the pro (ghin lookup) to play tips would eat the lesser skilled alive. It's not how far it's how much trouble, they can't control the ball enough to avoid it. They also move all tees up on weekends to get people past trouble. 

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Dave :-)

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8 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

11 yr old thread bump, noice. 

Yes and the couple courses I know of that require permission from the pro (ghin lookup) to play tips would eat the lesser skilled alive. It's not how far it's how much trouble, they can't control the ball enough to avoid it. They also move all tees up on weekends to get people past trouble. 

Just guessing that you encountered some slow play yesterday? ;-)

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If a course decides to move Mr. Double-Bogey BOMBER to a shorter tee the course will stack up even more.  He hits it 275 off the tee but has no idea where its going.  Due to his driving length, he's forced to WAIT until 275-300 yards of clear real estate is available in front of him in the rare event he hits one down the middle.

By this time, he's waited for the group in front to hit drives, second and perhaps 3rd shots.  That's a lot of waiting BEHIND Mr. Double-Bogey Bomber.  Bad situation in this case.

Perhaps another way to approach this is on weekends, provide range balls and a starter with a laser finder on the range to measure player driving distance and ASSIGN tee boxes to a group based on driving distance.  We've all heard of this concept in the tee-it-forward charter.

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29 minutes ago, dave s said:

If a course decides to move Mr. Double-Bogey BOMBER to a shorter tee the course will stack up even more.  He hits it 275 off the tee but has no idea where its going.  Due to his driving length, he's forced to WAIT until 275-300 yards of clear real estate is available in front of him in the rare event he hits one down the middle.

By this time, he's waited for the group in front to hit drives, second and perhaps 3rd shots.  That's a lot of waiting BEHIND Mr. Double-Bogey Bomber.  Bad situation in this case.

Perhaps another way to approach this is on weekends, provide range balls and a starter with a laser finder on the range to measure player driving distance and ASSIGN tee boxes to a group based on driving distance.  We've all heard of this concept in the tee-it-forward charter.

dave

Agree in general, but slow play is not solved by making higher handicaps play from shorter tees.  It's also not solved by forcing people to play tees based upon their first shot of the day either.

From the numerous times I was stuck behind slow groups, the culprit seems to be lack of direction and taking too long to putt.

By lack of direction, I mean that people move back and forth across a fairway and have no idea they are holding people up on the tee box. Most justify this behavior with the fact that they are "waiting" for parties in front of them. Almost every time I decide to pass up the slow group, I am moving about 0.2 holes faster than them and usually end up 3 holes ahead of them keeping up with the group that was in front of them. It was not that often that someone didn't let me pass, and usually I would just skip a couple holes ahead. It was rare that the entire course was so packed that there was no space in front of a slow and directionless group. :hmm:

Taking too long to putt is a big factor as well. A foursome should only take about 4 minutes total to make 2 putts each. If they take longer than that, they are not planning their putts and taking too long to read them. 30 seconds is more than enough time per putt even on the largest greens. In fact, 2-3 minutes is more reasonable with 4 minutes being a good maximum. Another thing is you don't practice your putting while people are waiting on you. That's both discourteous and dumb. Dumb because people might be setup to take a shot and expect that you are walking off the green when everyone else is walking off, and possibly take that shot not knowing you are going back to practice that one last putt like it's really going to help that much. :-P

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I vote no nevertheless the player that can't carry the ball to safe ground should be wise enough not to play back tees if he/she is not capable to do so.

courses are not the same. some have back tees close to forward tees.

some dont.

at my home course 9 holes have à 50-70 yard difference and the player needs to carry the ball at least 200-220 yards to find the fairway and avoid lost ball in short land. 

for competition the back tees are for 11 handicaps nevertheless I know bogey players than can stand the challenge, others not.

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