White tees or blue tees?

[max power]

  Chief Broom said:

Originally Posted by Chief Broom

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirv

if you have difficulty already with the whites, stay with the whites, or maybe even move up another box if your pride can deal with that.

if your goal is to break 90, work from the whites until you get there.  once you can regularly break 90, then i would suggest moving back one box and repeating the process.

My criterion is that one should be able to break 80 from a particular set of tees before you consider backing up to the longer tees.  To break 80 you've got to be doing a lot of things right.  So if the course is crowded or even moderately busy your ability to play your way around the course in a consistent and timely manner should dictate how challenging you should make your round based on tee box selection.

My exact same procedure.  Whites until I can shoot 80 or lower.  Now that I've done that on the white tees at all courses I play with any regularity I'm usually playing blues, even at new courses, unless I'm with friends (who are all 20 'cappers or worse).  And if the blue tees at a new course carry a particularly high rating and/or slope I'll probably step up to the whites for my first round and see how things go.  As someone posted earlier, I rarely see golfers at the blue tees who belong there.  Some, but not many.

[CassinoNorth]

I have the distance to play off 95% of blue tees, but if the slope is too high I'll usually just stick to white.

Alot of those courses make the course 10x harder with the added distance in tight fairways.

[Camo]

We recently played a high brow country club from the blues and 2 in our group should have probably been playing from the junior tees if not stayed on the driving range, lol. But they didn't want to play a different set of tees then us so they played the blues, anyhow the group behind us saw the awesome display of talent and actually complained to the course Marshall. He came and had a word with us to inform us the "member" behind us had complained that it didn't seem like we belonged on the blues. He actually laughed and said F$@% that clown, you guys paid your money, play from where ever makes you happy. Enjoy your round. We were not holding up the group behind us and were often waiting on the group ahead of us. My point being..... Play from where you like. ( as long as doesn't hold up the flow of the round behind you. ) On my home course we play from all of the tees, even the womens just to keep it interesting since we play it 2 or 3 times a week. I have a favorite tee for each hole as it definitely changes the way the course plays. If I am playing a new course or one I don't play often I will usuually play from what ever color is the middle. If I am playing with my wife I will play from the front tees.

[allin]

When  playing rounds where I do not keep score, or  match play against a frien, we  sometimes I vary the tees.  My reasoning is that they change the tees for pros and top amateurs why can't I if it is not a round for handicap purposes?  If you want to experiment with strategy or force yourself to hit a certain club more often I feel it can be a real benefit. I would echo some of the other posters that this is probably not a good idea on long par 4s or any hole where you may not be able to keep up your pace.

[finoky]

When playing with my normal group we always play from the blue. If I go out by myself I will play from whatever tees the person or group I happen to join up with.

[Bullitt5339]

I switch up at the courses I play constantly to keep it interesting.  I get into those "That's an 8 iron from there" off the tee a lot, so it makes me actually think about what club and approach I want to use when I switch up.  My scare really doesn't vary more than 1 or 2 shots from the whites and blues on my home course.  The biggest difference is the Par 3's, sometimes it makes them really difficult from 220-230 yards where I'm hitting 4 Wood into a small green.

When I play a new course, or a particularly difficult course, I'll play white tees.

[WUTiger]

Blue or white? I would suggest staying with the whites, which I do. But, this can vary course to course.

If the whites are sub-6,000 yards, moving up to blues may be manageable.

Another thing is tee shots. If the blue tees mean you will have to "lay up" on some tee shots, or hazards are more into play, blues can make for a long afternoon.

One course which is an exception is Eagle Knoll G.C. in central Missouri. The whites are 6,139 and the blues are 6,600+. But, I play the blues because of:

* Two short, drop-shot par 3s across lakes. From the whites, I end up feathering a wedge across the water , a shot I hate. From the blues, I can hit a full 8 iron.

* Blind tee shots. On four of the holes, it's hard to see the landing area from the whites. From the elevated blues, you can see the landing area. And, from the elevated tees, you don't lose much net yardage on your tee shot.

[Chas]

Slightly off-topic but somewhat related ..... we've had a lot of rain lately here in SoCal and the course I just played was still very heavy/wet, with standing water in a few bunkers and some muddy areas.  It was 'cart path only', with almost no roll on the fairways and lots of pitch marks on the greens.  Anyway my partner pointed out that the white tee boxes (which we were playing from) had been moved forward quite a bit, sometimes not so far behind the reds in fact.  It was a beautiful, sunny day though, the course was full and pace of play was pretty slow as it was.  Moving the tees up was a good idea imo, otherwise the round would have taken even longer.

[ScratchGolfer00]

To me, I feel that the tee you play from has the greatest impact on par 3's.  It is the difference of 155 and 185.  That can be 3 or 4 clubs depending on the golfer.  When you get to the par 4's the difference is rarely no more than 20 yards, and with mid to high handicap golfers, their drives could vary by that 20 yards on any given shot.

[NM Golf]

The thing about tees is you have to leave your ego at home. I see it all the time. Young guys are the worst. I see these 20 somethings come to the course, they can't break 100 or hit any club over 230 yards, yet they head back to the blue tees and hack away. I am a scratch golfer and I hit the ball a very long way and I play the middle tees all the time because many of the players I play with don't enjoy playing from the back tees. To me it doesn't really matter nor does my score change all that much.

I have played several courses where they pick the tee for you. I played one in in Northern Michigan this year where I had to show my GHIN handicap card and get clubhouse approval to play the back tees. They even went so far as to put a card in the windshield of the cart so the course marshals knew what tee you were allowed to play. I asked the starter why all the fuss and he told me that doing this had dropped nearly 30 minutes off the average time it took for people to get a round the course. Personally I think its great, I wish more courses would do this. A 20 handicap has no business playing the back tees anywhere, and really and truly they would enjoy their round more if they played the correct tees.

[The Recreational Golfer]

"A man's got to know his limitations. " - Harry Callahan

[dbwood]

I read that in Golf Digest awhile back, I think it was in Stina Sternberg's column in answer to a question.

  crayputter said:

Originally Posted by crayputter

Good advice right here !

I don't know where I have previously read this, but it goes something like : Take your 5 iron distance and multiply by 36. That's the length you should be playing comfortably to your ability...

[Chief Broom]

  NM Golf said:

Originally Posted by NM Golf

I have played several courses where they pick the tee for you. I played one in in Northern Michigan this year where I had to show my GHIN handicap card and get clubhouse approval to play the back tees. They even went so far as to put a card in the windshield of the cart so the course marshals knew what tee you were allowed to play. I asked the starter why all the fuss and he told me that doing this had dropped nearly 30 minutes off the average time it took for people to get a round the course. Personally I think its great, I wish more courses would do this. A 20 handicap has no business playing the back tees anywhere, and really and truly they would enjoy their round more if they played the correct tees.

I totally agree.  I love it when courses take the added step of tying tee box option to handicap/ability rather than the "old fashioned" notion of age and gender.  Years ago average courses weren't near as long nor as difficult as the typical new course today.  When that is the case having one or two tee box options is much more manageable.  But with the "target golf" courses you see today you need options that adjust the difficulty of the course so that golfers of varying abilities can enjoy their round and play their way around the course in a timely manner.   Having the club house dictate where you play takes the golfer's ego out of the equation.  If you want to play the back tees, then you need to work on your game.  Makes sense to me!

[allin]

  Chief Broom said:

Originally Posted by Chief Broom

Quote:

Originally Posted by NM Golf

I have played several courses where they pick the tee for you. I played one in in Northern Michigan this year where I had to show my GHIN handicap card and get clubhouse approval to play the back tees. They even went so far as to put a card in the windshield of the cart so the course marshals knew what tee you were allowed to play. I asked the starter why all the fuss and he told me that doing this had dropped nearly 30 minutes off the average time it took for people to get a round the course. Personally I think its great, I wish more courses would do this. A 20 handicap has no business playing the back tees anywhere, and really and truly they would enjoy their round more if they played the correct tees.

I totally agree.  I love it when courses take the added step of tying tee box option to handicap/ability rather than the "old fashioned" notion of age and gender.  Years ago average courses weren't near as long nor as difficult as the typical new course today.  When that is the case having one or two tee box options is much more manageable.  But with the "target golf" courses you see today you need options that adjust the difficulty of the course so that golfers of varying abilities can enjoy their round and play their way around the course in a timely manner.   Having the club house dictate where you play takes the golfer's ego out of the equation.  If you want to play the back tees, then you need to work on your game.  Makes sense to me!

I don't have any issue with this, in fact I wish more courses did it.  I don't think many will.  Courses would be concerned about customer perceptions.  Unfortunately our modern world encourages the attitude that the customer is always right even when acting like idiots.  People are much more aware of their rights then their responsibilies to others.

[B-Con]

I view the act of moving back a teebox as saying "I need a little more challenge". If you drive perfectly the same, you'll be hitting, on average, one club longer at the green. Over 18 holes, that's a decent amount of extra work on your longer irons. There's also the psycological aspect of longer tee boxes. You're used to where you should end up in the fairway from one set, and if you step back to a longer tee box you may (likely?) feel the need to hit harder to make up for it. That will never turn out well. If you haven't mastered the tees you're on, why increase your challenge? I'm on the white tees and I'm perfectly happy there. Getting the occasional short iron onto a par 4 doesn't spoil my game for me. :-)

[Harmonious]

As a resort course, we get a lot of people who are on vacation and want to play "the entire course" so they head back to the black tees (7400 yards) and proceed to take over 5 hours to play, backing up everyone behind them as they hack it around.  So the course did something I thought was pretty smart: they removed the black tee markers.  With this simple move, the average round has dropped over 20 minutes.  The hacks still lose their balls, but they do it faster.

Why anyone without a + handicap would play from back there, I don't know.

[crayputter]

EGO mostly....and ignorance too...

Ohhh...you'd be surprised how many golfers out there haven't A CLUE that the colored tee markers do not represent gender/age...

I was walking 9 holes this morning when I joined up with another member. He was 13 years older than me (I'm 35) and teed off from the blues, whilst I, from the whites which is a good 25 yds forward. I was outdriving him by at least 50 yds.

And while I had a wedge or short iron into the green, this guy was using a rescue.

I asked him after a few holes..'Why are you teeing off from the blues, when obviously you lack distance ? Wouldn't you enjoy your game a little more if you tee off from the whites' And he looked at me like I just landed from Mars !

And he went ' What ? The whites are for older people, and for beginners...I'm not a beginner !'

WTF ?

I just said OK and moved along....

Ray

  Harmonious said:

Originally Posted by Harmonious

As a resort course, we get a lot of people who are on vacation and want to play "the entire course" so they head back to the black tees (7400 yards) and proceed to take over 5 hours to play, backing up everyone behind them as they hack it around.  So the course did something I thought was pretty smart: they removed the black tee markers.  With this simple move, the average round has dropped over 20 minutes.  The hacks still lose their balls, but they do it faster.

Why anyone without a + handicap would play from back there, I don't know.

[westcyderydin]

my league plays from the whites, but that means a lot of driver-wedge holes so i would rather play the blues.

either way i think its beneficial to play from all of the tees (including the red tees) when you practice...really changes club selection from hole to hole.