TEE IT FORWARD

[Paradox]

Originally Posted by iacas

That's not what TEE IT FORWARD is about. It's a suggestion, and one that'll last like two weeks at that.

Given that I wasn't commenting on any of the TEE IT FORWARD recommendations, I am sure I knew that.  I was commenting on someones idea that tees should be determined by a handicap and you are mandated to play from whatever tees your handicap says.

[newtogolf]

They shouldn't be "mandated", but when they check in, the tee boxes should be explained and based on handicap they should be "encouraged" to play from the right tees.

Today while playing I watched an older couple who were likely new to golf take 3 swings to get from the blue tees to the white tees.   It was hot, humid and the bugs were in a feeding frenzy, I can't imagine how long it took for them to finish or just give up out of frustration or exhaustion.  Experienced golfers assume that everyone knows what the different tee boxes are for, and who should play from them, but most don't.

Originally Posted by Paradox

Given that I wasn't commenting on any of the TEE IT FORWARD recommendations, I am sure I knew that.  I was commenting on someones idea that tees should be determined by a handicap and you are mandated to play from whatever tees your handicap says.

[Phil McGleno]

I was pretty sure you were responding to the general thread topic too. If you don't want to be misunderstood, quote the person you're responding to. If this old dingbat can figure that stuff out, you can.

Originally Posted by Paradox

Given that I wasn't commenting on any of the TEE IT FORWARD recommendations, I am sure I knew that.  I was commenting on someones idea that tees should be determined by a handicap and you are mandated to play from whatever tees your handicap says.

[clubchamp]

Originally Posted by senorchipotle

Slow play is not caused by people playing too far back, it's cause by people playing too slow.

1 golfer playing rounds from both sets of tees...

A. Golfer playing the white tees reaches the green in 2, 3. or 4 shots.

B. Golfer playing the back tees reaches the green in 3,4, or 5 shots.

I would venture to guess golfer B is going to play a longer round unless he's speeding up his game when playing the back tees. If you're playing the wrong tees you will play a longer round and be slower than you would from the right tees.

[SouthernILGolfer]

I think on another thread on here about a couple years ago there was a simple formula for deciding what tees you should play.   The yardage was 36x5irondistance to get yardage.  In my case it would be right at 5800 yards as I hit my 5 hybrid about 160.  I usually try to play from around 6000-6200 yards so I guess im pretty close to where i should be.   If you hit your 5 iron 180 yards, then you should be playing from about 6500, 200 yards would be 7200 yards so approaching pga tour distance then and usually playing from the longest tees at most any course.   Likewise if you hit your 5 iron 140, then you should be playing from about 5000 yards.

[ghalfaire]

The SeniorChipotle quote is worth repeating.   I played yesterday with a couple and their son-in-law (I went out as a single) and it was really slow (about 5 hours) and we played the forward tees.  These folks told me they only get out a couple of times a year and I had the impression that the concept of "ready golf" is lost on them.  I doubt that it would have been much slower if we had played the tips.  I can remember when I first started playing golf I could score 125 and play in 3 hours 15 minutes walking.  So your handicap or the tees you chose has little to do with how long it takes to play a round.

Originally Posted by senorchipotle

Slow play is not caused by people playing too far back, it's cause by people playing too slow.

[bunkerputt]

Awesome.  On the internet, I'm now playing from 30 yards behind the black tees so I don't accidentally drive over the green. .

In real life I'm just playing from whatever approach shots I want to work on:  long or short iron.  Sometimes I play from the ladies.  That takes real cajones and you have to pay attention to the course and slope from that tee otherwise you'd be tempted to lower your handicap and brag to people about your round.  When I play with people I usually request whites unless they are good strikers to keep the pace up.  Let's face it.  Most people suck at hitting a golf ball.

[GolfHippy]

Not sure about this. I want to measure myself against the Pros even though I know I am not as good as them.

[dsc123]

I think basing this on distances is not the right approach.

One of the two courses I play the most, is a par 71, 5000/5500/5900/6400 (Red/White/Blue/black).  My driver typically goes 265-280, so TEE IT FORWARD tells me to play Black.  But this is obviously not right for someone playing to a 17.

As someone else mentioned, the big incentive for me to move back is to improve my handicap.  At 17.7, I go into each round hoping to shoot a score that will give me a differential of 16.  At this course, that's 85/86/88, depending on the tees. I've shot an 85 four or five times, but never better, and i'm under 90 almost every time i play this course.  I have not noticed a significant difference in score after playing the long tees, but all of my best rounds by differential are on the longer tees.

So I think that on this course, blue is for me, even though TEE IT FORWARD says that's for someone hitting 225.

Oddly, I alternate between feeling like i'm playing a tee longer than I should, and playing a tee shorter than I should.  From the blues on this course, I dont think there are any holes that I have to take out a driver for.  I hit my 4 Iron 225, and the longest par 4 is 412, giving me a 6 or better into the green.  So I alternate between feeling like i'm playing too short, and playing too long because i'm playing from the longer tees and only shooting in the upper 80s.

[Deryck Griffith]

Originally Posted by senorchipotle

Slow play is not caused by people playing too far back, it's cause by people playing too slow.

I'm mixed on this.  I played yesterday with a friend that should've played from the white tees but wanted to play with me and my buddy (whos a pro) on the blue tees.

He's a 25+ index and one of the par 4s was a 420 yard hole with a 220 yard carry over an OB waste area.  Well, he re-teed 4 times before we finally said, screw the rules on this hole and drop on the other side.

The white tees were ahead to the right and played 365 yards which only required a 165 yard carry over the wasteland.  Actually, it probably was less than 165 yards because the angle allowed to bail out on the right.

So you tell me, does re-teeing 4 times take longer than only teeing once from the proper tee?  Keep in mind that there were 6 more holes with a similar carry.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

Awesome.  On the internet, I'm now playing from 30 yards behind the black tees so I don't accidentally drive over the green.  .

In real life I'm just playing from whatever approach shots I want to work on:  long or short iron.  Sometimes I play from the ladies.  That takes real cajones and you have to pay attention to the course and slope from that tee otherwise you'd be tempted to lower your handicap and brag to people about your round.  When I play with people I usually request whites unless they are good strikers to keep the pace up.  Let's face it.  Most people suck at hitting a golf ball.

On Saturday evening I was playing with 2 members and came to a par 5 that runs out from 200-250 then goes a bit uphill for 50 yards so the difference between driver and 3-iron isn't that much - diminishing returns. Anyway, I pulled a 5-wood and hit it solid, but I only took a 3/4 stinger swing. I was thinking to myself, "good job, that's about 240, straight, and safe".

Now for the point.

The shorter hitting guy says, "nice, that's over 300".

WTF?  I'd just hit two longish drives on that were in the ~ 295 range (i.e. at most - certainly < 300) and this guy was > 50 yards shorter (probably closer to 100). On the par 5 we were pretty much even though (run out). Using this knowledge, I think that he thinks he could actually hit a 300 yard drive. I mean, mine were all over 300 and he was right there with me. It's science.

[The Recreational Golfer]

The idea of having different sets of tees, as I understand it, is so players of different abilities can hit the same clubs into the green. If Joe Pro gets to the green with a drive and a 6-iron, I should be able to do that, too, and so should my wife. We all just have to start from different places for that to be possible.

Handicaps are based mostly on how straight you hit the ball, and how well you play around the green. I would guess that how far you hit it is more weakly correlated to a handicap than those other two factors, which makes your handicap the poorer determinant of the tees you should play from than the distance you hit the ball.

[WUTiger]

Last year I broke 90 four times; this year I haven't come close. I feel a big HDCP jump coming in June posting.

My new course has 10 holes with OB both left and right the full length, plus some no-go wilderness hazards to cross. I'm moving from blue tees up to white (5,800 yds.) .

[Bo the Golfer]

I actually did this on Sunday up in NH. My buddy and I were on a trip playing 18 both Saturday and Sunday and of course it rained the whole time. After slogging through 18 on Saturday we decided to play 9 Sunday morning. Since the course was waterlogged we moved up on set of tees (we play whites and one up at this course were the silvers which we were told were the seniors tees). After getting a sideways look from the starter we ended up really enjoying the round (as much as you can playing in rain anyway!) With the weather we got zero run out so distances to the green were not that different and it was fun to go into the two par 5's with shorter clubs. I don't think this is something I would do a lot of but it was cool to try and with the weather it worked out great.

[x129]

For the same player A will be faster. But B could much much faster than

C. Golfer playing the white tees reaches the green in 2, 3. or 4 shots.

since C switches clubs 3 times, lasers everything and then GPS's all distances just to be sure, looks at all puts from all 4 directions, takes 4 pracitices swings and takes a min to tee the ball up after his partner hit and so on.

With most high handicappers it isn't the number of stokes that slow down play. Most grip and rip after a couple practice strokes. None of them take mins thinking about where to hit the ball and what type of shot is needed.  They do spend a lot of time looking for lost balls though....

Originally Posted by clubchamp

1 golfer playing rounds from both sets of tees...

A. Golfer playing the white tees reaches the green in 2, 3. or 4 shots.

B. Golfer playing the back tees reaches the green in 3,4, or 5 shots.

I would venture to guess golfer B is going to play a longer round unless he's speeding up his game when playing the back tees. If you're playing the wrong tees you will play a longer round and be slower than you would from the right tees.

[rustyredcab]

My Saturday group has moved forward this year -- from 6,572 to 6,092. Our course has five sets of tees from 4,859 to 6,950.. We now play the middle set which seems harder than the 69.9/129 ratting and slope would indicate. Much more enjoyable. Less lost balls because guys are hitting long irons into greens instead of 3-woods and are landing thier drives where Mr. Dye intended. Pace of play has been great. As we invite guests, we won't need to worry about them being long enough to enjoy the course.

The course has five par 5's and five par 3's. Most Par 3's are now reachable with irons for most of us. From the longer tees the par 3's are each 170-220 yards with no mercy. Depending on the wind, guys could end up hitting driver on two par 3's from our old tees.

I'm the youngest, longest, and lowest handicap guy in the group -- 53 and currently 9.2. My scores are not yet lower from the forward tees because I still have to hole putts and I'm still leaving about the same distances into the greens on most holes because I'm often teeing off with less than driver in order to stay short of trouble. I expect they will fall once I've figured out these new tees. Only one par 5 is now sometimes potentially reachable in two (with punishment if you miss) whereas it was very rarely reachable from the longer distance. Depending on the wind and the match, the finishing hole par 5 can be reached in two with a great drive and then 100% carry over water on the second shot (a real sucker play for me). None of the other guys every has a shot at reaching any of the par 5's in two. So, the tees play plenty long enough. I'm surprised how much more enjoyable the rounds are from moving up one set of tees. There is much more strategy in play. From the longer tees I just stepped up and banged driver on almost every hole. Now, I need to think about being short of a bunker complex or trying to fly it. If I can't get there in two, why am I hitting driver off the tee?

Give it a try. Move up one set of tees for two weeks and see if the rounds are not much more enjoyable.

[WhackAndHack]

Another guy I've played with, incredible golfer, his pro told him to play a few rounds from the red to get used to consistently shooting under par. Pretty cool idea.

[nosmo king]

Long time lurker, first time poster. Since I have lurked here for a good while, I know there are many golf "purist's " here, along with many who play the game for fun. My question involves teeing it forward to the gold, or senior tees. Is it strictly an age issue or more of an ability issue? In my usual golf network, most of us  play from the white tee's. We're all retired, but not all "seniors" in the sense of the word. For instance, I'm 53, but not a long hitter by any stretch of the imagination. On a good day I'll be scoring between 94-97. On a not so good day I'm in the 100-105 range. My group all played from the gold tee's this past Monday and to be honest, I enjoyed my game much more than usual. I didn't set the world on fire with my score, but the round seemed much more enjoyable. One guy in the group ( there's usually anywhere from 8-12) was quite annoyed that we decided to play from the closer tee's. He wasn't playing with us but in the 4some ahead of ours, but still part of the group. We don't play for money. It's all simply for fun. Actually there's 2 guys who usually play with him, that tee it forward.

I'm just curious as to how most feel about it here. BTW.....even if I played from the tips, although my score would skyrocket, I certainly would not hold up play for anyone behind me. I enjoy a  fast paced round, but I'm not in a race to get done in 3 hours. I'm perfectly content to get a round in @ 4 hours and am a big believer in playing "ready golf".

So, is it age or ability?   Inquiring minds want to know.