What kinda play is acceptable for the tips?

[Golfingdad]

It's already been said a couple times in various ways but ill repeat it because it is the right answer ... If you enjoy it and can play fast then you "belong" on the tips. There are no other factors, period.

[David in FL]

It's already been said a couple times in various ways but ill repeat it because it is the right answer ... If you enjoy it and can play fast then you "belong" on the tips. There are no other factors, period.

Yep. As long as you're not holding anyone up shooting 89 from the tips, knock yourself out. I'll probably be playing one set up from you though......

[rkim291968]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

If you enjoy it and can play fast then you "belong" on the tips. There are no other factors, period.

This reminds me.  My wife with a 75 swing speed plays from blue tee (instead of red or white) on a tough 9 hole course.  The course has extremely narrow fairways and deep rough.   Men in our group will look at me funny while she is about to hit a tee shot as if to say, why is she hitting with men?   But she is so accurate with all her shots that she is often the faster player of the 4.   While men are losing up to a dozen ball and moving very slowly through the course, she just chucks along with the same ball she started with.   So, yeah, if you can play fast, why not play from any tee you want?

[Dave2512]

I see all types of golfers on the back tees and my experience is the guys shooting 20+ over par from back there are rarely fast. Most aren't accurate enough to be fast. The many errant shots that require a ball hunt is time consuming. IMO more about consistency than how long the course is relative to their "best" hits. Playing out of trouble often leads to more trouble for the unskilled.

[dbuck]

Everyone has pretty much covered most of my thoughts. If a person keeps up consistently with the group IN FRONT of them, I have no problem which tees they use. In another thread, I suggested having a minimum 10 or better handicap to use the tips-on busy days at least. This is hard to enforce, but as a guideline I think it is a reasonable indicator. If one has a higher handicap than that, you would generally expect them to take a little longer from a longer distance and therefore be a little slower. At my course, the tips are 7035/73.3/125, whites 6338/70.4/123 and gold 5457/66.3/110. I am a mid-fifties basically bogey golfer, and the whites are very comfortable for me. I hit a variety of clubs and have the potential to par every hole, and birdie most. I can reach two of the par fives fairly easily(not that I do, but I can). From the golds, all but one par four would be driver/wedge, and all the par fives reachable. From the tips, I could probably still play to my handicap-if EVERYTHING went well, I could probably shoot mid-low eighties. It has been a long time since I played them, but if I am out by myself and the course is not crowded, I might give it a whirl sometime soon, but only if I am not holding anyone up. To sum up, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I don't care which you play if you are having a good time and not holding people(including me!) up. As a rule of thumb, though, I think 10 or better is a good guestimate of whether you should regularly play the tips.

[clearwaterms]

Originally Posted by bkuehn1952

If one needs to have one of their better rounds to shoot 80+, why not move up a tee?  The one common measuring stick is "par" and if one's game doesn't come close to par, maybe playing a lesser tee makes sense.

I play by the same rules.  I believe that playing from the back tee is something that is earned.  In my opinion the right to play the back tee is when you can resonably expect to shoot better than bogey golf.

What I mean by this is that if you don't HONESTLY think you can break 90, then play the appropriate tee box.

As for the distance thing, this is a bad reasoning.  We have several courses around me that are older golf courses with lots of mature tree's, etc.  These courses are very short, but demand a high degree of accuracy off the tee box.

For instance, my "home" course is a 3250 from the whites and 3400 for the reds (par 36 9 hole course)  Too many people play from the blue tee boxes and as a result they take longer to play the hole.  This is a compounding effect on the course.

[RickK]

To me, if you can reasonably expect to reach most of the par 4s in 2 without having to hit driver-3wood to get on and you are capable of playing the round in the normal allotted time, play from whereever you like.  It is the people who have no hope of reaching the par 4s in 2 that want to play from the tips that drive me nuts.  If you are consistently hitting full wedges, 9irons or more into all the par 4s for your 3rd shot...you need to move up...way up.

[Jakester23]

Maybe this is just cause I play back there but I think if you are keeping up with the group in front of you play where you want. I like playing the tips cause I get to use every club I own. I dont think its anyones right to tell you where you should tee off from you paid as much as the scratch golfer and the guys shooting in the 120's.  Lets be honest if you go by a score as to which tees you should play most people should be playing the reds. People (like me) who are playing the tips don't bother me at all if they duff one or skull one into a hazard everyone's done it. The only time I get annoyed with people is when their 270+ from the green on a par 5 and wait til the group in front of them get of the green. Or when they hit into me more than once which happened to me a few weeks ago.

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by RickK

To me, if you can reasonably expect to reach most of the par 4s in 2 without having to hit driver-3wood to get on and you are capable of playing the round in the normal allotted time, play from whereever you like.  It is the people who have no hope of reaching the par 4s in 2 that want to play from the tips that drive me nuts.  If you are consistently hitting full wedges, 9irons or more into all the par 4s for your 3rd shot...you need to move up...way up.

That's why I'm considering moving back on shorter courses. On a good driving day, most of my approach shots are with either my 60, 52, or PW. Which I still manage to screw up and make bogey...

[RickK]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

Maybe this is just cause I play back there but I think if you are keeping up with the group in front of you play where you want. I like playing the tips cause I get to use every club I own. I dont think its anyones right to tell you where you should tee off from you paid as much as the scratch golfer and the guys shooting in the 120's.  Lets be honest if you go by a score as to which tees you should play most people should be playing the reds. People (like me) who are playing the tips don't bother me at all if they duff one or skull one into a hazard everyone's done it. The only time I get annoyed with people is when their 270+ from the green on a par 5 and wait til the group in front of them get of the green. Or when they hit into me more than once which happened to me a few weeks ago.

Well, maybe. On weekends, I often play very early.  We have a group that occasionally gets one of the first few tee times and they play from the tips.  Not a damn one of them should be back there but it is a macho thing I guess.  So, keeping up with the group ahead of us is no problem because these idiots are taking way too long to play slowing down the entire course behind them.  It really sucks when they are the first group out.  If they just played in the allotted time, it would be fine.

[Jakester23]

Rick who do you think should be back there?

[barbm12thtee]

When I was younger I hit from the white tees(I am a woman). The reason for me is when I hit my driver from the red tees the ball would travel to far and run through the fairway into sandtraps, water, etc. or I was always left with a sandwedge into the green. From the white tees I was hitting my drives into nice landing areas and had 7-9 irons into the green. I hit red tees now cause my distance is less and with my driver or 3 wood or 5 wood off the tee I'm hitting short irons into the green. I say if you can hit short irons into the green on the par 4s after a GOOD drive play the tips or go to the blue tees. Good luck!

[geauxforbroke]

For the life of me, I don't understand why people pick tees based solely on distance. From the USGA website: Bogey Rating: the one number every golfer worse than a scratch should check before deciding which tees to play. This rating is the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for the bogey golfer. It is based on yardage, effective playing length and other obstacles to the extent that affect the scoring ability of the bogey golfer. To figure out this number, other than from looking at this database, the bogey golfer should take the Slope Rating®, divide it by the set factor (5.381 for men, and 4.24 for women) and add that to the Course Rating. The result is a target score for the bogey golfer, and is a truer yardstick of the challenge that lies ahead for the particular set of tees. Example: 96.3- which predicts the bogey golfer's average of his ten best (out of twenty) scores would be approximately 96.3 from this particular set of tees.

[colin007]

For the life of me, I don't understand why people pick tees based solely on distance. From the USGA website: Bogey Rating: the one number every golfer worse than a scratch should check before deciding which tees to play. This rating is the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for the bogey golfer. It is based on yardage, effective playing length and other obstacles to the extent that affect the scoring ability of the bogey golfer. To figure out this number, other than from looking at this database, the bogey golfer should take the Slope Rating®, divide it by the set factor (5.381 for men, and 4.24 for women) and add that to the Course Rating. The result is a target score for the bogey golfer, and is a truer yardstick of the challenge that lies ahead for the particular set of tees. Example: 96.3- which predicts the bogey golfer's average of his ten best (out of twenty) scores would be approximately 96.3 from this particular set of tees.

Huh, I've never actually seen this before... Thanks!

[Motley01]

Meh thats not long from the tips. Come play my home course, the tips are 7500 yards!

http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/Portals/0/Repository/Documents/ParksRec/Golf%20Courses/2012%20heritage%20scorecard.pdf

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by Motley01

Meh thats not long from the tips. Come play my home course, the tips are 7500 yards!

http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/Portals/0/Repository/Documents/ParksRec/Golf%20Courses/2012%20heritage%20scorecard.pdf

The course is also at 5000+ feet. It'll play about 10% shorter, or 6800 yards, which isn't all that long from the tips.

[bkuehn1952]

This is not my formula.  It was developed by Chris Mile, an accomplished golfer and owner of a local golf shop. Chris does not advocate that everyone must play tees that match his formula.  His opinion is that the game is more enjoyable when there is a potential to par most holes and score well.  Of course, there are golfers that enjoy the challenge of a 7,500 yard course even if they can't come close to shooting par. There are other golfers where this formula doesn't work because of other factors beyond driver distance.  Still, it is an attempt to answer the question, "what set of tees should I play from?"

This is an excerpt and if someone wanted to read everything Chris Mile said, here is the link:

http://www.milesofgolf.com/blog/golf-randoms/which-tees-should-you-play/

Which Tees Should You Play?

by Chris Mile, President of Miles of Golf on May 23, 2010

I have wanted to tackle this question for sometime because it is a real big deal, and I have seen some half baked answers to this question. In my book, every golfer should have the opportunity to hit par threes in one shot, par fours in two, and par fives in three.  If this is not possible, you are playing a course that is too long, and if you play a course that is too long or too short, you will not get the joy you should from the game.

Computing Your Ideal Course Distance. The answer to the question of how long a course should be for you is real simple.  It is 28.  Just multiply the length of a well hit drive for you by 28 and that, in my estimation, is the length of a course that will be challenging but enjoyable to play.

The logic behind the “Driver x 28” is that an ideal course will have a combination of easy, moderately difficult, and difficult holes.  Knowing the length of your drive, you can estimate how far you hit your other clubs.  For example, most golfers will hit their 6 iron 64% of the distance of their driver.  If a medium distance par 4 is a drive and #6 iron, you know the length of a good par four for you is 164% of the distance of your drive.  Having this information plus definitions for short, medium, and long holes, you can compute the total distance for an ideal course for you based upon your driving distance.

Now the only thing you need to know is the distance of your well hit tee shots.  This is a more difficult question than you might think, and as a clue, most of us overestimate ...

[trackster]

It also matters where the distance really is.  They could add 50-75 yards to all the par 5s at my home course and add 200-300 yards to the tips and it wouldn't make a bit of difference, they would just play at 550 rather than 500 (still 3 shots for most).  They could also add 20 yards to the 14 par 4s and add 280 yards to the tips and it would make most of the par 4s 410-460 and the course would become very difficult.