Courses that inadvertantly give all their members "vanity" handicaps

[Divot Master]

I recently traveled to Virginia and played a newish course in a developing residential community. Gorgeous course, interesting layout, top name architect, etc. Multiple tees black 7500, blue 7100, green 6700, white 6100, gold 5500, red 5100. I thought the white tees looked good for me.

On the first tee, I noticed the white, gold, and red tees were all crammed together on the forward box at about 340 yards, and the green tees were where the white ones should have been at about 380. I hit from there.

As the round progressed, I observed the whites were moved up a box on over 1/2 of the holes, meaning that instead of 6100 yards they were playing about 5700. And my playing partners and their friends in the group behind were all commenting on how much they liked the course, how they always seemed to score better there than at other courses.

But here's the problem. Members who play there regularly think they are playing a 6100 yard course but they are actually playing a 5700 yard course that would have a substantially lower slope and rating. So their handicaps are a couple points lower that they really should be! Thus my comment about inadvertent "vanity" handicaps.

Now I understand that a course might want to do this once in a while on a busy weekend to speed up play. But is this course shrinkage a problem in others' opinions, and how widespread is it?

[Patch]

I see tee markers bunch together quite often with only the lady's tee farther a head.  I always thought it had something to do with the amount of room the couse had to work with. The only time I see any real spacing is on the more upscale, larger courses. It could also be a way to cut down on maintenance costs too. In the end the golfer still has to play with what is offered. 

Edited October 18, 2015 by Patch

[Golfingdad]

Are you sure that they do this often?  I ask because in my neck of the woods it's overseeding season and it's very common for them to bunch tees together while they overseed other teeing areas.

[JP golf]

This is pretty interesting.  I haven't ever given too much thought to this but it's a pretty good point.  I know one of the courses by me has a 600+ yard par 5 that rarely plays all the way back (not that I play from back there because I don't lol) but it makes me wonder how many holes are there that don't routinely play to their intended tee boxes.

That makes me think about how same course can play completely different depending on how it's setup - pin placements, tee box locations, green speed, wet vs. dry, rough length etc.   There are a lot of variables that factor into how hard a course actually plays some of which are accounted for in slope/rating and some that are not...  Handicaps give you a good general idea of a person's potential, but they aren't perfect or fool proof.

[tristanhilton85]

Are you sure that they do this often?  I ask because in my neck of the woods it's overseeding season and it's very common for them to bunch tees together while they overseed other teeing areas.

That's exactly what I was thinking as well.

When we played our outing at Eagle Glen, this is what they were doing... However, it seemed for the most part that for each tee that was moved forward of where it normally would be, there was one that was further back. Did you notice any tees further back than what the card said was normal?

[WUTiger]

... Now I understand that a course might want to do this once in a while on a busy weekend to speed up play. But is this course shrinkage a problem in others' opinions, and how widespread is it?

DM,

How long ago was your trip. If it was during October, any chance the tees were clustered together anticipating lower play in the Fall? My course tends to move the tees up a little starting in late October, as the ground gets softer and rollout is less.

[Divot Master]

Are you sure that they do this often?  I ask because in my neck of the woods it's overseeding season and it's very common for them to bunch tees together while they overseed other teeing areas.

The course is far enough south that it had not been overseeded yet, and all of the longer tees were nearly always close to their scorecard distances.  Also, the boxes where the white and gold tees were set showed much heavier usage than the one where the green tee was (and the white tee should have been), so I suspect this is a regular setup for the course.  I chatted with the starter a bit afterward, and he acknowledged this was a standard setup due to the overall difficulty of the course.

That's exactly what I was thinking as well.

When we played our outing at Eagle Glen, this is what they were doing... However, it seemed for the most part that for each tee that was moved forward of where it normally would be, there was one that was further back. Did you notice any tees further back than what the card said was normal?

Over half the white tees were bumped forward, anywhere between 20 and 90 yards.  But only one was bumped back a box (approx. 50 yards), as far as I could tell.  So the net was a much shorter course.

DM,

How long ago was your trip. If it was during October, any chance the tees were clustered together anticipating lower play in the Fall? My course tends to move the tees up a little starting in late October, as the ground gets softer and rollout is less.

I played there last weekend, and the course was dry and fast.  It was only the white and gold courses that were substantially moved up.  All the other tees were well spread out.

As a potentially OT aside to my own topic, WTF is it with developers and name architects building ridiculously long courses with multiple tee boxes that virtually none of their members and guests will ever play?  This course, in addition to the very long black, blue, and green tees I have mentioned, also had "professional" tee boxes at 7800 yards!  Most of the holes had between 6 and 8 separate tee boxes, and sometimes only one or two of them were at a distance short enough to be appropriate for the typical bogey social golfer.

[bkuehn1952]

An interesting observation.  There certainly are courses I have played where a majority of the tees are commonly set at the front of tee boxes versus where the course rating plaque is affixed.  This practice likely shaves 150-200 yards off the course's total yardage.

I believe the general idea is that courses should set-up the tee locations and hole locations with an eye to maintaining a standard degree of difficulty.  If one tee is set 15 yards up, another should be 15 yards back.  6 challenging hole locations, 6 moderate and 6 less difficult.

If one regularly played a course that doctored the level of difficulty through shorter or longer tee locations, consistently hard or less difficult hole locations, or mis-marking of hazards (e.g. woodland marked as a lateral water hazard or marking areas OB where some other designation is more appropriate), the end result could be a group of unknowing vanity handicappers or sandbaggers.

On occasion where I believe a course was set-up more like the "green" tees versus the "purple" ones, I report the score as having played the "green".

 

 

[Golfingdad]

The course is far enough south that it had not been overseeded yet, and all of the longer tees were nearly always close to their scorecard distances.  Also, the boxes where the white and gold tees were set showed much heavier usage than the one where the green tee was (and the white tee should have been), so I suspect this is a regular setup for the course.  I chatted with the starter a bit afterward, and he acknowledged this was a standard setup due to the overall difficulty of the course.

Over half the white tees were bumped forward, anywhere between 20 and 90 yards.  But only one was bumped back a box (approx. 50 yards), as far as I could tell.  So the net was a much shorter course.

I guess, then, I wouldn't see a problem with posting based on the actual distance I played rather than the color of the markers.  I mean, if all of the blue markers were on the white boxes, then for all intents and purposes, I played the white tees.

[Big C]

I guess, then, I wouldn't see a problem with posting based on the actual distance I played rather than the color of the markers.  I mean, if all of the blue markers were on the white boxes, then for all intents and purposes, I played the white tees.

Right. My home course measures 6400 from the blue plates and 6190 from the combo tees. In general, the grounds crew will move markers forward when they are rehabbing the teeing ground, they rarely move them back. If the markers have been moved forward more than 100 yards that day, I'll usually post as a combo score.

 

[SavvySwede]

I'm typically the one to set the tee markers at the course where I work. Though I try my best to keep the yardage close to what is on the card, spreading out the wear and tear is going to take priority. What makes it difficult to consistently achieve the desired yardage is that too many yardage plaques are located at the back of tees when they ought to be measured from the middle of the box. It seems a lot of places do this to bump up the numbers.

[dkolo]

A ton of public courses near me move tees waaaay up on the weekends to speed up play. Par 3s listed at 201 and 145 at one course will have the markers around 155 and 120 respectively during Fri-Sun, I've noticed. I didn't pay it much mind until I played during the week this summer and remarked to someone in my group that I'd never seen the tees this far back before.

[JKolya]

On 10/18/2015, 9:20:35, Divot Master said:

I recently traveled to Virginia and played a newish course in a developing residential community. Gorgeous course, interesting layout, top name architect, etc. Multiple tees black 7500, blue 7100, green 6700, white 6100, gold 5500, red 5100. I thought the white tees looked good for me.

On the first tee, I noticed the white, gold, and red tees were all crammed together on the forward box at about 340 yards, and the green tees were where the white ones should have been at about 380. I hit from there.

As the round progressed, I observed the whites were moved up a box on over 1/2 of the holes, meaning that instead of 6100 yards they were playing about 5700. And my playing partners and their friends in the group behind were all commenting on how much they liked the course, how they always seemed to score better there than at other courses.

But here's the problem. Members who play there regularly think they are playing a 6100 yard course but they are actually playing a 5700 yard course that would have a substantially lower slope and rating. So their handicaps are a couple points lower that they really should be! Thus my comment about inadvertent "vanity" handicaps.

Now I understand that a course might want to do this once in a while on a busy weekend to speed up play. But is this course shrinkage a problem in others' opinions, and how widespread is it?

I didn't read all the replies so this may have been said, but many courses do this just because. My home course has five sets, with room for up to 7 on some holes.  Though by the book we max out at 7300 in reality we could push 7800. Anyways, on any given day the tees can be a where from all up front to all back and that is not just within their standard box. They can be as far as plus or minus 800 yards quite often. For us it is a combo of random and giving certain areas time to heal. Ie, more members play the 3rd and 4th sets than elsewhere so those boxes are beaten up and we have to move the tees forward or back often to allow them to heal. 

Edited November 18, 2015 by JKolya

[mchepp]

On October 19, 2015 at 5:07:33 PM, SavvySwede said:

I'm typically the one to set the tee markers at the course where I work. Though I try my best to keep the yardage close to what is on the card, spreading out the wear and tear is going to take priority. What makes it difficult to consistently achieve the desired yardage is that too many yardage plaques are located at the back of tees when they ought to be measured from the middle of the box. It seems a lot of places do this to bump up the numbers.

I think this is an excellent point. We rarely play the full length of the course I was a member at in San Jose. I would argue to anyone that would listen that we weren't playing the full distance because to play the full distance my back leg would have been in the rough.

[RickK]

I know of several courses where similar situations with tee box placement happen.  One such course I play quite often.  A number of years ago, they installed an extra set of tees pushing the course back as far as they could from the very back tees.  Their tee marker colors are black-very back, blue, white, gold and red.  When they created the new set of tees, they moved the blues and whites back quite a ways.  Gold and reds remained fairly constant to where they were.  Then they had the course rated.  Before all this changed, the white tees were rated at 125, the blues at 128.  Well, not longer after all these changes were made the general membership there who mostly played the white and the better (5 to 9 handicappers) who played the blues began griping about the course now playing too long.  The guys on the blues did not want to move up to the whites and the guys on the whites were not going to move up to the gold. 

So, what does the course do...they move the blue tee markers up and the white tee markers up where they remain most of the year.  So, now the whites are back to playing about where they were when it was rated at 125.  But, you shoot a decent score and you are posting it to the new slope rating of 130.  Let me tell you...it makes for a handicap that does not travel well.

[Dave2512]

I see it at a few courses but only because traffic is heavy and as mentioned it's an attempt to speed people up. One takes it a bit further. They remove the championship tees completely and post that it requires pro shop permission to play back there. Couple times I've seen "tee box closed" plaques back there.

But I see it the other way too. My former home course had incredibly long tee boxes. With 5 sets of tees rated for men it was crazy how much they moved around. Holes could be 80 yards different than card yardage either way. It sucked on the par 3's some were long as is. I would hit the front of the green with a laser and be 30 yards longer than the card at times.

[No Mulligans]

I played Tecolote Canyon this morning which is an executive 18 that from the back tees is just long enough for a USGA rating.  For the first time in my experience, they moved the back tees up to the same spot as the forward tees.  I don't know why they would do this.

[bradsul]

I play a few courses that constantly do this.  I got around it by always playing the closest possible tee box to the one I'm playing on the score card.  So if I'm playing blue but the closest tee to the blue marker is the black, I'm going to play black on that hole.

Once I started doing that on those courses I found I was shooting much closer to what I should have been based on the rating.