Will your handicap remain the same off of different tees (should it?)

[bones75]

8 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

For anybody interested, I believe that this old thread is now more than just tangentially related:

http://thesandtrap.com/forums/topic/61875-tst-2012-forward-tees-experiment-results-thread/#comment-262704

Brilliant!  At a quick glance, it proves everyone who has already responded to this thread as correct!  Some ppl have large gains (greater than any slope / rating differentials bewteen tees) and some don't.  

[Dave2512]

FWIW I tried it again last year when I was a much better golfer. My scores were the close to the same. All came down to club choice. There was a bigger benefit for me moving up when I was more inconsistent because the penalty of a mishit was more severe.

As a better than I was golfer there was a lot more thinking to do. There are a couple short par 4's I use 5i from the tee all the way back to avoid trouble. The shortest men's are 35 yard up on that hole. Had to decide whether to hit a pair of 9i's or risk trouble hitting a longer club than I usually do to poke it past trouble and hope there is a clear angle to the green. I didn't have those problems 3 years ago.

[Lihu]

18 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

FWIW I tried it again last year when I was a much better golfer. My scores were the close to the same. All came down to club choice. There was a bigger benefit for me moving up when I was more inconsistent because the penalty of a mishit was more severe.

As a better than I was golfer there was a lot more thinking to do. There are a couple short par 4's I use 5i from the tee all the way back to avoid trouble. The shortest men's are 35 yard up on that hole. Had to decide whether to hit a pair of 9i's or risk trouble hitting a longer club than I usually do to poke it past trouble and hope there is a clear angle to the green. I didn't have those problems 3 years ago.

For me moving up 2 clubs from 9i to 7i is not a huge difference in accuracy, but if I had to move from 9i to 6i or 5i or visa versa then it makes some difference.

However, if my average approach club is an 8i and moving forward allows me to use a 50 degree to 52 degree, it might make a significant difference in score.

[Dave2512]

20 minutes ago, Lihu said:

For me moving up 2 clubs from 9i to 7i is not a huge difference in accuracy, but if I had to move from 9i to 6i or 5i or visa versa then it makes some difference.

However, if my average approach club is an 8i and moving forward allows me to use a 50 degree to 52 degree, it might make a significant difference in score.

The problem for me at the time and even now is I don't really have average I can count on and it was exponentially worse 3 years ago. Less about what I think I can do that what the penalty for a mishit was. I am kind of tongue in cheek about my current suckiness but it's nothing now like it was then.

What moving up afforded me then was an opportunity to recover from the absolute mess of a shot without having to hit a freakin' 5w approach on a par 4 because that miss landed closer to the green. It wasn't being just two clubs closer on average or whatever. You could scoot me up to the black and whites and I doubt I could pull that off.

[rkim291968]

I posted a relevant topic earlier this year. 

My home course has blue & white tees with about 4 handicap point difference between the two.   That is, e.g, a 94 from blue tee is equivalent to 90 from white tee.  But my record shows, if I only count scores from white tee, I will have 15+ HI vs 17+ I have now.   But all the club's tournament are from the blue tee so I make sure I play most of my rounds from the blue tee.   I play from white tee only when circumstance dictates it, about 1 out of every 10 rounds. 

 

[vangator]

I may play from the senior tees this weekend.  I'm 58, so AARP thinks I'm a senior.

[RFKFREAK]

7 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

For anybody interested, I believe that this old thread is now more than just tangentially related:

Reading a bit in that thread makes me think I should probably never play the blue/back tees even if the yardage is around 6000.

[Dave2512]

IMO it's a worthwhile experiment to find out where you can score best from. Golf is so difficult I think the assumption some have that shortening the course will make it too easy for them is odd. I have seen it mentioned some think moving up means they won't have to use all their clubs. There will still be two long par 4's and the par 5's.

The revelation for me was and is how being closer to the green maximizes the chance to recover from bad shots. Sure the really good shots made some holes easier than usual. But I only hit what I consider really good shots 0 to maybe 5 times a round. Everything else is a mishit of varying ugliness. I still had to scramble. 

But I don't think the point was to prove people play too far back. It was to open eyes to that's what playing golf would be like if they could improve tee to green. To shed light on where they would benefit most. The importance of getting the most out of full swing shots and having a game plan. I think someone wrote a book about it. 

[bkuehn1952]

13 hours ago, vangator said:

I may play from the senior tees this weekend.  I'm 58, so AARP thinks I'm a senior.

You are a senior as far as the USGA and FSGA are concerned.