Picking the right tee box?

[Smiter]

With the way I’m striking it and also not getting through the ball so far this year, it really don’t matter what tees I’m playing as my drives aren’t really going anywhere.

I’m general one should play whatever tees they enjoy the game the most from. Exceptions are when you are taking the fun out of the game for others by playing from a totally inappropriate tee. Say a 36+ HC that’s playing the championship tees from 7600. If they’re playing fast, fine. If they’re not, they need to move up. I don’t see how that would be fun for them, but they definitely would get the most bang for their buck, maybe?

I’ve played like hot garbage this year so far so when I recently played a round with a group of seniors, I played from the tees they were. I was just going to use an iron off the tee on any potentially reachable par 4 where there was a group on the green. There ended up being an open course in front of us so I never had to do that due to that reason.

 

[leftshot]

True story.
My 80 year old father was here and he was telling me about one of his weekly games. He plays 4 times a week now and his courses are fairly challenging. They have numbered tee boxes from 1-5 or 6 I believe and his Wednesday group refused to move up to the next box. They were playing from over 6200 yards (in FL with no roll) and the average age was close to 80. Absolute refusal and the course finally said something. They agreed to create a combined 3-4 tee box, ONLY because the members refused to move up completely, but wanted to on two par 5s that they think they can reach in 2. Otherwise the quotes were "Those are old man tees". YOU ARE OLD MEN! Watching these guys hit fairway woods into par 4s on courses this hard is both sad and slow ONLY because they grew up at a time when you had 3 tee boxes (mens, seniors and women) or 4 if you added a back Championship Tee.

That was a great story JB. I did expect a different ending though. I thought you were going to tell us the numbered tees didn't work because no one in the group could read the numbers.

 

[MrDC]

One of my regular partners is a good golfer, he can break 80 on occasion, but is not long. I'm an OK golfer at best, my best round is 89, I too am not long.

Yesterday we played a course that the men's tee was at 6600, which is too long for both of us, and a "senior" tee at 6100, which is perfect. He refused to move up, saying we're not seniors so we have no business there, he played OK because he's a good golfer and doesn't make many mistakes, my mistakes cost me dearly.

Obviously this is a course problem- they refuse to accept that tees are not people, they're length, and the game of golf is far more fun when players do better, they'll return more often, they'll get hooked more often, setting up average players for failure with long tee lengths is bad business plain and simple.

There should always be a tee box around 6000 yds called the white, that's a good length for most average players, then two further back like blue and black for longer/better golfers, and then two forward gold and red for lesser length, none of them labeled as an age/gender, and there should be a chart outlining the length of the player who should be on which tee, simple.

 

[seastrunk]

Which makes complete sense. I got paired up with 3 80+ year olds the other day, and one of them would've whooped me every day of the week. Age is relatively irrelevant. There's older guys that constantly hit better than me on the range as well.

I also play with partners in the 70's 3 times a week and they shot their age or slighty over. Remeber, tee boxes are chosen by handicap, not age or sex.

 

[ntanygd760]

I also play with partners in the 70's 3 times a week and they shot their age or slighty over. Remeber, tee boxes are chosen by handicap, not age or sex.

Wouldn't the fact that tee boxes have a different rating for men and women make that statement wrong. A good chunk of courses don't even have the back 2 boxes rated for women.

 

[sabig27]

Picking the right tee box?

You can rate any tee box or yardage for that matter using the USGA rating conversion formula. If you to their website it is there. When I play with my wife, I will tee off on some holes with her. I then go figure out what yardage I played that day to calculate slope and rating. It is the same procedure golf courses do for combo tees


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