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How do you determine what tees to play?

Judging by what I'm reading, I'd say that the average course length we're dealing with for "Regulation" tees is around 6400 yds. and the average "Tip" distance is around 6800.

Doing the math... I find that the average difference between the two tees is a whopping 22 yards!

Does anyone seriously believe that someone - no matter how poorly they play - using tees that are just 22 yards farther back than the regular tees is really going to cause such a delay as to add so much time to a round of golf as to make it unbearable for those playing with them or for others on the course? I mean, what could possibly happen in 22 yards that wouldn't happen anyway even if they moved up to the regular tees?

I could understand if the difference was a hundred yards or so as that kind of difference might address a whole series of skill issues.
But 22 yards is a little longer than the length of the average suburban driveway and I really don't see that as any sort of insurmountable challenge, do you? :confused2:
 
tnc200 said:
"How someone moves through a golf course" is as much a skill as scoring/hdcp is. Im stuck in the 90's but play efficently and have had nightmare rounds with all sorts of delusional golfers. I just want to scream "It's muni golf dude pull your head out and play".
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I play off a 7 handicap and my wife is a 32. We play at nearly the same pace - 3.5 to 4 hours if unimpeded by the knuckleheads in front of us. She does not waste any time around the cart, her bag, club selection, pre-shot routine....no time wasted anywhere and she enjoys the game. It can be done.

On the original question, I play based on yardage, not handicap. I am 59 years old, hit my drives about 225 to 230 and can typically play well from 6000 to 6400 yards.
 
Hawk said:
Yardage. 6,000 to 6,300 yards preferrably.
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I agree. Yardage is want I look at. 6,000 to 6,300 is about for me as well.
 
it all depends on the course and how im swinging... today i shoulda just dropped at the 150 stick :sad:
 
6300-6600 usually
 
My foursome consists of 4 50-something guys with handicaps ranging from a 7 to a 17. We will always play from 6100 to 6600 yards provided the slope does not exceed 127. We are not big hitters, we do not waste time, 3 of us are rotten putters, but we always finish in under 4 hours ( provided that we are not waiting on the groups in front of us )
 
JWLI said:
That makes perfect sense.

But then there's always the idea of people who want to play from a certain set of tees just for the hell of it.
After the U.S. Open rolled through Bethpage for example, there were hundreds of people (myself included) who couldn't wait to get a tee time so they could play from "The U.S. Open Tees" just for the experience.
Probably 99 percent of them didn't have a chance to score anything near "well", but does that mean that they shouldn't be allowed to play from those tees just to have a story to tell?

Golf IS a game after all.
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I can understand that as well. May 2010 on my road trip through Montana, I pulled into Old Works GC and walked on as a single. The place wasn't busy but there were some players on the course. I met a member on the first tee and accepted his invitation to join him. He gave me the full story after we teed off. The players on the course were trying to qualify for the US Open and we were following them on the same tees. I didn't pay it any mind. After we got underway he pointed out the black tees were 7700 yards, the course rating was 75.8 and slope of 135. Normally I would not have chosen those tees but after we were in the game it was OK. Turns out I played well, shot 81 with one triple bogie. The member didn't have a good scoring day and shot 90 something but we enjoyed the round. So I had a totally enjoyable day by accidentally playing the wrong tees. (7700 yards is not that long at a mile high elevation.) Oh, and there was no one following us so we didn't slow anyone down.
 
Yardage. If the over all yardages are close, the tie breaker goes to the Par 3 yardages.
 
Does your yardage match your card

Does your yardage match your card

I have been giving this a great deal of thought the last couple of weeks due to all the obscene yardages posted. I am wondering if the distances you are seeing on the score card match the distances you are hitting. Or are your distances matching up to the GPS on your cart.
I played with mward and INgolfer on Thursday and the yardages on the gos were way off. Sometimes shorter and others longer.
When is the last time those yardage markers or books were updated? I suspect that the distances we are ALL seeing are off by 10-15%. Thoughts or opinions?
 
Good topic FK. I know Westchase in Tampa did not match. It was shorter and while I hated to realize my drives were not 300 yard bombs, it made me score better as soon as I realized it.

Countryside Country Club (our home course previously), was close, but on 4 holes, the scorecard number was longer than the actual distance.

Our previous home course (prior to Countryside) was Grand Cypress in Orlando. The North/South was pretty darn accurate. The New Course was pretty darn accurate. The East Course was off on 3 holes.
 
In general I would say the yardages on the scorecard are correct. I usually check the yardages against Google Earth and they are pretty accurate. However, I believe most of the team the tees are playing up from the measured yardage for the scorecard so the distance played per hole is less than the scorecard. In other words, the scorecard distance is the maximum per hole, and this is generally not the case.
 
I don't really care about how far I hit the ball to be honest. I can't tell you the last time i measured the distance of a drive. I shoot flags with a range finder and am more concerned about what iron I'm hitting to it.
 
I have seen courses over here where there yardage markers on the fairway are 10/15 yards out. Blarney GC in particular all their markers are out by a min of 15 yards. I know one of the greens keepers and he told me some courses do this to protect greens but surely that can't be true or good for the courses reputation
 
For my home course, the tees can often times be 10 yards forward or backward of the scorecard yardage just because of how they move them daily.

For purposes of posting distances for discussion on the forum, I defer to my GPS/rangefinder to calculate those - not the scorecard.
 
i'm with cookie. i trust my gps more than tee markers
 
I rarely, if ever go by the scorecard any more down here. A lot of the courses I play are older, and have been around a while, so usually that means their scorecards are as well. I use my GPS a good bit from the tee box to figure out where certain locations are (150 yard layup, dogleg, etc).

The course I play league on is definitely not up to date on their yardages, fortunately we get separate scorecards for league play, and if you compare the two, the distances are quite different between the two cards.
 
TC said:
I don't really care about how far I hit the ball to be honest. I can't tell you the last time i measured the distance of a drive. I shoot flags with a range finder and am more concerned about what iron I'm hitting to it.
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Im pretty much the same way now, TC. The first thing I look for on a hole is how far is the 150 yard marker.
 
Our course is pretty accurate from what I've seen. Our scorecard has been updated twice in the last two years though due to layout changes.
 
I really don't even pay much attention to the distances on the scorecard or marker anymore now that I use Golfshots. I trust that more the course yardages and haven't run into any situations that I felt like it gave me inaccurate yardages.
 
I pretty much look at the scorecard yardage only when deciding which tees to play at a new course and after that I rely on my rangefinder for yardages so I can't really say about courses in general being longer or shorter. However, I do know that on many par 3's when I shot the pin on a new course many folks playing with me will change clubs because the actual distances are very much different because of tee boxes being up or back combined with the pin placement that day.
 
Freddie, were the scorecards and GPS both incorrect when you played?

Ive often wondered how accurate the GPS is that I am using on certain holes. For example, I looked at my GPS on Hole #17 yesterday, it said I was 114 to the pin. I hit a PERFECT 54* wedge, and ended up about 10 or so yards short of the green. Wind was not at my face, if anything it was slightly helping. I wish I would have gps'd the distance to see how far the shot went, because when it was hit, I thought it was going to be dead perfect in the center of the green.
 
I wonder if they are on or off at some courses around my area. Some courses that are 6600 yards I struggle with the distances and if I try the tips at others (7000ish) they don't seem as long. I am like TC and just hit drives on long par 4s or 5s then use the rangefinder to the green.
 
To tell you the truth I relied on the gps and didn't look at the card. Once we figured it was off I started eyeballing from the markers.
On the 6th hole gps called out a trap at 320. I hit driver directly at it cause I knew I was safe. I was a foot from going into the trap. According to Golftec I average 275 with the driver. A 50 yard jump is huge. Am I swinging better yes but I question that measurement. But I'd be well with my rights to claim I hit it 300 plus based on that
 
Couldn't tell you to be honest I play the same course just about every week and haven't actually looked at the scorecard in over 2 years.
 
I've been checking quite a few yardage markers versus my gps and they vary a lot.
Some holes are just about dead on, and others are as much as 4 to 8 yards different.
All I know is that when I forget my gps at home, my game suffers tremendously.
I don't have the confidence that I am pacing the yardages right or that the markers are even correct.
 
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