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Have you seen people "Tee it Forward" on your course?

I think I am going to play the red tees sometime this week with only irons just for the fun of it. I've suggested this to a few of my playing partners and they act like they're too proud to be seen at the "ladies" tees. I personally think that with just irons, it would be a fun and challenging round.
 
Based on my handicap I'm a tweener. I usually play the whites. Like some I play the
Reds from time to time and I've played as far back as the tee boxes would go. Personally in my resurgence back into golf most of my ego has completly gone away. I done stress about what tee box others are hitting from and what they will think of me. In most cases I'll end up making the recommendation for the randoms I'm paired with to move up. Adding yardage to your round of golf with your struggling just puts fuel on the fire. Most say I want to get every penny outta my money I paid. While this sounds good to say out loud , causing yourself to get upset doesn't seem like it would help you enjoy it any more...
 
checkered said:
I wish more would tee it forward around here in summer. I'm sure it would help pace of play quite a bit. I play the whites usually. I should try playing from shorter sometimes. I'm usually just playing whatever tees everyone else is at so as not to cause any slowdowns.
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Imo a misconception. With all the other major reasons for slow play I believe "tee it forward" is probably the least important. The bottom line is the slow player (whether a good player or a poor player) will be slow anyway and will be slow from any tee box. Adding or taking away 25 to 50 yards per hole is not going to be one of the most important factors as to why he/she is that slow nor will it cure the problem for them. There are just simply too many other reasons or habits why one causes slow play that are of much greater signifiicance.

The biggest one is the realization for him/her to even be aware or concerned with the need to play at a reasonably respectable pace to begin with. If that player learned to change those other habits and had even some sincere general awareness of it then he/she no longer would be the cause of slow play regardless of the tees chosen. Until that happens they will cause slow play from any tee.
 
I "Tee It Forward". I used to always play from tees in the 6400 to 6500 range but over the last few years age has taken a little distance. I now usually play in the 6100 to 6300 range. I'll occasionally step back in the summer to the longer tees, probably played about 20% of my rounds for the year from 6400+.
 
In my chunk of Florida four tees are common, Blue, White, Gold and Red, and often used to be called Championship, Men's, Senior's, and Ladies. I don't hear that terminology much lately. The course where I play most caters to retirees, and the Gold are the most used. Seeing people playing the Blues is rare (and usually humorous unless you're stuck behind 'em). I won't play from the back because it's stupid given my game. I play either the White or Gold depending who I'm with, and am tending toward the Gold when I have the choice. I played 9 yesterday afternoon and had a blast. Maybe my personal macho image has been fading with the years though. And I'm seeing more and more of the real "senior" golfers up on the Red tees which used to be really rare. Yeah, I think Tee it Forward may be helping some at least. It ain't a bad thing.
 
My group at our course will sometimes move forward just to make it more of a birdie feast for skins games or team games. Regardless of what people say, it does make for a lot more fun at times when you have realistic birdie chances on almost every hole


KG

Just Tapping Away
 
I think a good way to look at it might be this suggestion.

On a given golf course if one needs to (not wants to but needs to) play a driver on every P4 and still (after most all your drives) end up with approach shots that are constantly too long requiring only the longer clubs in your bag and you struggle for any real chance of hitting greens at all then chances are you probably should be up a tee. That's what "TIF" is based on. Conversely if one is finding (after most their drives) on many holes that they can approach with shorter irons and wedges and perhaps don't even "need" the driver on some of them then they shouldn't need to move up. But this logic shouldn't be judged because of a bad day or a great day but really through time and that persons average results distance wise for their normal round.

Nothing more stupid than a comment after one hits a scribbler off the tee and you here someone else comment how they shouldn't be there. Like as if they wouldn't have done that from any set of tees.
 
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rollin said:
Imo a misconception. With all the other major reasons for slow play I believe "tee it forward" is probably the least important. The bottom line is the slow player (whether a good player or a poor player) will be slow anyway and will be slow from any tee box. Adding or taking away 25 to 50 yards per hole is not going to be one of the most important factors as to why he/she is that slow nor will it cure the problem for them. There are just simply too many other reasons or habits why one causes slow play that are of much greater signifiicance.

The biggest one is the realization for him/her to even be aware or concerned with the need to play at a reasonably respectable pace to begin with. If that player learned to change those other habits and had even some sincere general awareness of it then he/she no longer would be the cause of slow play regardless of the tees chosen. Until that happens they will cause slow play from any tee.
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I know it may not be true everywhere. With what I see going on out at courses here when it's slow, I absolutely believe it would help pace of play.
 
checkered said:
I know it may not be true everywhere. With what I see going on out at courses here when it's slow, I absolutely believe it would help pace of play.
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I agree 100%. Case in point: when I played Chambers Bay in August with hokiegolfer it took us about 4.5 hours and we barely finished by darkness. We are not that good (I am a 14, hokie is a 20, our playing partner from Japan was probably around a 9 or 10) so we played Sand tees. We were waiting on every hole for the guys in front of us who were playing the tips because they were routinely forced to lay up to par 4's - guarantee we would have finished in less than 4 hours had they played a tee box back like us.
 
SkiBumGolfer said:
I agree 100%. Case in point: when I played Chambers Bay in August with hokiegolfer it took us about 4.5 hours and we barely finished by darkness. We are not that good (I am a 14, hokie is a 20, our playing partner from Japan was probably around a 9 or 10) so we played Sand tees. We were waiting on every hole for the guys in front of us who were playing the tips because they were routinely forced to lay up to par 4's - guarantee we would have finished in less than 4 hours had they played a tee box back like us.
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sorry but I am a little confused with some of what your saying. I'm just not reading it correctly or its not written correctly. They were playing the tips but also laying up??. My apologies but confusing to me.
 
rollin said:
sorry but I am a little confused with some of what your saying. I'm just not reading it correctly or its not written correctly. They were playing the tips but also laying up??. My apologies but confusing to me.
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he means playing the tips and unable to reach even a par 4 in two thus having to lay up.
 
rollin said:
sorry but I am a little confused with some of what your saying. I'm just not reading it correctly or its not written correctly. They were playing the tips but also laying up??. My apologies but confusing to me.
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checkered said:
he means playing the tips and unable to reach even a par 4 in two thus having to lay up.
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I re read it and yeah, it's a bit unclear, my apologies. Checkered is correct, they were unable to reach most of the par 4's in two. And also, they weren't hitting great tee shots all the time, so now instead of them having to try and get on in 3 to save par, the extra distance is causing them to have to try and get there in 4 to save bogey. It was a nightmare to watch.
 
I usually play from the tees that the majority of the group wants to play from. I don't have any friends that play from the tips so that makes our decision easier. I know my home course has come up with a gold/blue combination of tees that seem to work well for pace of play. The thing that often baffles me is how people decide to play from what tees. I have seen guys on the range spraying their driver just over 200 yet they play from the tips. I know when I first started I didn't really know how to tell which tees to play from.


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rollin said:
I think a good way to look at it might be this suggestion.

On a given golf course if one needs to (not wants to but needs to) play a driver on every P4 and still (after most all your drives) end up with approach shots that are constantly too long requiring only the longer clubs in your bag and you struggle for any real chance of hitting greens at all then chances are you probably should be up a tee. That's what "TIF" is based on. Conversely if one is finding (after most their drives) on many holes that they can approach with shorter irons and wedges and perhaps don't even "need" the driver on some of them then they shouldn't need to move up. But this logic shouldn't be judged because of a bad day or a great day but really through time and that persons average results distance wise for their normal round.
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I agree with this logic, and would compare it to the Wendy's Three Tour Challenge, which pits pros from the PGA tour against the LPGA and the Senior PGA tour. As I understand it, they set the tees so the players have the same iron (e.g., a 7 iron) into the green more or less. So the seniors tee in front of the PGA guys, and the LPGA guys tee it up in front of the seniors.

So one approach would be to pretend you're a participant in the challenge and determine your set of tee by watching a PGA tournament, and figuring roughly how many times the pros hit a long iron into the green, how may times a mid-iron, how may times a short iron or wedge, etc. Then you could select your tee on your course so that you have a similar variety of length of shots into the green.

I suspect that most players on average are hitting into the green longer irons (by 2 to 4 club lofts) than the PGA tour player would be hitting into the green from comparable tournament tees. And I think a lot of male players would enjoy the game a bit more if they moved up a tee.
 
:act-up:I played the "reds" once this year. Course was 7800 from the black.and 7100 from the men's tees. I played it at 5800 yards. Hardest course in our state, wasn't about to ruin the day and have no fun playing a tight tree lined monster of a course .lpostage stamp greens/ water/. Bunkers/ and tree lined. Played well to shoot an 80
 
checkered said:
he means playing the tips and unable to reach even a par 4 in two thus having to lay up.
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thanks a lot I see now.

To "skibum" and BTW awesome avatar ;)
Now that I know what you mean I can see the point. Forced to be laying up on P4's? I am in complete agreement that they should be up a tee as I indicated in my last post and earlier ones about distance being the main reason for "TIF". Its the perfect example for it.

But the question remains if that is the main reason for the extra half hour. I know logic says extra strokes means more time but it doesn't have to. I and plenty people I golfed with can at times shoot 100's and do it in under 4 hrs and have done it plenty times so extra strokes doesnt have to be the reason for it if the person is willing to do other things to make up for it. But that's where imo the problem lies.

That's just the difference (as I mentioned) in where some people have the sense or awareness and the concern to not cause delays. Do what is necessary between, after, and before the strokes and one can move along rather respectfully regardless of the amount of strokes within reason unless of course it just gets to be a ridiculous unreasonable amount. In that case then one should just pick up and move on. That again among many other things would be part of a persons concerned awareness thing I mention. With their lack of concern about it, had they played up but then also played very poorly they would have taken a long time as well because they just don't understand or care how to do what is necessary.
 
On the course I learned how to play (Sunflower Hills in KCK), it is 6,650 from the regular tees (7,000 from the tips) and 6,025 from the "senior" tees. From the first time I played it in 1977 until 2008 I never came close to breaking 100 there. My best was probably around 105. Of course the first few years was in high school and then after that it was a handful of times a year that I played it. Also never played much more than once or twice a month.

In 2008 after I took up the game again and got serious about it, I went to the course, played from the regular tees and shot 99. I went a couple weeks later, teed it forward (ahead of my time!) and played the senior tees, and shot 98! One shot difference in 625 yards! I want to play it next year, as I have gotten a lot better in the last five years.
 
rollin said:
thanks a lot I see now.

To "skibum" and BTW awesome avatar ;)
Now that I know what you mean I can see the point. Forced to be laying up on P4's? I am in complete agreement that they should be up a tee as I indicated in my last post and earlier ones about distance being the main reason for "TIF". Its the perfect example for it.

But the question remains if that is the main reason for the extra half hour. I know logic says extra strokes means more time but it doesn't have to. I and plenty people I golfed with can at times shoot 100's and do it in under 4 hrs and have done it plenty times so extra strokes doesnt have to be the reason for it if the person is willing to do other things to make up for it. But that's where imo the problem lies.

That's just the difference (as I mentioned) in where some people have the sense or awareness and the concern to not cause delays. Do what is necessary between, after, and before the strokes and one can move along rather respectfully regardless of the amount of strokes within reason unless of course it just gets to be a ridiculous unreasonable amount. In that case then one should just pick up and move on. That again among many other things would be part of a persons concerned awareness thing I mention. With their lack of concern about it, had they played up but then also played very poorly they would have taken a long time as well because they just don't understand or care how to do what is necessary.
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This is definitely true - I've played with super fast players who rack up some big numbers, and some super slow players shooting upper 70's. But I do think that everything being equal, if you take a player who should be playing one tee, and have him play from a longer set of tees, AND he doesn't change his preshot routine/walking pace/etc. (which he probably won't), then logic dictates that more strokes = more time. Therefore if you can convince people to move up a tee, then theoretically they will play faster. Surely there are other factors, but in this particular case I think we would have finished significantly faster had this group simply moved up one tee.

Oh and thanks about the avatar haha :cool:
 
SkiBumGolfer said:
This is definitely true - I've played with super fast players who rack up some big numbers, and some super slow players shooting upper 70's. But I do think that everything being equal, if you take a player who should be playing one tee, and have him play from a longer set of tees, AND he doesn't change his preshot routine/walking pace/etc. (which he probably won't), then logic dictates that more strokes = more time. Therefore if you can convince people to move up a tee, then theoretically they will play faster. Surely there are other factors, but in this particular case I think we would have finished significantly faster had this group simply moved up one tee.

Oh and thanks about the avatar haha :cool:
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The highlighted is one of the more significant ways of how it can be done. That's what I do when my play falls apart and if I would otherwise be the cause for delay. I am concerned about it enough that I even unnecessarily do it on the occasion I am playing poorly and when the pace ahead is slow anyway. That's why I always feel strongly about saying that it is less about what people do and is more about how they go about it. And some of this is also only relevant to what one person thinks is slow vs another. But over all we do most all have a place where we feel it can get too long.

But honestly It all can just get old and tiresome. People just are not going to change. Its like fighting with slow drivers who fail to keep right. Get past one and there is another right up the road and you'll be fighting with people through the entire hundred mile stretch of highway. And do the same thing next trip.

People just need to be educated from the beginning and even then they need to put it into play as part of the game.
 
Mystery Meat said:
:act-up:I played the "reds" once this year. Course was 7800 from the black.and 7100 from the men's tees. I played it at 5800 yards. Hardest course in our state, wasn't about to ruin the day and have no fun playing a tight tree lined monster of a course .lpostage stamp greens/ water/. Bunkers/ and tree lined. Played well to shoot an 80
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Sounds like Purgatory in Indianapolis.
 
I have no problem teeing it forward, I recognize that I'm not a professional so u don't expect to play from the tips. I've seen many of the older guys tee forward but often too many play from 7000 yards and take 6 hours
 
Here is a link to an older article (from 2010) I read called "which tees should I play" I found nice and interesting and even an answered question section on the bottom half of it. I thought it made sense. There are also several comments that followed. Wasn't perfect but the idea seem to make sense.
http://www.milesofgolf.com/blog/golf-randoms/which-tees-should-you-play/
 
A couple of my playing partners and I decided that we needed to work on our irons a lot more, so we played from the forward tees today and left the drivers and fairway woods out of our bags and used only irons and hybrids. It was by far the most enjoyable round that I've had in a while. With the tees at 5100ish yards, it was challenging enough to test your iron game if you're a hacker like me. I ended up shooting an 86, but fell apart a bit on the back 9. It could have been a sub-80 round easily if I would have just held it together through the entire round.

The other 2 guys playing shot close to their normal rounds, one finished up with an 83, the other with an 87. I, on the other hand, struggle with driver and fairway woods, so I ended up shooting quite a bit better than normal and was typically way ahead of them with my 4 hybrid. It was just so much fun, I don't want to put the driver or fairways back in the bag for a while.
 
I wish we would have seen it but no dice. Unfortunately we have a large number of players who believe they hit the ball farther then they do in reality so that means a good bit of "tip" players. The Pro's don't do much about it since pace of play isn't an issue. Personally I just don't understand why people make things harder then they need to be. Life is tough enough, have some fun.
 
Bullitt5339 said:
A couple of my playing partners and I decided that we needed to work on our irons a lot more, so we played from the forward tees today and left the drivers and fairway woods out of our bags and used only irons and hybrids. It was by far the most enjoyable round that I've had in a while. With the tees at 5100ish yards, it was challenging enough to test your iron game if you're a hacker like me. I ended up shooting an 86, but fell apart a bit on the back 9. It could have been a sub-80 round easily if I would have just held it together through the entire round.

The other 2 guys playing shot close to their normal rounds, one finished up with an 83, the other with an 87. I, on the other hand, struggle with driver and fairway woods, so I ended up shooting quite a bit better than normal and was typically way ahead of them with my 4 hybrid. It was just so much fun, I don't want to put the driver or fairways back in the bag for a while.
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I am really considering doing this in an upcoming round for the fun of it. I figure my score will be right around what I normally shoot and maybe even better, but fun will be had!
 
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