Choosing Tees: Yardage or Slope?

Yardage for me. And I'll also defer to the group.
 
I find slope to be all over the place. 4 of my last 5 rounds have had a slope of 136/137 on all different courses. The course I found to be the hardest of the 5 had a slope of 124 and I scored the worst on it.
Yeah, I don't really worry about slope at all unless it stands out as something crazy high or low. But at a new course, the first thing I'm doing is looking at the ratings of the different tees, and figuring course handicaps to see if anything stands out as an opportunity to gain a stroke somewhere. Where a tee in either direction gives a bigger or smaller jump in CH than another compared the yardage difference. It's the only way to gain/lose an advantage before you actually tee off.
 
Screw it, just play the tips.

Might as well, same fees?

Never have once looked at slope in determining tees. I usually play tha back tees as I have the length (most courses here inside an hour are inside 7k yards, most by a LOT). That said I golf a lot with golfers that say they “aren’t good enough” to play the back tees. Even if they’re 5 yards behind us. Doesn’t matter if it’s 5800 yards and they usually play from 6300 or not. For some the back tees are off limits based on their perceived skills.

I always choose my tees based on yardage or whom I’m playing against. If everyone else is playing up I will too. Otherwise absent weather, I like to play in the 7000-7200 range. That’s a full shot in on most 4’s. Most courses around here are drive/punch wedge of some sort. Ick. I like it when I’m on, but it can change a lot of things about the round.
 
Yardage aka white tees. Slope is what it is and I don't even think about it.
 
Yardage. Being distance challenged I “should” be playing courses that are <=5,600 or so. Though I often play courses around 6,000 yards.

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This thread has me wondering if some people here play with pops, or gamble, as much as I thought they did.
Once a week with men's club, that's it. Other than that it's just friendly straight stroke play with friends, nothing on the line. The only thing my handicap matters for in most of my rounds is figuring out what 'net double bogey' is for posting my scores.
 
Yardage. I multiply 28 times my average drive and play that yardage.
How far is your average drive? 28 * 250 = 7,000yds which seems long to me?

According to my app, my average drive is 262yds, so I should be playing at 7,300yds and there is no way I am playing tees that long
 
How far is your average drive? 28 * 250 = 7,000yds which seems long to me?

According to my app, my average drive is 262yds, so I should be playing at 7,300yds and there is no way I am playing tees that long

28 x 190 = 5329. This formula doesn't work that well for the longer hitters, but I find it does work for the majority of golfers. Another way is multiplying your 5-iron times 35. My first iron is a 7, so I use the driver formula.
 
Yardage. Slope just tells me how difficult the greens and how narrow the fairways are.
 
Screw it, just play the tips.

Might as well, same fees?

This is my rule of thumb. Assuming the course is at all playable for me. If it has a ton of long forced carries (240 and up) that can be a problem. I don't mind not being able to reach a green but not being able to clear a hazard can make it ridiculous.

Ironically, the toughest course we play we play from the tips (7001 yards 75.1/140 rating) and the easiest we play the white (5464 yds, 64.1/107). Sometimes it is fun to make birdies even if they are cheap, and we aren't at that shorter course to be challenged anyway. It's cheap and a pleasant walk.
 
Which do you use to pick a tee box? Which do you think is most useful?

yardage. slope is overrated. I’d always prefer to be hitting shorter irons (regardless of the green) into a second shot on a par four, and since I’m not a long driver, yardage matters far more
 
Generally by tee , meaning one up from the tips. If I’m not sure I’ll check yardages on the par 3’s.
 
Generally by tee , meaning one up from the tips. If I’m not sure I’ll check yardages on the par 3’s.
I never really get this logic of checking par3 yardages. A lot of people suggest this and live byu that notion but in my opinion and in my experiences par 3 yardages can be hugely misleading. Many shorter courses can have long par 3;s and longer ones can have shorter par 3's. I do not find the par 3's to be all that telling on a good number of courses.
 
Slope, Yardage then rating.

Most golfers do not understand slope. I find it to be the best correlation of the difficulty of a course.

The Slope Rating for a golf course tells you how difficult the golf course is for a bogey player (about a 20 handicap for a male golfer) compared to a scratch player. The higher the Slope Rating, the harder the course is for the bogey golfer, relative to the difficulty of the course for the scratch golfer.
 
Yardage. I’m not about to play a course that has a 240 yard par 3.


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Yardage, then rating. Slope doesn't matter until you miss a shot.
 
I follow what ever the others in the group play except the Blue never the blue. If I played back that fat I don't know if I could even reach the fairway
 
I much prefer courses with slope ratings over 130 as they are generally more interesting and scenic. I choose tee boxes based on yardage only and at age 56 I mostly choose to play between 6,400 and 6,850 yards. My home course has a slope of 138 from 6392 and 141 off the backs at 6850.
 
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Honestly, I think this is where the vast majority are.

Yep this is me ~225 driver at the moment. I was around 245 about 2 years ago, I really think it's the driver I picked up partially, but in all honesty 6200 is about max for me to have fun at this moment in time. My 8 can carry around 140 and my 25 degree club is about 180 so I can extend to around 6450, but that's absolutely max for me, at this time.
 
Yardage for sure … slope informs the beer quantity
 
Yardage. I have honestly never took the time to understand slope or rating. Guess I should go Google it.
 
Yardage. Comfortable up to 6200. Will stretch to 6600 if I have to. Beyond that, it’ll be a tough day.
 
Yardage for me. I look to play most courses at around 5,300 yards (I'll be doing a mix next year at North Kingstown to get there). Knowledge of the course in question also helps. FWIW, I don't find slope all that helpful as I think it misses certain things. An example of what I am saying is that the slope ratings of the various tees at North Kingstown is not that high (ranges from 104 to 121) despite have forced carries over water from 5 tees, small greens, some of which are pretty severely sloped and several holes which are really narrow. All of these points make the course harder to play for higher cappers like me than the rating would suggest.
 
I really don’t know what slope means well enough so I look at yardage. I play whatever is around 6500. On my home course I’ll play from the tips a lot more lately but they are only around 6800
 
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