Should have played my tee box

scott.french3

Well-known member
Albatross 2024 Club
Joined
Jun 19, 2019
Messages
3,078
Reaction score
2,446
Location
Texas
Handicap
7.6
Yesterday, I played with two friends at a course I had not played in decades. Temperature was around 50 degrees. They wanted to play from the blue tees at 6400 yds. I normally play whites. With temperature and heavy air, it played more like 6800 yds. Way too long for me. Score suffered accordingly. I had 1 birdie on a short par 4. The rest were mostly bogies with some doubles for an 87. Its just not fun hitting hybrids or fairway woods into par 4's. It wasn't a difficult track. Just too long for me.

I will stick to 5900 to 6300 yd tees from now on.
 
Yesterday, I played with two friends at a course I had not played in decades. Temperature was around 50 degrees. They wanted to play from the blue tees at 6400 yds. I normally play whites. With temperature and heavy air, it played more like 6800 yds. Way too long for me. Score suffered accordingly. I had 1 birdie on a short par 4. The rest were mostly bogies with some doubles for an 87. Its just not fun hitting hybrids or fairway woods into par 4's. It wasn't a difficult track. Just too long for me.

I will stick to 5900 to 6300 yd tees from now on.
It can be tough playing outside the norm at times. I like to switch it up every now & then. Agree that hybrids into Par 4’s isn’t fun.
 
While it might seem inconvenient to play from split tee boxes, I find that trying to play from a length beyond my normal leads to a lot of frustration for me, and a general lack of enjoyment.

It's kind of like going to a bar and the bartender says "beer x is on special for $3 during the game". No thanks, I'll have my usual ;)
 
Ugh. Hate that experience for anyone. I'm over the the same tees thing. Everyone has more fun when they all get to play their tees and their game, whatever that is that day.
 
Yesterday, I played with two friends at a course I had not played in decades. Temperature was around 50 degrees. They wanted to play from the blue tees at 6400 yds. I normally play whites. With temperature and heavy air, it played more like 6800 yds. Way too long for me. Score suffered accordingly. I had 1 birdie on a short par 4. The rest were mostly bogies with some doubles for an 87. Its just not fun hitting hybrids or fairway woods into par 4's. It wasn't a difficult track. Just too long for me.

I will stick to 5900 to 6300 yd tees from now on.
I did that in WI last summer and won't do it again. I will split the tees every time. HC is set at the shorter yardage(6000-6300) and thats where I like to play. It is hard playing hybrids or fairways into a lot of holes.
 
I've gone to deciding tee boxes by looking at the par 4s. I want most of them to be of length where an average tee shot will leave me no more than 170 in to the pin. Whatever the par 3s and 5s are, that's fine. I'm just not interested in a bunch of 420+ par 4s for the day.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Idk. I've played from longer tees, and shot lower scores than a several of my regular tee rounds.

Having longer approach shots is a bummer, but one's effort shouldn't be affected.
 
Ugh. Hate that experience for anyone. I'm over the the same tees thing. Everyone has more fun when they all get to play their tees and their game, whatever that is that day.
Same tees is dumb. I played yesterday at a 133 slope course. Guy I was playing with played from the tips. If he had insisted on blues and wasn't playing from the black tees I probably would have just played from the blues. But it was too tough from normal tees and still 6k yard from the white tees. We both had fun because of it. Total strangers and played different tees and had separate carts and still had good conversation.
 
I agree playing excessively long tees sucks, but....

The last year i have played much longer. brutal at first, but my mid/long iron game has improved dramatically out of necessity. Which in turn has made golf more fun.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I find no pleasure in playing a course too long for me, I throughly enjoy playing an appropriate length course or one a bit shorter.
 
I'll take the split tee boxes every time rather than get way out of my wheelhouse. I'm there to have fun, not torture myself (I do enough of that from whatever tees I normally play anyway!). I'm perfectly happy sticking between 5700-6200'ish, anything much beyond that is going to be a long day for me.
 
If I switch tees I get closer, want to enjoy the round. I generally play with other old people so it's not a problem.
 
I have a friend that is always trying to talk me in to playing the tips every time we play together. My normal response is he can play whatever he wants but I see no need to make it less enjoyable for myself. I know my limitations and where I am comfortable playing from and that is where I am going to stick to.
 
I played the other day and it was around 50 degrees and most of what I was hitting came up a bit short because it was cold and I was cold and that was from around 5800. My swing felt like molasses going up hill on a cold snowing morning. :ROFLMAO:
 
I have a friend that is always trying to talk me in to playing the tips every time we play together. My normal response is he can play whatever he wants but I see no need to make it less enjoyable for myself. I know my limitations and where I am comfortable playing from and that is where I am going to stick to.
My thoughts exactly!! Why make it any harder than it already is???
 
I have a friend that is always trying to talk me in to playing the tips every time we play together. My normal response is he can play whatever he wants but I see no need to make it less enjoyable for myself. I know my limitations and where I am comfortable playing from and that is where I am going to stick to.
A guy I used to play with always wanted to play the blues, no matter what the yardage was or how much more difficult they were. He's stubborn as an old mule and it was totally an ego thing for him, he thought he was too good to be playing the whites (Narrator: he wasn't). He usually got overruled by the rest of the group.
 
My buddies all love playing back tees. I am a short hitter so I have kind of gotten used to the nonsense, but it's definitely more fun hitting irons in then fairway woods and hybrids.
 
It isn't so much the total yardage, at least for me. It is how the yardage is distributed. The last three courses I've belonged to were all right around 6000 yards from the whites:

1. 6077 yards, Par 70, 69.2 118
2. 6004 yards, Par 72, 68.6 115
3. 5991 yards, Par 72, 70.2 125

Course 1 is relatively flat, has only 2 par 5s - good mix of distances on the par 3s and 5s. 1 par 4 over 400 that was reachable for me as the 2nd shot played downhill. Only one of the par 4s had any real extreme difficulty to it.

Course 2 is also relatively flat, has 6 par 3s, 6 par 4s, 6 par 5s - the 2 longer par 4s play in opposite directions, so one is always into while the other down wind no matter the prevailing wind. Longest par 5 is 523, while longest par 3s are still under 160.

Course 3 is a traditional set up with two par 3s and 2 par 5s on each nine. It has a lot of elevation change and it is somewhat surprising how many par 4s play uphill! This course has some holes that are significantly uphill with many into the prevailing wind this time of year. Two of the par 4s I'll never reach in regulation at 420 and 434 no matter what the wind with one at 408 I'll reach if it is calm or down wind. Par 3s are a mix, very much uphill and longer on the front, downhill and shorter on the back. Par 5s are shorter on the front and longer on the back. Overall the par 5s are short averaging less than 490 yards, while the par 3s overall are also short, averaging right at 130 yards. So that distance lacking from the par 3s and 5s has to be made up somewhere and it is in the par 4s. It is those long par 4s that are the killer for me.

The first two courses my average scores for each year were between 73.7 and 75.2 when I played there. This year I am averaging about 81 on the 3rd course. It is a new course for me so there is a learning experience knowing where to and where not to hit the ball, how the greens roll and the weather so far in January has been extremely cold and sometimes very wet. So I'm hoping I can get back to shooting more reasonable scores when the weather is more conducive to doing so though I doubt I'll approach the scores I could achieve on the first 2.
 
I learned this one the hard way. When I was paired with 3 young guns at Duke University Golf Club. Of course they were playing the back tees ..... which are an astounding 7154 yards! Uhh what the hell was I thinking?? When the par 3's average over 180+ yards, that's going to be a long day for me. These guys were blowing it by me by 50 yards or more every hole. But I did my best to keep up with them & luckily my short game kept me in the game.

check out the scorecard

 
Everyone struggled. Low gir count. Put lots of pressure on short game to try to get up and downs. One guy was a long hitter. The other guy was on average 10 to 20 yds longer than me. Moving up a tee would have had me at least put me at similar approach shots on par 4's and par 5's with the second guy and probably 2 clubs less for me on par 3's.
 
I learned this one the hard way. When I was paired with 3 young guns at Duke University Golf Club. Of course they were playing the back tees ..... which are an astounding 7154 yards! Uhh what the hell was I thinking?? When the par 3's average over 180+ yards, that's going to be a long day for me. These guys were blowing it by me by 50 yards or more every hole. But I did my best to keep up with them & luckily my short game kept me in the game.

check out the scorecard

455 yard par 4's are just crazy. There was a couple of those this summer and I was happy to walk away with a bogey. Gets hard when you have to hit fairway and hybrids into to many greens.
 
455 yard par 4's are just crazy. There was a couple of those this summer and I was happy to walk away with a bogey. Gets hard when you have to hit fairway and hybrids into to many greens.
Yeah .... driver & 3 woods into par 4's are just insane. I used to play courses like this in college but not now. This old guy is lucky to play well on a 6000 yard course. :ROFLMAO:
 
Yeah .... driver & 3 woods into par 4's are just insane. I used to play courses like this in college but not now. This old guy is lucky to play well on a 6000 yard course. :ROFLMAO:
Ya I have never been a long hitter but can get around the course. But give me 6200 or less and I will keep it under 80 most often.
 
For the most part, playing the white tees allows me a decent chance at getting on in regulation on par 4's if i hit a good tee shot. There are a couple par 4 holes on my home course that I basically play as a par 5 as the likelihood of getting on in 2 is slim.
 
Back
Top