Should Courses Enact a HC Check on Tees

I suppose your geographic location matters. As someone who plays in New England i have found that many courses have carry requirements, hazards directly off tee, etc. Thats why I was connecting tees to HC, a little based on distance but more on difficulty of the requirements. If someone is a 8 handicap the chances of them duffing a drive 20 yards on the ground is much less than a 20 playing back there. Again, generally speaking... I understand there are exceptions.

Honestly (and im not trying to be mean here nor tell you why you did something) but i think at least in part you were probably connecting tees to caps because it is unfortunately very often what we hear very often just about anywhere. Its sort of like a "jojn the wagon" type of thing. Enough people b*tch about something often enough and its very easy to join up. I know playing mostly as a single and paired with so many different people I must hear a million times about the people ahead playing the wrong tees.

One day (always sticks in my head) there was a guy in my 4some (all of us singles and strangers to each other). Nice enough a person but he was constantly making remarks about the group ahead who were spraying balls fairly consistently poor from the tees. he kept on blasting about it to us......syaing things like ..."you see this? they shouldnt be playing from there" or "why are they playing those tees" and in this constant bitching of his, he was also implying that it was all related to pace and how people like that ruin the pace and on and on and on. This happened most every hole where we waited just even a minute to tee off. By the 8th hole I kind of had enough. i mean the pace wasnt even a problem as it really wasnt bad. Also the group ahead was always within a shot or a shot and a half of the group ahead of them. And so...... we were all freindly enough with each other by this point and so I said "but whats the difference?" and " just maybe they happen to have a bad day today from the tees". he goes on......'they dont belong there.....this is why rounds take too long....they have no business there" etc,etc. i said "but we arent even playing a bad pace" and i also said "and they are on pace with the group ahead anyway". I also said that i can play teerribly bad from the tees on any guven day so should i be moved up and you have seen how well im hitting today but tomnorow I might spray balls just like they are. He just insisted this is what is wrong with golf. I mean we actually began (respectfully in a friendly way)) arguing about it. He could not open his eyes to realize the pace wasnt even bad nor realize they were on with the group ahead anyway, nor ever would he even consider tee choice has little to do with creating the real problem. All he saw was the group not playing well enough and in his mind this is the reason pace is ruined everywhere. How was just so cought up in what they were doing nothing else mattered. All in all we were all at our cars in the usual 420ish. The way he went on you would think it took us 5 and half hrs and it was all the fault of the guys ahead of us even though they kept up with the group ahead of them.
 
Should Courses Enact a HC Check on Tees

Honestly (and im not trying to be mean here nor tell you why you did something) but i think at least in part you were probably connecting tees to caps because it is unfortunately very often what we hear very often just about anywhere. Its sort of like a "jojn the wagon" type of thing. Enough people b*tch about something often enough and its very easy to join up. I know playing mostly as a single and paired with so many different people I must hear a million times about the people ahead playing the wrong tees.

One day (always sticks in my head) there was a guy in my 4some (all of us singles and strangers to each other). Nice enough a person but he was constantly making remarks about the group ahead who were spraying balls fairly consistently poor from the tees. he kept on blasting about it to us......syaing things like ..."you see this? they shouldnt be playing from there" or "why are they playing those tees" and in this constant bitching of his, he was also implying that it was all related to pace and how people like that ruin the pace and on and on and on. This happened most every hole where we waited just even a minute to tee off. By the 8th hole I kind of had enough. i mean the pace wasnt even a problem as it really wasnt bad. Also the group ahead was always within a shot or a shot and a half of the group ahead of them. And so...... we were all freindly enough with each other by this point and so I said "but whats the difference?" and " just maybe they happen to have a bad day today from the tees". he goes on......'they dont belong there.....this is why rounds take too long....they have no business there" etc,etc. i said "but we arent even playing a bad pace" and i also said "and they are on pace with the group ahead anyway". I also said that i can play teerribly bad from the tees on any guven day so should i be moved up and you have seen how well im hitting today but tomnorow I might spray balls just like they are. He just insisted this is what is wrong with golf. I mean we actually began (respectfully in a friendly way)) arguing about it. He could not open his eyes to realize the pace wasnt even bad nor realize they were on with the group ahead anyway, nor ever would he even consider tee choice has little to do with creating the real problem. All he saw was the group not playing well enough and in his mind this is the reason pace is ruined everywhere. How was just so cought up in what they were doing nothing else mattered. All in all we were all at our cars in the usual 420ish. The way he went on you would think it took us 5 and half hrs and it was all the fault of the guys ahead of us even though they kept up with the group ahead of them.

Do you have any evidence supporting your claim that distance (tee selection) and handicap are not correlating for the average golfer? You talk about it in such an absolute fact that I would assume you have something to back that up. Obviously there will be exceptions, but you don’t make guidelines/rules for the exceptions, you make them for the average result.


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So only 1% of golfers struggle at the short game. I'm a high handicap player and usually give most of my strokes up close to the greens. I was just looking at slow play from a different angle. Generally I think a lot of the time lost on the course happens on or around the greens. Just my opinion. I never play from the tips knowing that at my level I'm at that level currently. The difference between at person. Who shoots in the 90's than one in the 70's is around 1.3 strokes per hole. Yes the booming drive and approach shot is impressive, and I strive to achive that but most strokes are lost with a poor chip or chips leading up to the dreaded 3 put.

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I think by saying (1%) he was maning the amount of people driving 320 on a regular basis. But as for your point yes there are plenty who can hit long enough for the tees they are on but lack drastically in greenise game. And yes the "know it alls' and the "elitists" who claim evryone else but them should play a shorter tee so that it solves the pace issue would have that player move up.

You know whats funny too? Its also very often implied by them that you will have more fun from there. Now.....i do understand the game can be more fun or perhaps better said one can be more productive by moving up. So i do get that part. But the issue i have is that so many people who beleive this is the pace solver very often say this as though they are performing some noble gesture for the person when in reality all they really want is to implant thier misguided logic that moving you up will solve thier pace problems.

I mean some even people who do genuinely feel that the game for shorter player would be better by moving forward sometimes take it overboard too. So many times by one who is long enough its mentioned how "wehen we played up just for fun we had a blast" and "it was one of the best rounds we I ever enjoyed" or "wow that was so much fun" 'one of the best things i ever enjoyed" "it was awesome" etc,etc,etc,....i mean really? honestly.... if it was so great and awesome then why dont you play there all the time? best round and fun you ever had, it was most awesome thing youve done. So why not play there all the time?
There again is really much more the false noble gesture of trying to show others how great the game is if they played forward than it ever is something they truly are so estatic about for themselves. If that wasnt true they would play it all the time themselves. i mean the game is better when at the correct distance for a given players distance ability. But to some people out there with a different agenda.....dont play the part of the phony noble savior while all you really truly want (in line with your misguided logic) is for others to move up so that it solves your pace problems. Again...if it was really the most enjoyable golf youve played... then stay there yourself and play it all the time. That way you will have the most funnest awesome time every round you play. why would you move back to where it is obviously always been less enjoyable?
 
Do you have any evidence supporting your claim that distance (tee selection) and handicap are not correlating for the average golfer? You talk about it in such an absolute fact that I would assume you have something to back that up. Obviously there will be exceptions, but you don’t make guidelines/rules for the exceptions, you make them for the average result.


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what i imply is that hc shouldnt dictate which tees to play as that (teees) should be mostly (majority of it) about capable distance. i said nothing (at least didnt mean to) about HC and distance being related. people can be long or short and yet have way different handicaps. So im not really understanding your question.
 
what i imply is that hc shouldnt dictate which tees to play as that (teees) should be mostly (majority of it) about capable distance. i said nothing (at least didnt mean to) about HC and distance being related. people can be long or short and yet have way diferent handicaps.

I agree with that, but do you have any evidence that the average capable distance has no correlation with handicap? I would imagine for the average golfer distance and handicap are correlated, but if you have something that proves otherwise I would change my mind on that. I believe you are going to have a few exceptions, but for majority/average golfer I believe distance and handicap are pretty well connected.


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what i imply is that hc shouldnt dictate which tees to play as that (teees) should be mostly (majority of it) about capable distance. i said nothing (at least didnt mean to) about HC and distance being related. people can be long or short and yet have way different handicaps. So im not really understanding your question.

Even this is an argument based on outliers. Trackman did a study about 5 years ago showing that HC index was one of the strongest predictors of driving distance. They organized a chart showing that handicap and swing speed were almost perfectly correlated.

It seems like everyone has a story about a scratch handicap they met one time that only drove it 180 and got up and down from everywhere, or a 20 handicap who hit it 300, but most of the evidence suggests that these people are extremely rare.
 
I agree with that, but do you have any evidence that the average capable distance has no correlation with handicap? I would imagine for the average golfer distance and handicap are correlated, but if you have something that proves otherwise I would change my mind on that. I believe you are going to have a few exceptions, but for majority/average golfer I believe distance and handicap are pretty well connected.


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Are we talking distance with driver being handicap comparable?
 
Are we talking distance with driver being handicap comparable?

Yes, I’ve seen multiple studies showing a strong correlation between the two (one of which joebute points out), but if rollin has something I haven’t seen I’m open to looking at it differently.


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I don't know if there is a "wrong" tee. There are golfers who can't hit the ball 200 yards, but with control and a great short game, they can compete off the "blues." And of course the opposite is true.

Slow play is caused by slow players, and it doesn't matter where they tee off from.

And, the caliber of the player doesn't matter. I have know high handicappers who move quickly, and low handicappers that are slow.
 
This 100%. It’s usually not the guys playing the wrong tees. I think there’s a lot of pace of play issues but it typically isn’t on the tee box.


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I think it is a major factor though. Just two examples of many I could provide. First, a 4some playing the blues. On the first tee, the best tee shot went about 180. There were two worm burners, and a pull into the woods. Second, a 4some playing the tips. On the first tee you have to clear a pond. All four hit their tee shots into the pond. Reload, 3 of the 4 found the pond. Reload...the other three cleared the pond. I watched them as the proceeded to finish the hole. This was a par 5, and one of the gents was still 200 yards out and hitting his 7th shot. No one else was even near the green.

As I said before, for most it's about ego. It's one thing to challenge yourself, but there is no need to be stupid about it. And, I don't know many people who enjoy hitting driver, fairway wood, wedge into the majority of par 4's. But then again, perhaps they do.

Regardless, I couldn't care less what tees people play...just keep moving.
 
And, the caliber of the player doesn't matter. I have know high handicappers who move quickly, and low handicappers that are slow.

I think we can all agree that there are slow players at every handicap level. I think the question then becomes if we move those players to tees that don’t suit their games (both slow and fast players) would it add any time to their round, and I believe it would. I don’t think it would be a significant amount of time for a player who already plays quick, but for someone who is on a slower pace I think it could add quite a bit.


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I think we can all agree that there are slow players at every handicap level. I think the question then becomes if we move those players to tees that don’t suit their games (both slow and fast players) would it add any time to their round, and I believe it would. I don’t think it would be a significant amount of time for a player who already plays quick, but for someone who is on a slower pace I think it could add quite a bit.


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I alluded to something similar in post #110.
 
I think it is a major factor though. Just two examples of many I could provide. First, a 4some playing the blues. On the first tee, the best tee shot went about 180. There were two worm burners, and a pull into the woods. Second, a 4some playing the tips. On the first tee you have to clear a pond. All four hit their tee shots into the pond. Reload, 3 of the 4 found the pond. Reload...the other three cleared the pond. I watched them as the proceeded to finish the hole. This was a par 5, and one of the gents was still 200 yards out and hitting his 7th shot. No one else was even near the green.

As I said before, for most it's about ego. It's one thing to challenge yourself, but there is no need to be stupid about it. And, I don't know many people who enjoy hitting driver, fairway wood, wedge into the majority of par 4's. But then again, perhaps they do.

Regardless, I couldn't care less what tees people play...just keep moving.

and your very last sentence is all that matters. thier choice on that first tee was the problem, ifknowing they couldnt clear they perhaps should have chosen to lay up. or just perhaps they did have the distance but happend to have a poor time that time. We can all alays find examples that work perfectly for what we want to imply. Nothing is ever 100%.

Why is it that many shorter courses have the same pace issues as longer ones? i mean at such courses no one is at 7000 because it doesnt exist. And in fact (most places i know of) the majority of folks (men) will play a set one in from the tips. So a course thats already shorter yet the players are also playing even shorter than that and still they have the same pace issues as anywhere else.

on another note....course design can have a huge effect as well. Reachable par4's and 5's create pace bottle necks as well as looong par3's while people wait for clearances. Forced carries are also a design pace problem such as in your example above. Unless they are not forced but instead is a poor choice by the player for not lqaying up. fwiw I have seen people re-tee and often enough all 4 players. usually a re-tee is pretty quicj thing per person and time spent. But doint that for one hole still isnt the worst killer. Do it all day and thats another story. but there are plenty of holes with some amount of forced carry required from allk the tees. Sometimes thats just the design challange of the hole from the tee box. But people can screw up even a releatively simple forced carry. What can you do? its just one iof those things.
 
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Yes, I’ve seen multiple studies showing a strong correlation between the two (one of which joebute points out), but if rollin has something I haven’t seen I’m open to looking at it differently.


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I only imply that distance should be far more the determining factor for tee choice than hc should.

i do beleive the stats which indicate distance/HC is flawed because there are too many players who are long or short but have hc's that would be contradicting. Of course playing tee too long will add some strokes therfore raisng the cap some too. Bu then the rating and slope of the tes change as well so just perhaps in some cases the cap stays pretty much the same. But this isnt really so relevant to the topic in which i strongly feel distance (not hc) should be the major factor when chosing which tees to play. nor also is it so relevant to the fact that I strongly feel its about the least detrimental thing towrda pace nor would it ever be the pace saver too many people feel it would be.

i think one of the flaws about hc proportional to distance has to do with higher levels of amatuer golf. Given many other areas of the game is similar skill wise.......shorter players have a harder time competing at higher levels when from the same tees. And so they reach a point where they cant and that results by default in stats which suggest that distance and hc are very much tied at the hip. And in that sense it kind of is. But its just not that simple imo. There are plenty players shorter than i who play the same tees wich are long for them and yet they are much better than me. They are short for the tee set but are accurate, and effeicent and accurate with thioer second shots and a better short game. So they dont get many birds as me (which isnt alot to begin withl..lol) and just maybe I might get a few more pars. But what theuy dont have that i do get? are not nearly the amount of doubles triples or quads. A number of penal tee shots, outright poor/hacked approaches (some penal as well), and not as good a short game. any those or any combo of those and the player who may even be on tees too long for thier game can still have a lower scores per round to the point of significant hc difference.

But still all this doesnt mean tee choice is the pace problem solver that many think it is nor imo does it mean tee choice should be based on HC. Imo only within reason (a little) where as most of it should be based on capable distance.
 
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Should Courses Enact a HC Check on Tees

I only imply that distance should be far more the determining factor for tee choice than hc should.

i do beleive the stats which indicate distance/HC is flawed because there are too many players who are long or short but have hc's that would be contradicting. Of course playing tee too long will add some strokes therfore raisng the cap some too. Bu then the rating and slope of the tes change as well so just perhaps in some cases the cap stays pretty much the same. But this isnt really so relevant to the topic in which i strongly feel distance (not hc) should be the major factor when chosing which tees to play. nor also is it so relevant to the fact that I strongly feel its about the least detrimental thing towrda pace nor would it ever be the pace saver too many people feel it would be.

What data do you have that shows the stats/reports out there showing a strong correlation between distance and handicap are flawed/incorrect? Just because you may have played with a high handicap who crushes the ball, or a low handicap who is not long, does not mean the data is wrong. All of the data I have seen clearly shows that distance and HC go hand in hand with each other for the average golfer.

The point I’m trying to make is that if you set up tee guidelines based on HC, the data shows that it would also take into account distance for the average golfer in that particular HC range. Obviously there are outliers but if you are setting up guidelines you should do it for the average player, not the outlier.
 
Score wise that would describe the foursome I play with each and every week, except that we always finish in 3 1/2 hours. But we play from the mid tees and not from the tips, The only time it takes us longer than 3 1/2 hours is when others ahead of us slow us down.

I don't play from the tips. We played Brickyard Crossing and still think we finished at right around 4 hours. I shot 108 and only lost 3 balls all day. I kept everything in play or playable and didn't try shots above my skill level. I think a lot of it boils down to not paying attention or trying to play out of your skull.
 
What data do you have that shows the stats/reports out there showing a strong correlation between distance and handicap are flawed/incorrect? Just because you may have played with a high handicap who crushes the ball, or a low handicap who is not long, does not mean the data is wrong. All of the data I have seen clearly shows that distance and HC go hand in hand with each other for the average golfer.

The point I’m trying to make is that if you set up tee guidelines based on HC, the data shows that it would also take into account distance for the average golfer in that particular HC range. Obviously there are outliers but if you are setting up guidelines you should do it for the average player, not the outlier.
i addd to my prior post while you were typing. please read.
I think there are far too many who do not fit into the data the way it states.
when all other skill sets are very similar then yes id agree that longer players in general would have an advantage when from the same tees. and so they would then have a lower cap. But also remember in additon to other things i mention.... alot of high cappers are high because they havnt yet learned to hit driver well enough and thier distance with it is flawed because not many balls at all are making out there even close to thier ability. Once they get some better control and ability to hit it then they become less detriment to themselves and better with a cap that begins to drop accordingly. So they are not hiting longer than before, but are simply ablwe to do irt far more often now and therefore the average distance increases by default. So yea there is some correlation but imo not always due to the reasons people think. At least how i view it as most stats can be viwed from different angles.

But imo we still cant take driver or 3w out of someones bag or take a whole chunck of the course away from someone because of thier hc. Thats not fair and is just wrong to do. And as for pace its still not a pace problem solver.
 
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Should Courses Enact a HC Check on Tees

i addd to my prior post while you were typing. please read.
I think there are far too many who do not fit into the data the way it states.

If there were far too many people who don’t fit into the data then the dataset would tell a different story. The folks you are referring to are the minority/outliers and don’t have a substantial impact on the data showing a strong correlation between distance and HC.

We can just agree to disagree on this one.


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If there were far too many people who don’t fit into the data then the dataset would tell a different story. The folks you are referring to are the minority/outliers and don’t have a substantial impact on the data showing a strong correlation between distance and HC.

We can just agree to disagree on this one.


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Its ok...we are having gopod fun converstaion imo. BTW lol I added to my last post again while you were posting.lol but yes we can disagree :)
 
Its ok...we are having gopod fun converstaion imo. BTW lol I added to my last post again while you were posting.lol but yes we can disagree :)

lol I'll take a look
 
But imo we still cant take driver or 3w out of someones bag or take a whole chunck of the course away from someone because of thier hc. Thats not fair and is just wrong to do.

This is the part I disagree with. Based on the data available, having tee selection based on HC (and indirectly based on distance due to the correlation) would not take driver/3W out of someone's hand or remove a chunk of the course.

Also - I'm not sure about the courses you play, but based on the courses I have played, moving from black tees to blue, or blue tees to white would very rarely remove driver/3W from anyone's bag. Unless you are referring to moving up to the red tees, then yes that may take out those clubs.
 
This is the part I disagree with. Based on the data available, having tee selection based on HC (and indirectly based on distance due to the correlation) would not take driver/3W out of someone's hand or remove a chunk of the course.

Also - I'm not sure about the courses you play, but based on the courses I have played, moving from black tees to blue, or blue tees to white would very rarely remove driver/3W from anyone's bag. Unless you are referring to moving up to the red tees, then yes that may take out those clubs.

but there still are a good percentage of players (more than enough) who are long enough for thier tees yet just dont have the cap. Thats why moving them up doesnt make sense nor especially when for the reason people think as though thats our pace problem solver (which again i think is misguidd logic). but When such players (such as myself) dont even use driver on all hole now,they would have little to no need for it at all after moving up further except for the par5's. I (and i think many people) would be angry if i were forced up further than i am now and had no chopice about it. especially cause I know im long enough for my tee choice. In fact i am just barely long enough (imo) for moving back to the tip which i have done on rare ocassion but i dont because im not cosistant enough. I did mention that i do think ability does have a little say within reason and is why i dont play my tips even though i do have just enough length for them. None the less by the logic out there to base tees off hc many might say i should move up and that would irk me when i dont even use driver on all holes as it is. And i should do this because its the pace problem? which imo is again a very misguided thought.
 
Or keep pulling driver and shoot under par. Break par then move back has a lot of merit imo.
 
Or keep pulling driver and shoot under par. Break par then move back has a lot of merit imo.
honestly though, we would be taking this thread on a whole other path nothing really to do with the tees/pace of play ideology. But instead now we would be talking about an ideology as for how one "might" obtain improvement. And that route is something that can be talked about in great length.

Why would someone use a driver they hit (say 260) for a hole where a 200 yrd shot is the play?
 
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Choosing the correct tee box is probably not even in the top ten of factors contributing to slow play.
I rank the top 4 causes of slow play as follows :

1) players standing around watching others rather than moving to their ball
2) players sitting in a cart watching others rather than moving to their ball
3) players choosing too little club and leaving themselves 10 to 20 yards short of nearly every green
4) players hitting driver crooked (instead of a club they can consistently hit straight) off the par 4 and par 5 tee boxes, then hunting for balls in the trees or rough.
 
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