Yardage Based on Handicap

JB

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Is their correlation and in your opinion, should there be some guidelines?
 
I am not sure how anyone would ever say there isn't correlation. Wasn't there a study that said the best indicator for potential is swing speed.

I am good with boxes restricted to certain caps. I don't care if someone hits 330, If they show up at Torrey Pines South as a mid single digit they won't be playing the tips.

I wish more long courses went with the "by permission only" when it comes to the way back tips.
 
Is their correlation and in your opinion, should there be some guidelines?

6500-6800 for me and I am indexed around 9 and travel at 12ish for course handicaps. more than that and I lose some of the fun factor. just not good enough for anything more than that so yes i think that makes sense


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“Potential” doesn’t equate with ability. Seen plenty of “Pros from Dover” think they were made for the tips. 330 was a possibility... which area code was the question. If they did pipe it somewhere findable, they had no clue where the next one was headed, either. It could be a 7 iron top sliced 30 yds ahead into the woods or a 200 yard bullet 50 yards over the green.


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I find most shots happen from 125 and in and on the greens the score can add up fast. I don’t think there is much correlation.
 
Is their correlation and in your opinion, should there be some guidelines?

I think in some cases, there are. If someone can't hit the ball 200 yards with their driver (no big deal, welcome to the average golfer number), they ought not to be playing 6,500 tees. Tee it forward should be used by every single golfer and avoid playing tees beyond their threshold.

That said, I have no issues with guys who bomb the ball moving forward. Index will make up the difference, and as long as they aren't driving par 4 greens (etc), I think it's a different challenge for them as long as the course is well designed.
 
Wasn’t there a topic about proper course yardage on here not long ago. There’s a number of different ways to calculate what tees to play based on distance you git various clubs. For me, 6800 yards is my max and I’m just shy of an 11 handicap.

This past week at PGA West Nicklaus Course, the marshal followed a foursome of guys that played the blue tees. They were all struggling off the tee and were causing groups to stack up. H had them pick up and skip an entire hole since they were that slow. It turned out they were all mid handicaps but they had no control with the driver. Driver is a strength for me. I was off the blue tees. The marshal was surprised when I told him I was an 11 cap since I was getting off the tee well. I putt well but am streaky with my pitching/chipping.

So, for me linking handicap to course yardage is tough. I think it’s better to use club distance calculation.
 
Just remember this: some places have this stupid formula where they ask how far you hit your 5 iron. Yes I've seen this one. If you have Game Improvement Irons, this means you use your 7 iron distance because the loft of the club they're using for the 5 iron is about 29 degrees. That's how far you hit a forged blade 5 iron. The 4 iron in my current set has the same loft as a 2 iron.

@Canadan - I did drive a green on a par 4 a couple times.... I can't help it if it was an oversized green and only 240 to the center. I still 3 putted. lol.
 
Just remember this: some places have this stupid formula where they ask how far you hit your 5 iron. Yes I've seen this one. If you have Game Improvement Irons, this means you use your 7 iron distance because the loft of the club they're using for the 5 iron is about 29 degrees. That's how far you hit a forged blade 5 iron. The 4 iron in my current set has the same loft as a 2 iron.

@Canadan - I did drive a green on a par 4 a couple times.... I can't help it if it was an oversized green and only 240 to the center. I still 3 putted. lol.

One hole is fine. I’ve got a few at my course with big time risks that i could get from the 6600 tees but it doesn’t make sense to go at them. Didn’t mean to make it sound like zero or move back
 
One hole is fine. I’ve got a few at my course with big time risks that i could get from the 6600 tees but it doesn’t make sense to go at them. Didn’t mean to make it sound like zero or move back

I got it the way you wrote it. Like a 5 HC asked me once when I asked if I should move back a set of tees. "Are you breaking 80?" "No." His silence was my answer.
 
I don't think so - I know too many great drivers that can't play from 150 and in. They like to play from the tips to hit driver all the time but it means high scores either way. I'd guess the majority of golfers should be from 6300-6500 on average.
 
I think some people would have more fun teeing it forward and could potentially help with pace of play. It's tough to complete say though because Player A could tee it forward but still have a terrible game 150 and in and still struggle but may hit driver great. It's tough to come up with a great solution, especially when ego is involved.
 
I got it the way you wrote it. Like a 5 HC asked me once when I asked if I should move back a set of tees. "Are you breaking 80?" "No." His silence was my answer.

I tell people to play where they have the most fun, and throw a single finger to anyone who is too arrogant to let them.

This is a game, it's meant to be a blast, and it's hard enough already haha
 
I'm a 6 and like to keep it at 6200 or less. Generally that length gives a good mix of length of par 4's. I think it should be based on driving ability, there is nothing worse than playing a tee and you can't get to the fairway.
 
I think it makes more sense than handicap, but there's also a correlation between distance and handicap.

I like what some courses do and put markers on the range that suggest tees based on distance - I think that's a good "real world" way to do it, as there are a lot of people who hit "300 yard drives" based on how long they have in to the green, when the tees were up 30 yards and they cut a corner.
 
I definitely think it should. Even if a 15 handicap can hit it a long way, they have proven over a 20 round period that they struggle to make the ball do what they want. Master small before you go bigger.
 
If you can keep up with the pace of play, I don't see why yardage, or a specific set of tees, would matter. Once a golfer starts backing up the course, then its time a marshall tells them to speed up, or move up to a different set of tees.

We followed a foursome of young golfers today who played from the "blue" tees. They hit the ball decent, but backed up the whole course due to the time they spent on the greens. Luckily they played only 9 holes. It wouldn't have mattered what tees they used, they were SLOW!
 
I hit a 210 Driver and with all the rain we have been getting, we’re not getting any roll, so I’m playing up a set of tees. A course can get long quick with wet fairways and thick rough.
 
Nope. I play with a work colleague who hits the ball 200 yards at best. She pretty much has a wood in her hand from anything further out than 130. And yet, if she’s more than a couple over par, she’s had a mare of a round. I played a couple of rounds with one of the seniors at a previous course I used to play at. Exactly the same.


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Selfishly, I'd prefer to see players select a tee box based on handicap rather than driver distance.
Too many driving range heros who couldn't hit the Pacific from the beach out there.

I'll say theres a small correlation.
 
I don’t think so. Most people I play with score the same regardless of what tees we play from. And it seems most of us give up strokes around the greens.

I think it would correlate more with those with slower club head speeds - regardless of age or sex.
 
That would likely be another enticement for sandbagging. Play the shorter tees when money is on the line and hit a driving iron in the middle of the fairway then short iron to the green.

My mid single digit cap would obviously back me up. At certain courses, the game would be more of a grind for me rather than fun that golf is supposed to be.
 
I think it is also course dependent. My home course is only 6600 from the tips but it is pretty tight with trees. I can shoot better on a nearby course at 7100 yards since it is so open.
 
Currently sitting on a smooth 23.4 cap (largely due to health issues related to an auto accident). Yesterday with a good friend played from about 400 yards longer than I typically do. Got a warning from GHIN when I went to post that it was outside the expected range, largely because it was 8 strokes lower than I have posted for quite some time.

The extended distance did not matter one bit when I was hitting it straight. In fact, on the longest par 4 I went driver 253, 7i 192, 1 putt birdie.
I have had times when I was not hitting it straight (say, the hole #15 where I went fade 2" ob, hit the subsequent tee shot fat, misalign the 8i into a splash down, fade the next 8i, end up with a snowman on my blowup hole...on a 365 yard par 4)

Yesterday was more of the former and just the one hole and a couple miscellaneous shots of the latter and I had a nice score. Distance and handicap for me, this is not atypical. I tend to play shorter generally as most people I play with are shorter hitters and do not enjoy the game when it is longer and, since we are usually playing 2-man scrambles, the scores are not enter-able anyway. But when I back up a box, it tends to not affect my score much at all. Correlation as we all know is not causation. I am very against choosing boxes based on handicap (outside tournaments, they get to set their rules and I abide by them).

Naturally, my experience is anecdotal only, not a researched study.
 
We have 4 tee boxes on my home course and I've seen all of them eat up low hcpers. I guess the fact that I don't play many courses other than my home track, its hard for me to have an informed opinion. With that though, for myself, I play where my wife wants to play. Which most of the time is off the Sr or mens tees. She hates playing the ladies and neither of us are long enough to go off the tips.
 
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