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Choosing the appropriate Tees

X.Man

X.Man

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So I have been thinking alot lately about which Tee box to use. I normally go off course distance, but I am curious as to how everyone else chooses. Is it:

Course length?
Slope/Rating?
Approach Shot distance?
Handicap?

Share your thoughts below
 
Distance. Unless the course is very difficult/tight, then I might go a tee forward or something just shorter than I would normally play. I'm comfortable from about 6,800 down. Anything above that it starts getting long for me.
 
Distance for me...when my swing flaws at the moment I have to play from as short as I can, otherwise its driver and hybrid to come up shorts on par 4s all day and thats not fun
 
Distance. I prefer the longest par 4 to be 450 yards or less.
 
I look at distance. I am lucky enough that I can play all of the tees at most courses around me. But I will start with distance and try and decide how hard I really want to work on the day.
 
Overall distance is step 1. But then I like to look at the individual holes, too. Too many especially long par 3s or par 4s and I may move back a set of tees, regardless of the overall number.
 
Overall distance is the key for me. I don't want to be hitting 3W or hybrid into all of the par 4's.
 
Distance for me. 6,000 - 6,200 is my sweet spot. Once I get more than that I am pulling a 4 wood or 3 hybrid for my second shot on a lot of holes.
 
Overall distance then distance on par 3s followed by par 4 distance
 
I look at distance 5600 - 5800 yds is my sweet spot. I'm hitting 8i -> PW onto most par 4 greens and having fun. Par 5s are really par 5s.

5200 yds gets to be too short and I'm hitting SW and LW onto greens if I'm hitting my driver well. Par 5s become long par 4s.

6200 yds? They say with my driver distance I should be playing from here, but I'll be hitting 4 irons onto par 4 greens and that is not fun. I'm over 60 so stuff it.

What to do if a course doesn't have a 5600 yd set of tees? Hmmm... perhaps mix up the reds and the whites and do a manual entry? Can you do that?
 
distance. i've never looked at anything else. sweet spot is 6,200-6,500 for me with average drive at 245. yesterday i played 6,400 yards, and i had a lot of wedges and short irons on par 4s. that is fun golf. having mid irons can be fun in a challenging way, but having long irons, hybos and fw into par 4s is not fun.
 
Distance. I'd rather not hit hybrids into all the par 3's and par 4's.
 
I'm good with any tees. I play w/e the group wants to play. When it gets up to 7200+ it gets to be overly long for this guy. We usually play tees from 6500 to 6800 though. Played Hazeltine recently from 6600 and probably should have played from 5500. Wow what a tough track
 
I play from where ever the guys in my group want to play from. From tips to senior tees I am ok with. Changes up the course when you are always playing different boxes. I have found that most of the time guys will tee it up one box closer from the tips unless they are tryng to proves something or single digit handicaps.
 
I tend to go from 2nd from the back depending on length. I am going based on my handicap as most courses here suggest this tee box

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I think white tees are appropriate for me right now. If I get too close on my approach shots, it can cause a case of the side winders


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I have been playing the whites. One day i look forward to moving up!
 
I look at the tips or next setup. It depends on who I am playing with.
 
Distance for me anything over 6,500 is getting a little to far far me, my local is 6,200 and that is the perfect distance for me. as far as tees go i try to play off the furthest, but most of the time its the tee before the competition.
 
Normally I'll look at scorecard and decide based on what my yardage in would be with my average drive (245 yds). That way I can decide if it will be a practice round or score keeping round


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X.Man said:
So I have been thinking alot lately about which Tee box to use. I normally go off course distance, but I am curious as to how everyone else chooses. Is it:

Course length?
Slope/Rating?
Approach Shot distance?
Handicap?

Share your thoughts below
Click to expand...

Both of the first two options. Length is my first consideration - I try to get that at a comfortable point for me - then I'll look at the slope and may move up one more tee if the difficulty is high, to allow for some holes where I can play a "safe" shot when the driving area is tight. I often try to check out a new course on Google Earth before I play to get a feel for how much accuracy is needed off the tee. Once I've played it a time or two, I know exactly where I want to play from.

There is a Nicklaus course in Montana that my brother and I play every couple of years, and just going by the 125 slope I could play the Copper tees, but the rating from them is 71.9, and that tells me that it's too long for my game these days without even looking at the 6776 length. We tried those tees the first time we played there about 10 years ago, and even then they made it pretty difficult, and my game was in better shape both for length and accuracy then. The next tee set forward is 68.2/120 at 6144 yards, and that puts it right where I like it, challenge but not brutally long - the difference works out to about 35 yards per hole. I get to use just about every club in the bag.
 
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Overall distance usually anything under 6550 I'm good with. My sweet spot is closer to 6200 though.
 
With most everyone else I go off distance. That distance varies depending on who I am playing with and how long the course is.
 
I don't look @ distance too much & never worry about the par 3s, but the par 4s. When they are all 400 yrd +, that gets to be too much. Prefer 360~400 range.
 
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