Tee It Forward

I think that a very large percentage of players today have never even looked at a copy of "The Rules of Golf," much less learned the finer points of etiquette. Especially true when playing municipal courses with folks who may play two or three times a year as a good excuse to drink beer before noon.

Interesting thoughts Jsmith. I guess they could them call them "100-160 length golfers" the "160-185 golfers" the 185-235 golfers" and the over 235 golfers"
Would that be less painful to our sensitive feelers? Hmmmmn...... I don't think so.
Maybe "super mini", Mini, Maxers, and Super Maxers!!
Hmmmn.... that might not feel good either. How bout we leave a jillian years of tradition alone and just hit from the forward tees that are appropriate for us regadless of their names.

Ahh, the memories of Highland, one of my favorites on a nice spring day.

I would like to see someone come up with a etiquette program were you have to take a written test and pass it to get a etiquette card to even step on a championship size course or any course for that matter.

Robert F:

    That is almost my point exactly.  Even if I move up one or two tees, and we are "even in the fairway" -- if you are hitting a 7 iron and I am hitting a 5 iron or maybe a 7 wood, you still have the advantage.

    just my .02 worth

    Amos

That's a cool way to do it as well, though certainly there's a bit of editorializing going on with the "Dove" tees. ;-)

Neil, Tee It Forward has nothing to do with age, of course. Only with ability, and if you're keeping pace with the group ahead and enjoying the game, those are the two goals of Tee It Forward so no reason to change.

Don,

Two questions about the swing.  (1) Can you show the inside to outside swing path the club should be moving related to the two lines on the ground?  (2) When at the top of the swing,  which direction should the club face point?   Thanks

Roy                                                                                                          

Were you watching me play in a tournament in Panama City when I had two horrible days, everything had to be holed out, and I recorded a 116 on day one and 122 on the second? That included at 13 on a par 3, 228 yards over water. Everyone was required to play the back tees and I have never been a long hitter. I finally had to hit driver on that hole to get on the green.

What an interesting subject. Picking the right tees can take some thought. This summer has been so dry in our area. Some of our courses with low maintenance and dry fairways, will give you a big roll out.  Our main course waters the heck out of the fairways, so early morning gives us little to no roll out. Late afternoon rounds gives us back that extra 15-20 yard roll. We played a new course this week that we hadn't played before with really dry fairways. Amazing roll after carry and sometimes into hazards that looked out of range normally. 175yd + par 3s can be tough on many older players. Wet or dry. At least playing it forward on par 3s is a very good idea. And more fun. 

Keeping track of your handicap, even unofficially on one of the many websites out there, is a good way to forget about marking down every stroke. With my handicap (13), I know that every stroke taken on a hole beyond a double-bogey is a waste of time because it won't count towards my adjusted score and handicap. So on those holes, I just pick up the ball and mark an X on the score card (we do this in our local league). For example, if I scored a total of 82 and had an X on a par 4, my adjusted score for handicap purposes is an 88. Keeping track of adjusted scores is a good way of getting out of the mindset of recording every stroke come hell or high water, especially when a group is waiting behind you. The alternative? Let the group behind you pass on the next par 3.  :)

RT

Congrats on breaking 80, my friend and fairways & greens with smooth non-thinking, easy swings Tuesday. What with our power outage early in the week and Leisa being sick I haven't had time to get out for some real golf work but hope to remedy that early next week. Keep us posted on the Senior tourney.

I agree with Robert F.  If you get yourself a properly fitted driver, this should increase your enjoyment of the game.  For me, a well-struck, straight drive is the most satisfying shot in the game.  I can still take a lot of satisfaction from a round in which I hit good drives, even though my short-game may be off and I haven't scored that well.

I think you've got the right attitude about golf--it's a game--but can enjoy it even more with a well-fitted driver.

I had just got out of bed this morning, and decided to let the dogs out in the garden. In doing so, i picked up my 7 iron and started taking 'practice shots'

I realised that there was no way in hell i was in a position to play any golf of any sort, simply because i hadnt warmed up. I felt so constricted and wasnt comfortable swinging in the slightest.

Occasionally, i'll feel like this after a bad warm up on the 1st tee. Can anyone help me out in a warmup?

Thanks,

Callum

I'm in agreement with most of that Steve, but the course shuld be combined with the range. You know as much as me that you'll never be hitting the same repeated shot and fine tuning it on the course, so its nice to get a bit of course and situational experience. But at the same time, it's nice to be consistantly hitting the ball well instead of holding up players behind you.

I remember feeling intimidated when people were behind me in my very early years (when i took 9 shots to reach a par 3), perhaps i rushed in too early? Who knows.

Probably most of us hadn't seen that specific recommendation before. Now we have and we got it right here where we often learn something new and helpful.
Thanks again Surge.

I concur.  I have not been able to drive anywhere close to my wife's drive by playing the member tees for the past several years.  I might have a chance to hang with her if I played the "senior" tees.  She is 62 and I am 59.

Vermont Steve

My comment is for seniors.  I have won my share of tournaments when I was younger.  Now that I'm 73 years old, playing and trying to win tournaments is no longer my desire, especially since I now have to cope with an arthtitic hip.  I now play strictly for fun, recreation and exercise and therefore, I don't need a handicap and so I don't keep score any longer.  I just want to hit good, solid shots, keep the ball in play and don't lose any balls.  Reaching the green in regulation is not important.  I started playing from the red/seniors tees last year.  The result is that I now play completely without any stress and at the end of the round, I feel pretty relaxed and comfortable with my game.  I would like to play like this for the next 20 years 

Jsmith,

I like your ideas. I am at The Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Georgia as I write this. I played their Oconee course yesterday and found that they number their tees from 1 through 5, with #1 being the longest course length at over 7,000 yards. What i found really interesting is how the guys I was playing with (friends of my host) reacted. Without even looking at the scorecard they decided that we would play from  the #2 tees and would not consider playing anything forward of that. Now, these guys are pretty good golfers but they are not long hitters so their drives were generally not long enough to carry the Bermuda grass rough that extends out about 225 yards from the #2 tee on most holes. As a consequence, they were often faced with +200 yard second shots out of the rough making it nigh on impossible for them to reach the green in regulation. My guess is that they didn't enjoy their round nearly as much as they would have if they had played off of the #3 tees.

Yes, there is a zillion years of tradition at play here and not an inconsiderable amount of pure male ego too. However, I think clubs should do a better job of explaining what the course will play like from each set of tees. Overall yardage, course rating and slope just don't give you enough information IMHO. If these guys new beforehand that the #2 tees played over 6,700 yards and that they would need 225 yard drives to get to the fairway I'll bet they would have made a different choice.

Tom J.

The goal is not to drive it close to your wife's drives, but to drive it to such a distance that you are using the same club for your second shot to the green.  If you were not able to do that from the member tees, then moving up to the senior tees was probably a good idea.

These may help you: http://www.therolfergolfer.com...

Did I miss something?  I have never seen an average driving distance to appropriate tee defined anywhere.  I have seen and heard of a recommended length based upon handicap, but not around average driving distance.

Thanks Robert, very informative.

Best of luck, Mike. Keep not thinking. ;-)

Steve

The City of Cincinnati courses 5 18 hole course and 2 9 hole course and 1 par 3 course are ran by Casper Golf  they do not have rangers they used to but when they would try and speed people up people would call the City on Monday morning and complain and the ranger would get threatened to be fired or fired it has gotten better. The County and better courses around here will not put up with slow play they will move up to get you back into position the second time you get escorted off the course.

I agree with driver distance to determine tees played handicap will not work to many people cheat in the handicap system.

To me this is much about nothing this stuff should be common sense about what tees you should play. I am not sure why people have to told or pushed into this.

The problem I see with "tee forward" is a foursome with differing abilities.  In my usual foursome, two of us should play from one tee, one from another and one from yet another.  It's hard to see how this speeds up the round and/or facilitates camaraderie. The highest (and oldest) member of our foursome shoots around 100, yet he typically ends up hitting short irons or wedges to the green; he just needs an extra stroke or two from the tee to get close. So, we all tee off together and walk the course together.  And, we keep up with the group in front of us. As far as a feeling of success goes, we measure ourselves against our own personal goals, not against each other.  Individually, we participate in (and enjoy) competitions which are based on net scores - handicapped stroke play and/or "best ball" foursomes (where each player can contribute to the team on his good holes).

I understand your point J.

That's just too funny and has happened in some form to many of us!

Thanks for the great information.

Additionally and not surprisingly, if you just out in the words, "golf courses under 5,000 yards" in google and you'll find courses all over the world that are shorter.
Technology grasshopper.

Even for people who can hit longer, sometimes it's a great challenge to play a well made short par 3. Just watch how much the pros suffer every year at Pebble Beach on that down hill 98 yard hole.

Really makes sense.  Try it, you'll like it!

My wife has gotten a good laugh out of this topic because like me she is not in the  least sensitive about what the tees may be called. As long as I allow her to use the forwardest tees and tee it up in the fairway wherever and whenever she wants I can call  'em whatever strikes my fancy.
She actually liked the term "Dove." Maybe I'd swing easier and hit it like a beautiful dove if I hit from that far forward :)
PMG from which ever tee you choose and whatever you choose to call them.

"We're 54 and there's so much more"

Surge, On todays topic I think it is a great idea.  When I play shorter courses it puts more pressure and more fun ion the shot to the green.  You get the real excitement of the game and sense of accomplishment of the game.  You have to have a really good short game to score in the 70s and 80s if you can't reach the greens in regulation.  Thanks for the topic.

Read this recent article on the USGA site from the guy who cam up with the Tee It Forward initiative: http://www.usga.org/news/2011/...

Actually, because I hit my 5-wood so high and it lands so soft, I stand a much better chance of holding the green than with my 5-iron, which I tend to hit lower when I play it. Most of the time, I use either my 7-wood or 23* hybrid and leave the 5-iron at home.

A course I play at often took a different approach to help speed up play, they painted the red tees white, white tees blue and blue tees black and the tips are now gray. It didn't really help but at least it removed the stigma of playing off the whites for all the tough guys out there. I shot 89 of the "blacks" last week mostly because I finally have my old Cobra 350 driver working with the Surge swing. I dug it out of the closet because it was the shortest driver in my collection. For some reason not using a glove seemed to help keep it straight!

My own approach as to what tees to use is to look at the par 3's, if the course yardage is in my range but the par 3's are all playing long (over 200) then I will move up a tee to get them playing at a more enjoyable length.   

I think the tees should be by color, with the relative average driving length appropriate for each tee color posted in the club house, on the score cards, and on the carts. Certainly, people are going to continue to want to use the color as a demarcation of being a "real" golfer or whatever. That's a tradition as old as humanity, but certain elements of the jillian year history of golf are worth being rid of, such as the history of women not being allowed to play (even next year's US Open course, the Olympic Club, only allowed women to have their own memberships rather than only as a spouse of a member after the USGA refused to return there and a group of women sued the club in federal court), or NJA and NBA clubs (for those not familiar, the J and B in those acronyms are religious and racial respectively). Stupidity doesn't have to be maintained just because it's traditional.

Well, looks like I'm the only disenter here, now I know why my son-in-law calls me a
Cyborg LOL and it's probably the end product of being raised in an institution from
birth to adulthood. Most of the courses I play are around 6000M, that's private & public
and I look forward to matching my self against these distances. I often travel across
Australia and play on courses that are heaps shorter and I get irritated when told to
play off visitors tees ( yellow ) which are in fact forward of the ladies tees. I'm the type
that needs to be challenged, ie matching myself against the odds, If playing well I can
reach any green in regulation ( thanks to Surge ) and the thrill I get when I do is uplifting,
I'm 67. I don't play off the champion tees ( blue ) only members ( white ). So folks "we may be all the same, just different" LOL.