Today my home course's pro and I were talking about the nonsense that takes place from the tips on a day to day basis. He wants to put something in the pro shop saying what tees to play based off handicap, or driving distance, etc. I was wondering what is the best way to go about this process?

Cheers

One that I have heard of is that you should take your 5iron distance and multiply it by 36. That will give you a yardage target for you to choose your set of tee's from.

Ex. if you hit your 5i 19o yds. 6,840 yards should be your target length.

Just because you hit your clubs along way, doesn't really mean you should be playing the tips though.

So 7200 yards.

That's about 600 yards longer than the course I play the most around here. What do I do? Tee off from the parking lot?

-mini

Just from my own experience with other players, assuming 5 sets of tees:
Black = 5 handicap or lower
Blue = 6 handicap to 14 handicap
White = 15 handicap to 24 handicap
Gold (if applicable) = 24 handicap to 32 handicap
Red = Above 32

Better women and seniors should not be relegated to Red and Gold respectively. Tee markers should be based on ability not gender.

This is absolutely meaningless because all courses are not created equally.

Yardage, Rating and Slope is what someone should use to choose tees appropriately.

This was just an estimate that I had seen somewhere, I believe on this site awhile back. It is no way something official. And if you are hitting your reg 5i 200 yds., then you should probably be playing a longer course. I am sure you are driver/wedge all day on a 6600 yard course.

I think handicap and consistency, especially off the tee should be the most determining factors. Just as long as you are comfortable playing that distance.

I'd say play whatever tees you want to unless you are holding up the group behind you.

The original poster asked for a reference based on handicap or distance at his course, not for 10,000 courses. Handicaps can be adjusted for course rating and slope. So explain to me again why this is absolutely meaningless and, better yet, come up with something constructive instead of condescending.

It could be meaningless as not all courses have black tees.
For my course it's usually
Blue + - 10-15 handicappers, with duffers sprinkled in
White 15-25, sometimes with gals mixed in.
Red- Women

I just saw the same guidelines on a scorecard for a course I'm playing Sunday that I've never been too. Even though it's very generalized I'd say it's a good starting point.

I usually just look at the scorecard and see if there are any par 4's I can't reach in 2, especially ones with narrow holes where I would be hitting 3 wood and then no realistic shot of getting on in regulation. I also look for par 3's that would be ridiculous for me to hit consistently at my length and ability (i.e. mostly 200+ yard par 3's) and move down a teebox if necessary.

just my opinion... but if you can't break 80 from the whites or forward tees... that is where you should stay. same with the blues stay there untill you can break 80 and then move on to the tips..... i don't care if your hitting wedges into all the greens break 80 first... the game of golf is not about distance or ego.... but its seems that is the way it is....

+1

This is what I have always been told by starters when me and my friends travel to different places for golf. Its a great rule of thumb.

x2.


But make sure you are not holding any groups up.

This is exactly what I said on this topic last time it came up. You gotta be able to hit good short irons before you can hit good long irons IMO.

some of the comments are interesting. I am a 16 handicap. I try to play a tee box with a slope between 120 - 130.
If a course is short or long doesn't really matter. Slope is the best way of judging difficulty to me. Rating is pretty much useless unless you are a scratch - 5 handicap.

That is because you are the "bogey golfer" (not meant to be a perjorative term) and is why "slope" was developed. Slope is the indication of how difficult a course is for the bogey golfer, which as a 16 hdcp, you are.

The course rating is for the "scratch" golfer.

yeah i know. That's why its perfect for me for now.

"choosing the right tees?"

I prefer the wooden ones

Seems like a good rule of thumb.......
I usually look at the score card and if I have to hit drivers to reach the par 3's and fairway woods to more than a couple of par 4's then I move up, I am not a long hitter but a single digit handicap and find that 6300 to 6800 is about right depending on the track. I know a guy who is a single digit and a loooooong hitter, when he plays a shorter couse he struggles big time, move him to the tips and the course opens up for him. Very awkward playing differnt sets of tees for most, when he plays the tees I want I usually beat him, the tees he wants he kills me. In fairness to him he is better than me, he was a former golf pro.

you are absolutely correct. especially about the egos. i see guys hitting fairways woods into every par 4 and still not getting home (even the pros have problems hitting greens with fairway woods).

sam snead once said a golfer should play from the forward tees until he or she shoots par or better.

Well, I sincerely apologize because I did not understand that the suggestion made by "psd" was based on the home course of the OP "Ping Blackout Grip." The OP didn't name the course or mention anything about yardage or difficulty so I didn't realize that psd knew what course the OP was talking about. But for the rest of us, without any knowledge of the unnamed course of the OP, the info presented by psd is indeed meaningless.

That's why I made the suggestion of using yardage, rating and slope, which I thought was constructive.

Play whatever tees you want as long as you keep up with the pace of play. The problem here is not that someone is playing the wrong tees. The problem is the pace of play.

Let's think about this if people keep up with the pace of play do you really care where they tee off from?

Most of the time i will play white tees, unless im playing say a shorter par 3 where there is about 10yd difference and i would rather miss the green short then go over into the hazard i might play the blue just incase i get a nice solid hit and misjudge my distance i wont end up in the trees/OB

Which brings up a question. If you tee off hole #1 on the white, is there a rule saying you have to play white tees the rest of your round?

courses you play a lot, you can move back (again, don't be a slow-poke). Courses you play for the first time move up.
scramble, you can move back. 4 some with hacks, move up.
for convenience, i played the senior tees with a guest last week. i shot an 82, about 10 better than usual, and only 400 yards total difference. no triples, 1 birdie. that was a pleasant experiement!

I played a round last weekend and it took 5 1/2 hours. The groups in front of us were playing the blue tees and should have bee on the white tees. I don't think I saw them get to one green on any par 3 and they couldn't even hit it far enough to carry some of the water off the tee. When you only carry your driver 160 move up. Also if you loose your top rock you paid 10cents for let it go no point in getting the damn ball retriever out and searching for 10 minutes.... I have no idea what is the point of the rangers out there. Everytime they come around they just say it's really slow out there today eh? Yea speed it up please.... I think handicap should be what determines where you play. I like what someone said earlier about if you can't break 80 from the tees you are playing stay there until you can. Then you can move back.

Take the slope of the longest hole, subtract your index. Play the tee slope close to that number. (Per Frank Thomas).

How do you determine the slope of the longest hole?

Each set of tees have different ratings and slope. That is why my H/C would be lower if you and I both shot 80, but you played from up front and I played from the tips.

I would say a set of tees might only make 10 minutes difference in a whole round. People are either slow or fast and it doesn't matter what set of tees they hit from.

I think rating and slope are the best way to determine which tees to play. I play to an 11 currently (range from 8-12 based on how often I play) and when I went on a golf trip with a buddy of mine who is about a 30, he insisted on playing courses that were a certain yardage. The tee options were 6000, 6250 and 6700 from the black. There was a sign that said anyone with handicap over 20 should play from the 6000. Needless to say, we played the 6250 after I talked him out of the 6700 and he was struggling the whole time in the woods because this course was much tighter than his normal course which plays at 6600 but is really open with not much penalty for wayward drives.

Anyway, long story short, I think when picking tees yardage should be ignored because it is what leads to the whole ego/macho deal, and just slows down everyone.

I think he meant longest tees. So if the longest yardage tees are the blacks at 7018 yards with a slope of 137 and my index is a 25, then I should play from the tees with a slope of 112 (137-25=112) which would be the whites tees (5814 yd, slope of 118).

Personally, I think the best method is to see how close you are to the green after your GIR shot (i.e. 1st shot on a par 3, 2nd stroke on a par 4, third stroke on a par 5). If you are not consistently within chipping distance or on the green, then you should probably move to a shorter set of tees.

I'm afraid there is a rule saying you have to play from your selected tee for the entire round. See Rule 11.4 and 11.5.

On a seperate note, I've had a life long goal of breaking 80, and have not done so yet (although I've now shot 80 twice, including this Sunday). So I'll be damned if I'm going to go back to the blues and make things even a little bit harder. What I find confounding though is that at my muni course many guys way worse than my 15 handicap play from the blues. It gets pretty awkward watching them spray it all over from the blues hole after hole and then stepping up to the whites myself and hitting it further than they do, notwithstanding the tee distance advantage, and frequently landing in the fairway. Last week one guy I was matched with, who was on his way to shooting 110 from the blues, said to me, "Hey, you're pretty good. You're good enough to play with us from the blues. Why don't you give it a try?" I considered (and thoughtfully rejected) saying, "You're pretty bad, why don't you play with me from the whites instead?"

I play to 14.8 index and I like to play the tips! I don't play slow, I don't spray my tee shots. Really, it's just short game and putting (avg 36.8 putts/round, putt/GIR 2.25 yeeech!) that hold me back. Here in Vegas, I can poke a driver 280+ and hit a 5i 200+, something about the thin hot July air I guess. At my home course, I'm just as likely to shoot a good score from the blues which are a 127 slope at 6700 yards or a 137 slope at 7200 yards on the tips.

Shooting from the tips gives me 4pt lower score differential on my hcp card - hence it means (sort of) I'm playing better golf! I can move up to the whites and still shoot a 92 or 82 just the same as the blue or tips. I find the course more enjoyable from the back tees, there are more pressure tee shots and forced carries that add some excitement. The whites turn into driver/wedge all day and the par threes end up being 7i or less. The blues are a fair challenge, but my score doesn't vary that much between blue and black.

The fact is, you should choose a set of tees based on your specific set of abilities. As long as you keep up the pace of play, there is no argument to be had.

Ah....now that makes more sense

I am of the "play what tees you want, as long as you keep pace" crowd.

For me personally, I will play one tee forward of the tips until I get to a single digit index (10.8 as of today's revision). I do occasionally play the tips from some courses. It is usually courses that I play very frequently, and I only play the tips to change it up a bit.

So if a guy can hit a 280 yard drive on a 350 yard hole, but 3 jacks half of everything and shoots 83, what difference is it if he moves back 30 yards and has 100 yards into the same hole instead of 70?

>>He wants to put something in the pro shop saying what tees to play based off handicap, or driving distance, etc<<

Yeah, put a sign up saying to play a certain set of tees based on your driving distances and you're going to have everyone playing the tips.
Tee selection is not a difficult task by any means and it has to be determined by the players who pay their money to play from where they wish.
Obviously the skill sets within just one group can vary quite abit so it can become a personal choice for who's going to play from where.
Some people within that group can play back and others forward, still easy decision to make.
I have a friend who refuses to play the tips on a local course with a slope rating of 115 and 6200yards for a par 72. He prefers to play from the tees which only add up to 5800yards and although my driving distance is way more than i need to even play all the way back I play from the whites where my friends are more comfortable.
Personally i prefer to play as far back as I can with a group, it gives me a HUGE advantage. My scores stay the same and theirs gets alot higher.
As far as slow play, I don't think playing the wrong sets of tees is necessarily the reason this is. Everyone has the ability to hit 120+ shots on an 8000yard par 72 in less than 3hrs. It's the green reading, marking every putt, the provisionals, mulliigans, 7 practice swings on every shot, chasing the beer girl down on every third hole and incessively refusing to let a lost ball go!
Guys are quick to assume woman on the course will play slow and roll their eyes when being grouped behind a group of ladies. But woman hit, hit, hit, hit, putt, putt, pick up and walk to the next hole. And if they are slow, they let you play through!

http://www.hawkhollow.com/golf/eagle_scorecard.pdf

I saw this at a local club - it actually has tee recommendations based on handicap, great idea.

Joe

No offense, but the part I put in bold above is as much a problem as someone's ego. This entitlement attitude is out of hand. It's selfish and inconsiderate to play from a set of tees that you don't belong on in order to get your money's worth. I would like to see a policy where if you do this, and get 2 warnings for being out of position, you leave the course with no refund with the 3rd incident. Slow play followed by no play.

I must agree with psd.

There are people that have high handicaps that can play from the tips and not hold anyone up, but the exception does not make the rule. It's kind of like how there are some people that think just because they pay for something (restaurants and the like come to mind) gives them license to be rude to others and act like they own the place. Despite what they might think, the other people are paying customers too, and you are -no more special than they are,- so they should not have to have a less enjoyable experience just because some other jerk thinks they're the only one in the place.