We wrack our brains for ideas to speed up play and yet one simple solution has already been completed years ago – multiple tee boxes. The sad truth is each tee box color has been associated to an age and/or gender when in fact with a little education, and ability to set your pre-conceived notions and egos aside, golfers could see the true beauty behind these options.
Here’s what the majority think:
- Red Tees: Women’s tees, farthest forward with shortest distance to the hole, and least challenging.
- Gold Tees: Senior’s tees, not quite the shortest distance to the hole but second in line, meant to help the elderly who still play have a better chance at shooting their old hay day scores.
- White Tees: Men’s tees, middle to high handicap, typically the middle option of all the tee boxes, and used by most men.
- Blue Tees: Men’s tees, mostly used for championship or tournament play, and for low handicap male golfers.
- Black Tees: Men’s touring professional level tee distance, furthest from the hole, and the most challenging option. Sometimes referred to as the “tips”.
- Green Tees: Can’t forget these as they’re commonly used for Junior players and are the shortest distance – not all courses will have this tee box (which is why I placed it last)
Here’s the reality:
- Red Tees: Man or woman who is a high handicapper or new to the game… start here. Man or woman who doesn’t hit a long ball, play here. Juniors who seem to have golf skill and hungry to advance their game, play here.
- Gold Tees: Most courses don’t even have this option but for those that do erase the “senior” thought from your brain. Man or woman who is a middle handicapper, play here.
- White Tees: Man or woman with a middle to high handicap who can hit a solid 200+ yard drive, play from here.
- Blue Tees: Quite possibly tees used for club tournaments but regardless, this is a great challenging option if you’re interested in adding some extra yardage to your game. Not necessary but worth some fun.
- Black Tees: Unless you are a scratch or close to scratch golfer stay away and don’t waste your time. There is nothing fun about feeling like crap, feeling like your drive distance sucks, and throwing on an extra handful of strokes just because you think you’re Bubba Watson. Just don’t.
- Green Tees: Again, might not be at your favorite course but if you do… this is a fun way to create an executive style course. Shorten the Par 4’s to 3’s.
Playing the right tees = speeding up the game!
Club head speed with driver 80mph play tees 2/3 of distance pros play. 7500 pro 5000 old guy with 80 mph speed
My Tuesday group uses the formula of multiplying your best drive by 28 to determine the yardage each player should be playing. We then pick the tees closest to that yardage. For me, it’s 210 X 28 = 5880 yds.
Great Idea! I will suggest this to our playing group, sounds good to me, thanks!
I am 70 years old and I have been playing golf for 63 years. When I began playing, my Dad (a teaching golf pro) would not let my brother or I play from a tee block unless we could “almost always” (means without the “occasional” poor shot on a hole) be on or beside the green in regulation on the par 4’s (2 shots) and par 5’s (3 shots). We played the front tees (usually Red and less than 5000 yards) for quite a while. We eventually advanced to the Mid-tees (usually White and less than 5800 yards). This continued until we got consistently better or played without Dad. For over 50 years of playing golf, we followed the advice from our Dad. We played to single-digit handicaps for many years. A few years ago, I started playing from shorter tees again and I am now playing combination tees that keep me around the 5500-yard length for the course. Many of my long-time playing partners, my own children and grandchildren have followed my Dad’s suggestion and continue to play and enjoy this lifelong game. Also, new technology has allowed some players to increase their playing distances BUT this often creates some accuracy issues that can be corrected when they play shorter lengths once again.
Like this idea. It would work for me and many of my friends.
That is a pretty bad idea, so if I hit a solid 250 yd drive I should be playing from 7000 yards? No way
Best way to figured to determine your tee box is your avg score per round
120+=reds
110-119=golds
100-109= whites
80-99= blues
79 or less=tips
The reason for the big drop off from whites to blues is because only 50% of golfers EVER break legit 100 (no 5 foot gimmies, mulligans, breakfast balls), and only 25% of golfers ever break 90
Why are there senior tees for men but not women. Just like men, women lose strength as they age?
Because the “womens tee” is in front of the “seniors tee”. It wouldn’t make sense for a women to move back to a farther tee after they age and can’t hit as far. I guess it’s assumed that senior men are still stronger than women.
I agree with this post though, they aren’t just for women and seniors. They’re for all bad golfers like me lol
My club insists that we have to choose a tee box eg: senior, white, blue etc. and play all rounds from that box or our handicap will be screwed up. I think its absurd, what are your thoughts?
Well, the club can make their own rules, I guess, and MAYBE you have to comply. But…you don’t have a “handicap”, per se…you have a “handicap index”, which, when bounced off of the course rating and slope rating for the tees you intend to play from, will yield a different number of “strokes you get”. For example, my local course has blue, white, green and yellow tees, with ratings/slopes of 72.0/124, 70.0/119, 67.3/112 and 64.4/105 respectively. So…with a handicap index of 29.5, I can play from any set I like, but I get a different number of strokes to apply to my gross score from each. In the example cited here, I get 30 strokes from the blues, 29 from the whites, 25 from the greens, and only 20 from the yellows. Your course should have all of the rating/slope info for the various tees posted somewhere. I hope this helps!
Problem with that is the color doesn’t correspond to a consistent distance across different courses. I go by total yardage instead.
I play from the tees I am most comfortable from and have the most enjoyable round with my friends. I was a single digit for over 50 years. bee to the top now is the time to relax with friends and have fun. I’ve been there and done that. No one to impress, so no ego any more. Just have fun and ENJOY………….