Flat versus elevated tees

[Patrick_Mucci]

Other then drainage, where and when were elevated tees brought into vogue, abroad and in the US ?

Why does there seem to be such a propensity to build them on Amercian golf courses ?

[BCrosby]

Good question.

A sign of how pervasive elevated tees are is that when you play Cuscowilla for the first time, you are shocked (pleasantly) by the number of tees at fairway level.

It's not as big a shock (again, pleasantly) as the red clay bunkers, but still a shock.

Bob

[texsport]

Elevated tees probably evolved with the idea that players should be able to see the hazards surrounding the tee shot landing area more clearly.

I always thought that Robert Trent Jones was an early proponent of the long elevated tee.

JK

[Jfaspen]

I wonder if the current trend towards elevated tees deals with
1. Making the golf course play a tad easier for beginning golfers.  (People who might hit the ball less concise than a more advanced golfer can benefit from the extra distance gained through the loss of elevation.)
2. The point raised above, letting the golfer see the entire hole and then formulating a plan from the tee.
and
3. Just wanting to make a course look grand.  Often when talking to people after playing a new course, they will describe the sight from the most elevated tee as they saw the hole (and perhaps a couple more) sweep out before them framed by trees/lakes ect..

Just some quick thoughts

Jeff

[BCrosby]

First, as aesthetic values became more important in golf design, so the view of the hole from the tee becomes more important. The trend to more elevated tees would reflect a desire to improve these views.

Second, as tee conditioning became more important (these days tees on high end courses have surfaces like putting greens) drainage and grass maintenance becomes easier with push-up tees.

The advent of the RTJ "flat-top" style tees wouldn't alone  dictate that they be elevated.  

Bob

[ForkaB]

I'm just guessing, but I think that when courses started to be lenghthened (around 1900 or so?) one could no longer effectively place a tee at the grade level of the green--because the grade level going back might not be the same, and in fact might most usually be lower (since greens tended in the early days to be elevated).  So, rather than hitting out of a hole, raised tees were built.  You can see them on most of the great old Scottish courses.

I pronounce RTJ "Not Guilty" on this charge.

[Dan Kelly]

Query (perhaps apropos):

When did golf-course architects start doing TMAD -- Topographical Map Aided Design?

[Jason Mandel]

At White Manor, our at our "new"16th hole, while you can see the fairway and the green from the men's tee's once you go back to the tips, which is almost below the level of the regular tees, you can only see a new bunker some 300 yards out in the fairway.  I think this was great design work from Weed.  When he first put that small bunker in, I had no idea why he was doing it. Some people thought it was to stop people from running the ball up into the green, but that didn't totally make sense to me.  It wasn't until i stepped onto the back tee, that I realized why that bunker was there.  It was the ONLY visual off the tee.

One of our members is a former club pro and Senior Euro. Tour Pro. When I played this hole with him, his one complaint was that hte tee should be elevated, both my brother and I tried to convince him that the genious of the hole was that it was only blind from the tips, and you were given a bunker  as a sort of aiming point, because there is no way you could hit that bunker off the tee, also, if you wanted to see the hole, you could see all of it while you were walking up 15 and decide how you want to play it then.

Jason Mandel

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rich Goodale,

Sounds reasonable and practical to me.

But, I wonder, on new courses, when did the trend begin ?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

You're just a font of all kinds of interesting architectural quesitons these days, aren't you? This time, I'm serious--you really are.

Why and when elevated tees came into vogue truly is an interesting question, and I hope we get some historically accurate and perhaps documented answers on this thread.

Did you know in early golf--the latter part of the 19th century---blindness was actually considered to be an architectural premium--something that was quite prized--and I can prove this with a few relevant quotes!

But somewhere along the evolution of golf and architecture blindness did a flip-flop and became somewhat taboo and visibility, at least in theory, became prized!

Some of the early raised tees were somewhat hilarious--and more than a little grotesque---some complete with a form of stilts and even periscopes!

But to understand the fascination and power of elevation of teeing grounds I love the thoughts and ideas of Desmond Muirhead. Apparently on certain tee areas he'd call for his step-ladder and ask those there to take a few steps up on it and observe and feel the difference of only a few feet in elevation. To him tee elevation wasn't just visibility, he felt even a feet up gave all golfers a feeling of POWER.

The other day at GMGC we were working with the repositioning and height on the face of a restored fairway bunker on an interesting hole topographically and for some reason I stood up on the seat of a cart and the entire thing took on a vastly different look.

Height and the vertical dimension really is a fascinating architectural tool even in very small increments and in both ways--up and down.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Many forget that the first set of official rules of golf called for the golfer to tee his ball up within one club length of the hole where he just holed out from.

And, I believe that it took over 100 years to get that rule changed.  The new rule called for the golfer to tee his ball up withing two clublengths of the hole where he just holed out from.

So, seperate tees are a relatively new addition to the game, and I'm curious to know when elevated tees originated.

I think Rich Goodale hit on a very likely answer, as golf courses evolved, but I wonder, when new courses were built, when did elevated tees become a standard, and was it for drainage or other reasons ?

[Jim Thompson]

Jeff,

With regard to your points:
     1. Making the golf course play a tad easier for beginning golfers.  (People who might hit the ball less concise than a more advanced golfer can benefit from the extra distance gained through the loss of elevation.)

Consider that one of the primary effects of a setting in which the teeing ground is higher than the landing area, is that for every increase in tee elevation the opportunity for the ball to proceed further off line, that is side to side, increases proportionately. Further, the weaker play tends to have more difficulty with consistent line than with distance.  As a general rule the higher the tee box the wider the landing area must be to maintain a playability ratio (if you believe in such things).

     2. The point raised above, letting the golfer see the entire hole and then formulating a plan from the tee.

Seems only to be material in the first trip to a given course.

     3. Just wanting to make a course look grand.  Often when talking to people after playing a new course, they will describe the sight from the most elevated tee as they saw the hole (and perhaps a couple more) sweep out before them framed by trees/lakes etc..

Here you are probably onto the origins of elevated tee box theory.  By giving an average person elevation over something, you do in a sense give them a feeling of dominion over what they can see.  A great ego boost!  In addition by elevating the tee box the need to remember the features of a course for the next round is significantly diminished if not eliminated.  Tad amount to subsidizing mental laziness.

So when did the elevated tee box come into vogue?  Don’t have a date or anything or a place.  However, I wouldn’t be surprised the feature became common within ten years of golf becoming a more widely accepted form of recreation.  When players of varying levels of skill were using the same course or when the early fathers of American golf began to loose some of their distance, I think it would be safe to assume they didn’t want to add a stroke to two strokes to their score on each hole a result of human pride.  It may even be related to the successful early capitalists who wanted to play at the club but didn’t have the time nor perhaps the raw talent to improve their games.  This moment in time may in fact be the beginning of our culture “going soft”.  TEPaul’s suggestion that the elevated tee box is for a sense of POWER is right on.  The early capitalists didn’t need elevation to feel power, they had it everyday.  But the ego boost for the first middle managers must have been significant.

Cheers!

JT

[Jim_Kennedy]

An excerpt from an article by Curt Sampson:

One of the most eloquent of course designers, Desmond Muirhead was truly high-minded: He liked to build holes that ran downhill, loved elevated tees and had a compelling reason for his preference. He wanted to make golfers feel strong.
"The American male has had his personal sense of power eroded since World War II," he once told a reporter. "I use elevated tees, I suppose, to give him back some of his rightful power on the course. Even a slight rise increases your potential energy tremendously. All increases in height are symbols of power."
Muirhead could get quite gassy on the subject, calling his downhill holes an antidote to everything from foreign cars to women's lib to the national debt. But his passion was real. One day, when we were at Lakewood Country Club in Dallas, he kept having me pull benches to the backs of the tees. We'd stand on a bench and look down and he would say, "See? It's a better hole."

[TEPaul]

"The early capitalists didn’t need elevation to feel power, they had it everyday.  But the ego boost for the first middle managers must have been significant."

Jim Thompson;

This is an interesting remark of yours and is a subject that just might make for a good thread.

People such as powerful capitalists and other bigtimers may have a general feeling about their own personal power but my experience is definitely when they enter onto a golf course to test themselves against golf, other golfers and the course they lose that sense of power althogether and become something akin to little kids with wide eyes of wonder.

I've run across a ton of bigtime capitalist egos in my time and it's always fascinated me how those people who generally don't defer to anyone much in their lives defer to good golfers almost without fail. It's obviously no secret that they understand they aren't mastering golf the way they'd hope to, the way they've master so many other things in life and furthermore they understand they probably never can.

In this way golf could be one of the best equalizers in all of life and it doesn't just involve how they look at the game--its very much how others play it in a way they know they never will. Man, have I seen some top notch amateurs turn this undeniable fact into successful business careers where sans their notable golf skill they probably wouldn't have gone very far in their business lives!!

[TEPaul]

JimK:

Thanks for finding that quote by or about Muirhead--that's exaclty the one I was referring to.

I think that's a very interesting observation and a very interesting technique of Muirhead's. He not only wanted to make the golfer feel stronger, more powerful, more in control of what lay before him but he even gave some reasons why he should do that (the effects of WW2 and such). But it smacks of vague attempts at the endless inclination toward dominance by Man over even Nature itself--particularly Nature itself! This is something Max Behr generally referred to as Man's "game mind" (attempts to both create exact order and and certainly control and even dominance in everything he did even over the obvious randomness of Nature in architecture!).

To reiterate, again, Max Behr's apparent general feeling about Man in golf vs Nature itself (sorry to do this to you RICHARD), this very technique of the effects of elevation could, and should, be used, in my opinion, the other way as well, at least occasionally. Architects should lower teeing areas or put them on grade and play to areas rising and upsloping.

If a few feet in increased tee elevation can have that power oriented effect on a golfer psychologically it should be logical to assume that a few feet of lowering could have the opposite effect.

I think Behr was right on that Man, the architect, and the golfer too is inclined towards general dominance of things, even Nature (Behr feared Nature losing its part in the balance of what he called golf the "sport"--eg Man vying against the power of raw Nature which he senses he can never really conquer or dominate is part of his definition of "sport" vs "game").

Making golfers play uphill or to areas they can't completely see is a great architectural device to reestablish the power of Nature and it's necessary part in the balance of good and challenging NATURAL golf!  

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

But, if we had a timeline on the advent of elevated tees, on old and new courses, it might help us understand why they came about and who was responsible for them or supported the concept.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
C&W mention raised tees coming about during the Heathlands area:  "Sunningdale and Huntercombe........featured tees and landing areas raised above the fairway level". They cite H.S. Colt's expansion at Sunningdale as including: ..."many of the exhilarating elevated tees that exist on the older course
today".


   

[Jeff Goldman]

So when did extensive use of elevated tees come into significant use?  Incidently, by elevated tee, I mean elevated above the level of the fairway landing area, although the tee still could be level with the proceeding green.  If that is not the correct definition for this thread, give yours.  Regardless, I assume elevated tees relatively common by the 20's, but in addition to the quote about Sunningdale, what are earlier examples?

Jeff Goldman

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim Kennedy,

Not having been to either course, could drainage have been an issue ?

Jeff Goldman,

By elevated tee, I mean a tee that is elevated above the land it sits on, not one that is flush with the ground, but above the fairway.

[Jeff Goldman]

Pat, so you are talking about tees artificially created above the existing landform and not "placed" or devised simply as part of the routing plan?  I was thinking of a lot of the tees at Augusta (10, for example) or the original first tee at Banff (or the devil's cauldron), which I don't recall being built significantly on top of the existing form.  Simply having a downhill hole, or one where the tee and green are routed over hills, doesn't count.  What are some examples of early elevated tees?

Jeff Goldman

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
Never been there either but I wouldn't be surprised if drainange wasn't involved, along with visibility and lack of level terrain, especially on rolling sites.

Move golf from links soils to inland types and it pays to raise the boxes. You can better control the irrigation/ drainage and there is less chance, or at least less work needed to limit it, of encroachment by other strains of grass. Take golf into the marshlands of Florida and elevated tees can be a necessity,  although this may have been less of a need when dirt was cheaper to dig and move. Same for the desert, with its limited amounts of turf per course. They also seem like a necessity, especially today, when hitting to "target" fairways.  

Didn't Pete Dye use elevated tees, their banks held in place by sleepers, at the start of his career?          

[BCrosby]

Some tee elevation can also be a necessity in clay soils in the SE. Depending on the surrounding contouring, of course.

That's one reason why the fairway level tees at Cuscowilla are so remarkable.

Bob

[Jim Thompson]

Tom,

I think your right.  When put into historical context the early members of clubs really didn't have that much competition from players of great skill.  Those with the means coulds play.  The caddies were almost always better player in the early days.  I took upstart caddies to break the ranks so to speak and open the courses up to common folk.

As for the advent of the elevated tee, another factor may be the increase in man's ability to move earth and manufacture features.  I think this is why many of us prefer the old courses.  When the early architects only had mules and boxes to move dirt I dare say they spent more time revealing features than trying to create them.  Kind of like the artistic difference between a marble sculpture and a ceramic artist.  

Furthermore the open disclosure of the features became necessary as man begins to make hazards they are obviously more, well, man-made.  I think a golfer is more willing to accept the ill result of a natural feature more than a man-made one.  The first is kind of the Lords way of testing you and the latter is just another man kicking you in the shin.  To get past that I think designers began to "create vision" to say to the player, "hey buddy you did it to yourself, I didn't trick you."

Just some thoughts,

JT

[Patrick_Mucci]

George Bahto,

GCGC's tees were mostly flush to the ground.

What about the original tees at NGLA ?

[Craig Disher]

Pat,
Making the distinction between tees that are on elevated ground and those that are on ground artifically elevated is important. During the latter part of the 19th century in the UK it was considered thrilling to make a shot that required a great carry, especially over a large mound or dune, and many of the links were routed with this in mind. This idea fell out of fashion and by the 1920s architects like Braid went in the opposite direction, moving the tees and the greens up on the dunes. The relationship between the tee and the old punchbowl bunker at Rye is a good example of this.

But I wonder how much the tendency to build high, elevated tees is influenced by a desire to increase construction costs and improve the profit margin. That's a real cynical view but having seen some master plans that include elevated tees that make absolutely no sense, I'm a little suspicious.