Creeping up, why do clubs do it ?

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

Golf courses are rated from fixed points, official tee markers, be they red, white, blue, black, gold, silver, green or yellow.

Each set of tees has its designated yardage/slope rating, which is used for handicap purposes.

Why do courses move their tee markers up, well forward of the designated monuments, rather than balance them to produce the same yardage and slope, day in and day out ?

Is it due to the egos of those in charge ?

Is the tactic meant to delay the inevitable, moving up to the appropriate tee markers ?

Rather than admit that they can't handle the course from its designated yardage/slope rating do they push the tees up, making the course shorter and manageable for their games ?

Doesn't this tactic put them at a disadvantage handicap wise, since they're shooting scores from tees well forward of the designated yardage/slope, but, posting these scores as if they were playing further back, from the designated yardage/slope.

Are they doing themselves and the members a disservice by placing the tee markers well forward of their designated position ?

[Scott Witter]

Say Pat, are you bored this morning looks like a record streak  of 6 or 7 posts in a row?

[JohnV]

Having done a lot of course rating, I would say there are two things that cause this.

1) The clubs want the "maximum" yardage stated on the scorecards and used to get the Rating and Slope as high as possible so they tell the rating team to rate from 3 or 4 paces off the back of the tees.

2) During play, they want the pace of play to be quicker and they figure that putting the tees 10 yards closer to the hole will make a difference in that.

This is very unfair to the players as their handicap ends up being lower than it should be.  If you took 10 yards off every hole, you would lower the Course Rating by almost a stroke and the slope by 2 or 3 points.

When we rate a course that is not new, we might measure it from where they want it, but we will look at the teeing grounds and rate it from middle of the wear pattern.   We give them a plate to put in the ground from where we measured.  That might go at 395 and the number on it would be 395.  But, if they play it at 390 or 385 regularly, we would rate it from there.

[Craig Sweet]

Here's my take on it...if the tee markers remained at the yardage the course was "rated" at, you would be hitting out of a trench in about one month...or off dirt at best.

Second, a lot of people don't bother carrying a handicap, but they like to bitch and moan....if a certain par 3 is listed at 150 yards, it damn well better play 150 everyday...

Lastly, most of the maintinence workers where I work set the markers everyday thinking about the tee shot (and pin placement on par 3;s) and the second shot from the fairway....over the course of 18 holes the total "rated" yardage probably does not vary by much from its designation.

[Brent Hutto]

Combining John's and Craig's observations, it sounds like what I'd call a ceiling effect.

1) Since most courses nowadays want the biggest yardage possible on the card, they measure the scorecard yardage a couple paces from the back edge of every tee box.

2) Since you have to vary the location to keep from destroying one spot on the tee box, all the variation comes from making it shorter. You can't hardly put the tees behind the back edge of the box.

So on average, the course plays shorter than the card, at least from the back tees. If you tote up a bunch of yardages that are either equal to or shorter than the maximum, their average has to be less than the maximum, no?

I never play the back tees and from the up tees at our course it seems equally likely for a hole to be shorter or longer than on the card on any given day.

[JohnV]

Here's my take on it...if the tee markers remained at the yardage the course was "rated" at, you would be hitting out of a trench in about one month...or off dirt at best.

Second, a lot of people don't bother carrying a handicap, but they like to bitch and moan....if a certain par 3 is listed at 150 yards, it damn well better play 150 everyday...

Lastly, most of the maintinence workers where I work set the markers everyday thinking about the tee shot (and pin placement on par 3;s) and the second shot from the fairway....over the course of 18 holes the total "rated" yardage probably does not vary by much from its designation.

Craig,  The USGA recognizes that you can't play the course from the exact yardage every day.  This is why they recommend that the club puts approximately 6 tees in front of that yardage, 6 around that yardage and 6 behind it every day and rotate them.  You could do it other ways like 9 short and 9 back.

A few years ago while playing Bandon Dunes for 3 straight days, I noticed that the maintenance workers put the tees back on every hole where the hole location was in front and vice versa.  The yardages almost never varied from day-to-day.  That seemed really silly to me.  Especially since they went on a front-middle-back rotation throughout the course with the tee markers marching in lockstep with the holes.

Brent, agreed that it will play shorter than the yardage if it was measured that way.  As long as the rating took that into account, it shouldn't make a big difference to anyone.

[Steve Burrows]

Like John mentioned in the previous post, some people like to move the markers up when the pin is back, and, conversely, move the markers to the back of the box when the pin is front.  This makes it so that the hole plays approximately the same distance each day (in the absence of wind).

However, when I do course set-up, I like to mix it up a little, which means that there may be as much as a 30-40 yard discrepancy in distance from the labeled yardage.  This, I believe, adds to the variety of clubs used on a given hole (and specifically on Par-3's), and adds layers of interest to the playing of the course.  

Also, as mentioned, the health of the turf is an important factor, and one that may over-ride the variety mentioned above.  Sometimes, I'll just try to find a stand of turf that is looks the best, and that is where markers will be for the day.  I personally won't put the markers more than 10 paces in front of the official mark, but this does mean that, all things being equal, they have as much chance of being in front as behind.

[JohnV]

Donal, there is no doubt that playing conditions on a specific day can cause tees to be adjusted significantly.

One of my favorite things was playing Leven Links with my wife in 1995.  The Ladies tees were all at the LGU markers, while the mens were all over the place.  On one par 3 on the back 9, my tee was 5 yards in front of hers.  She was not happy.

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

Here's my take on it...if the tee markers remained at the yardage the course was "rated" at, you would be hitting out of a trench in about one month...or off dirt at best.

Craig,

What part of my post didn't you read ?  
Or, is it just too early in the morning for you.

Reread the section on balance, of moving the tee markers daily, but, retaining the overall yardage/slope

Second, a lot of people don't bother carrying a handicap, but they like to bitch and moan....if a certain par 3 is listed at 150 yards, it damn well better play 150 everyday...

That's true to a degree.

Lastly, most of the maintinence workers where I work set the markers everyday thinking about the tee shot (and pin placement on par 3;s) and the second shot from the fairway....over the course of 18 holes the total "rated" yardage probably does not vary by much from its designation.
That's true when you "balance" the golf course, but, when every marker is well forward of the yardage/slope monument, you don't get any balance, you get a shortened golf course.

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

Combining John's and Craig's observations, it sounds like what I'd call a ceiling effect.

1) Since most courses nowadays want the biggest yardage possible on the card, they measure the scorecard yardage a couple paces from the back edge of every tee box.

Brent, that's NOT TRUE.
You're thinking in the sole context of the back tees.
Tees from which the minority of the membership plays from.

Think of a golf course and this issue in the context of a golf course with short, middle and back tees for the men

2) Since you have to vary the location to keep from destroying one spot on the tee box, all the variation comes from making it shorter. You can't hardly put the tees behind the back edge of the box.

That's not true.

The monuments for the back tees usually leave ample space to lengthen the hole by more than a few yards, thus giving the maintainance crew the elasticity to balance the golf course for the day's play.

So on average, the course plays shorter than the card, at least from the back tees. If you tote up a bunch of yardages that are either equal to or shorter than the maximum, their average has to be less than the maximum, no?

I never play the back tees and from the up tees at our course it seems equally likely for a hole to be shorter or longer than on the card on any given day.

I think that's the way to properly balance the course, but, that's not what this issue is about.  It's about moving ALL of the tee markers in front of the yardage/slope monuments.

[Brent Hutto]

Pat,

In my experience, something like what you describe happens to the back tees. I believe it is for the reason I describe.

As I said, in my experience what you describe does not happen from the up tee that I play. At least not to an extent that it's noticable and I tend to notice that sort of thing.

So with regards to the non-back tees, you're asking "Why do clubs..." and my answer is "They don't...". Then again 99% of my rounds are played at places you probably wouldn't find interesting so maybe there's a categorical difference in our respective experiences.

On occasion when invited to play some place really nice and architecturally interesting I'm not in the habit of evaluating the day's tee location versus the scorecard or course rating. I've usually got other things on my mind.

P.S. I find the bold treatment in your followups to be much more legible and easier on the eyes that color fonts. Thanks.

[Craig Sweet]

When I do tee's, especially the par 3's, I look to provide variety...if the pin is back I might move the tees back, thus making a 190 yard shot on a hole rated for 165...and the next par 3 might be set up to play 115 and be rated for 150...

On the par 4's and 5's I try to make the difference from the day before at least 10 yards and preferably 20...either way front or back, but I am always aware of the overall set up...as in one forward, one back (though that is simplifiying)...

It's no different with cutting hole locations...I try and mix it up...left...right...middle...depth is always predetermined....

[Jason Topp]

Most courses I've seen that do this are so difficult that they pummel most golfers, either with desert, woods, water or wetlands.  The courses open with long distance back tees and then creep the tees up to allow people to get around the course.  I do not have a problem with the courses making such adjustments but there should be truth in advertising and course rating adjustments in such instances.

A couple of courses I play are so notorious for this that we ignore the markers and just play the plates.

[Bryan Izatt]

Golf courses are rated from fixed points, official tee markers, be they red, white, blue, black, gold, silver, green or yellow.

Each set of tees has its designated yardage/slope rating, which is used for handicap purposes.

Why do courses move their tee markers up, well forward of the designated monuments, rather than balance them to produce the same yardage and slope, day in and day out ?

At my (semi-private) course they do it to speed up play.  For instance the most often played men's tee on the first hole is always up, with the exception of the club championship, because the majority of hackers can't deal with the forced carry on the first hole.

Is it due to the egos of those in charge ?

If by those in charge you mean the owners, the answer is no in my experience.  At my course they don't play much and they're not concerned from that point of view.  In any event, at how many courses would "those in charge" actually set up the tees day-to-day?

Is the tactic meant to delay the inevitable, moving up to the appropriate tee markers ?

For the egoist people in charge?  Maybe.  And, if they control the person setting the tees every day

Rather than admit that they can't handle the course from its designated yardage/slope rating do they push the tees up, making the course shorter and manageable for their games ?

Maybe at some places.  But, wouldn't the rest of the membership have some say if it was too egregious?  Are you talking about courses that are run by not-so-benign dictators?  

Doesn't this tactic put them at a disadvantage handicap wise, since they're shooting scores from tees well forward of the designated yardage/slope, but, posting these scores as if they were playing further back, from the designated yardage/slope.

Yes.  Are you suggesting that there aren't people who want to have vanity handicaps?

Are they doing themselves and the members a disservice by placing the tee markers well forward of their designated position ?

Depends what their motive is.  If it's to shoot low scores or have a low handicap then it might serve them well.  It'd certainly be a diservice to any member or other that wanted to establish an accurate differential for handicapping.  But, then if the dictatorship was egotistical enough to set up a course to pander to their scoring ability they probably don't care if they are doing a disservice to the membership.

1) Since most courses nowadays want the biggest yardage possible on the card, they measure the scorecard yardage a couple paces from the back edge of every tee box.

Brent, that's NOT TRUE.
You're thinking in the sole context of the back tees.
Tees from which the minority of the membership plays from.

Think of a golf course and this issue in the context of a golf course with short, middle and back tees for the men

Pat, in my experience it is often true.  It's certainly true at my home course.  Perhaps you're thinking of courses with multiple tees on a single tee pad.  My course generally has multiple tee pads to match the multiple tee blocks.

[Jim Sweeney]

JVB:

My memory is a little hazy and I'm not up to date on recent changes to the rating system, so please clarify for us:

How much can the tees be moved without affecting the rating? I remember something to the effect that separate tees on a hole needed to be rated differently only if the distance between the markers was more than 20 yards. If that is correct, it would follow that there could be a forty yard area (20 yards in front of and 20 yards behind the marker) in which the tees could be placed without affecting the rating values for that hole. Needless to say this is plenty of area to control wear.

One of my pet peeves is golf courses measured from the very back edge of all the teeing grounds in order to lay claim to the extra yardage. Pure vanity. And useless, since the course is never played from the markers.

[Doug Siebert]

Well since probably just about every course out there these days is getting rated from the "2 yards from the back of the box" position on the tips, or will be next time it gets re-rated, it probably all evens out in the end for those of us who play the tips.  Maybe that's a convenient excuse for one shot's worth of a bad day if I play a shorter set if those aren't rated longer than they really are  For those courses that have separate teeing areas for the different tees they could do that for all the sets, but I think its less likely.

For those other sets, hopefully they are rating from a more realistic position since the pressure to add yards shouldn't be as intense there.  Oh, I can see if you have your senior tees at 5950 you might want to find a way to get to 6001 just to get those guys not quite willing to admit their age and play tees shorter than 6000.  But absent psychological barriers like that, is there really any need to steal an extra 100 yards on the other sets by backing the tees up as far as they go?

On my home course there are some larger tee boxes that carry multiple sets, on a couple holes one tee box carries all four sets, on other holes each tee has its own tee box, with the rest somewhere in between.  On those larger teeboxes that carry multiple sets, I wonder how they measure things?  If they put the tips all the way back, where do they measure the frontmost set on that box from?  Those tees, especially when they are the senior or women's tees, are almost always near the front.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the women's tees suffer the opposite problem of the tips, and are measured from as far forward as they can go, and always play a little bit longer than measured, and moreso on a day when most of the pins are back -- they don't always balance them at my home course, usually they are fairly balanced but sometimes you get days where they are mostly back or mostly forward.  I don't know if that's by design to even out green wear or just make for more variety or simply because the guy who regularly sets the pins was on vacation

[ForkaB]

Pat

Golf clubs, like most men, like to think they are longer than they are.  So, they set markers at places they have only been once or twice in their life, and then pretend that this is some sort of norm.  This is why when you have a proper competition and ask men to play from those markers, under the Rules of golf, very few of them can perform to their purported ability.  It is probably also why men continue to be bombarded over the internet with advertisements for Viagra and Cialis and big-headed Titanium drivers.......

[JohnV]

JVB:

My memory is a little hazy and I'm not up to date on recent changes to the rating system, so please clarify for us:

How much can the tees be moved without affecting the rating? I remember something to the effect that separate tees on a hole needed to be rated differently only if the distance between the markers was more than 20 yards. If that is correct, it would follow that there could be a forty yard area (20 yards in front of and 20 yards behind the marker) in which the tees could be placed without affecting the rating values for that hole. Needless to say this is plenty of area to control wear.

Jim,

I think you may be confusing the rating process vs the ratings themselves.

A club can place its tees anywhere it wants them on a daily basis, but the USGA recommends keeping the overall length of the course as close to the rated yardage as possible.  If the club is permanently moving the tees to a place where that yardage changes, it should be re-rated, although it might just be based on the new yardages.

When we are rating the course, any tee that is within 25 yards of a tee that is being evaluated does not have to have a separate set of obstacle numbers calculated for it.

For example, if we are rating a course where the blue tees were all 10 yards behind the white tees, which were the ones that were predominantly used.  We would go through the entire process of rating the white tees, but would not need to do the process for the blues.  Their rating would simply use the numbers from the white tees + the yardage difference (180 yards in this case).

In a less extreme case where 5 or six holes were more than 25 yards from the whites and the rest within 25 yards, we would go through the entire process for those 5 or 6 holes and use the numbers + the yardage difference for the other holes.

If a course came to us and said they had moved back each of their tees by 20 yards, we would not need to revisit the course to do a new rating and could simply recalculate the rating based on the old obstacle numbers and the new yardages.

If they said they moved them by 30 yards we would have to revisit them.

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

et. al.,

Aren't golf courses rated from the OFFICIAL marker designated by the Association the conducts the rating.

In the Metropolitan New York area, the MGA (Metropolitan Golf Association) conducts that process and establishes the location from where the golf course is rated by placing permanent markers in the ground.

Everything works off of those fixed points.

It doesn't matter where the tee markers are placed on any given day as the golf course is not rated from tee markers, but from permanent fixed plaques/points.

[Tom Huckaby]

Patrick:

Yes, ratings are done from the "monument" markers, and I've have to assume it's the same nationwide.  We certainly do that in the NCGA.  John V. described the process.

As for why clubs creep up, I think Rich nailed it.  But just think of it this way - if they do so on a constant basis, they are achieving at least slightly artificially low handicaps.  So just bet heavily against people from these clubs!

TH

[Bryan Izatt]

John,

How much would the course rating change if it was routinely played  180 yards shorter than it was rated?  

Patrick, Tom,

Here in Ontario the courses don't always (never???) have Golf Association monuments on the tees.  At least the ones I play don't.  When first rated I believe they are measured from where the tees are purportedly played.  I'm not sure how that's captured in the Associations rating database.

I've played a fair amount in the USA and for the life of me I can't recall if there is always a monument for every tee.  I'll be in AZ next week.  I'll have to try to remember to look.

[Tom Huckaby]

Bryan:

It is entirely possible that Canada does it differently that we do.  But that being said, especially since I've become involved in doing these course ratings, it's just a curiousity of mine to actually go and look for the "monuments", and I can't recall any course that didn't have them, with the exception of brand new ones who hadn't installed them yet, or courses that aren't rated and don't care to be.  But if they are rated, they have monuments.

Of course I could be completely full of shit nationwide as I am basing this on my experience, which surely is not of a Wardian nature.

 

[Bryan Izatt]

Ontario uses the USGA rating approach down to using the USGA rating guide and software.  So, I would have thought we would use the monument protocol if that was part of the process.  I've taken the rating course from our Association and participated in rating a few courses a couple of years ago, and I don't recall any mention of monuments in the USGA guide.  Strangely, the Association does plant 150 and 100 yard monuments on some (but not all) courses.

I assume that in your state (country) it would be the Association that plants the monuments as they measure and rate the course?  Presumably it's not the course that comes and plants them later.  Perhaps John could comment.

[Tom Huckaby]

Bryan:

You know, I'm not sure who drives the process - clubs or associations.  We do need JV to weigh in on this.  Here in the NCGA I know we do the measuring... but where that starts from could be us or the clubs, I don't know.  I have seen some really weirdly placed monuments that I don't think the association would put where they are... so it leads me to guess the clubs tell us where to start, and we measure from there and then place the monuments.  But I don't know for sure.  I just do know my experience with their existence is what I stated before - it we measured it, and we rated it, it will have monuments.  And thus damn near all courses have them.

TH

[Jim Sweeney]

Bryan:

Not all associations provide permanent rating monuments. Some provide them as part of the rating process, andsome sell them to raise money, but I believe most do neither.

Most US associations are small (<100 clubs or 30,000 individual members, <500,000 annual revenues) and that makes it nearly impossible for them to have monument programs.