[Brent Hutto]

I went to a clinic taught by a college golf coach. He said he has incoming freshmen go out and play the front tees at the team's home course. These are ladies tees, no men's course rating and they play very, very short. If they don't break par he sends them back out until they do. The typical first-time score is one or two under, playing from a little over 5,000 yards.

He also asks them to predict before they play what they'll shoot the first time. Invariably they think they'll shoot a 62 or 63 and they never, ever play as well as they predict. The trick of course is to play every hole with a long iron to your favorite wedge yardage and then try to get up and down for a three. But most of them use drivers and fairway woods on several holes and invariably card a couple bogeys. He also said the Par 3's (most under 100 yards) yield fewer birdies than you'd think, hitting a wedge from a perfect lie.

[Tony Ristola]

Love the story about the college players. Had a 5,500 yard course as one of two courses I'd regularly played as a junior, so this was an interesting read. Until the mid 90's the tournament record for the 36-hole event the club hosts was only a handful under par at the most; and it attracted some good players. The club during these events selected a number of challenging hole locations...now gone as some tilted or tiny greens have been rebuilt...a couple are sad replacements.  In the new techno-golf era I believe the record is at -10.

The club record was set at 61 in around 1967, and then two older gents, in their 60's equaled the record in the late 80's early 90's.

In Germany men playing from the forward tees isn't possible. The vast majority of the nation has been brainwashed to believe it's not golf. To rate the courses from the forward tees for men...unthinkable...which is sad. They miss the whole point about the game...which is to have fun.

[redanman]

More very young, short-hitting and old men damn well ought to play the "Forward" tees.

The stigma of Women's tees needs to be removed forever!

I say  make the reds the "Back Tees" as they are at NGLA, Shinnecock and I believe Seminole (not sure on the third one).  I like red.

[Jamey Bryan]

A couple of years ago our club had the course rerated, and asked that all tees (1, shortest through 4, longest) be rated for the men, and 1 through 3 for the women.  We now have 15 or 20 gentlemen who regularly play from the 1s.

We have a daily stableford game where it's not uncommon for a foursome to have players playing from three sets of tees.  Some time ago, a long time participant asked me if I thought there would be objections if he  moved up to the 1 tees (this fellow has been a good player but has terminal cancer and could no longer reach any par 4 in regulation from the 2 tees).  My response was HELL NO, play the tees that give you a reasonable iron after a decent drive.  He moved up and is still playing and enjoying the game and the fellowship.  Last week he had a rare "good" pain day and shot a 79.....  it was a pleasure to lose to him.

Jamey

[JohnV]

Tom / KM,

There are quite a few associations that are licensed by the USGA to rate courses.  Some areas of the country have strong women's associations in addition to the men's associations and the women like to rate their own sets of tees.

All ratings in Oregon have always been done by the OGA.

For years, here in Western PA, the Women's Golf Association of Western PA did rate the courses which were their members (just to private ones), but the WPGA did many of the courses in the area and when it was one that the women didn't do, we did the women's rating also.  There are also the Keystone Public GA and the Erie District GA which rate courses.  A couple of years ago, the WPGA and the WGAWP joined forces on ratings and we took their rating teams under our wing and we now rate all of our courses (and some that aren't members) for both genders.

As for the difference in ratings, the primary differences are in the distances the women are deemed to hit it (400 for two shots for the scratch and 280 for the bogey vs 470 and 370 for men) and the depth ratings for bunkers and rough.

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