[Peter Pallotta]

1. Ken, his wife, and Alice Dye are right about the impact of fairway irrigation.
2. It's not the forward tees that are the problem, it's all those damn back tees!

[Ken Moum]

1. Ken, his wife, and Alice Dye are right about the impact of fairway irrigation.
2. It's not the forward tees that are the problem, it's all those damn back tees!

Perfect.

[Niall C]

Jeff


Those are good questions. I think maybe you start with the timeline and try and identify the point, or the period, when new designs started going to multiple tees. I say new designs but maybe you include redesigns in that as well.


Once you do that then I think you can start looking for the reasons why it happened. The suggestion from Ken/Alice Dye is that multiple tees happened as a result of irrigation being introduced making fairways softer and there being a lot less run. Did the introduction of the two coincide ? Maybe, but how did that necessarily lead to graduated tees ? Before irrigation, players hit the ball different lengths without the need for half a dozen tees, so why multiple tees on irrigated courses ?


Was it maybe with the ball more or less stopping where it landed that it was much less likely to find a small bunker, not like you find on a links where a small bunker that gathers can prove a very dominating hazard, and as a consequence bunkers/hazards got significantly bigger. And once hazards got much bigger they were more likely to be used for forced carries and before you know it one thing leads to another and you end up with multiple tees to allow everyone to get over the forced carry ?



I've no idea if that is what happened in practice but I don't see irrigation on its own leading to multiple tees when you consider that for centuries players of varying abilities and lengths have used the same tees.


Niall

[Sean_A]

Jeff


Those are good questions. I think maybe you start with the timeline and try and identify the point, or the period, when new designs started going to multiple tees. I say new designs but maybe you include redesigns in that as well.


Once you do that then I think you can start looking for the reasons why it happened. The suggestion from Ken/Alice Dye is that multiple tees happened as a result of irrigation being introduced making fairways softer and there being a lot less run. Did the introduction of the two coincide ? Maybe, but how did that necessarily lead to graduated tees ? Before irrigation, players hit the ball different lengths without the need for half a dozen tees, so why multiple tees on irrigated courses ?


Was it maybe with the ball more or less stopping where it landed that it was much less likely to find a small bunker, not like you find on a links where a small bunker that gathers can prove a very dominating hazard, and as a consequence bunkers/hazards got significantly bigger. And once hazards got much bigger they were more likely to be used for forced carries and before you know it one thing leads to another and you end up with multiple tees to allow everyone to get over the forced carry ?



I've no idea if that is what happened in practice but I don't see irrigation on its own leading to multiple tees when you consider that for centuries players of varying abilities and lengths have used the same tees.


Niall

I think the advent of mega tees came with the long ball/metal woods and the push for 7000 plus yard courses as matter of fact. It then spread from 4-5 to 5-7 sets and has spread to courses which aren't 7000 yards. The concept is blindly being taken as gospel rather than exploring the idea that maybe all courses can't suit all golfers. Maybe we should be building shorter courses or at least courses where the shorter sets of tees are near greens. We are trying to jam round pegs in square holes with this concept. That is the difference from classic courses that haven't been badly mucked up added yards. There were tons of courses where 5500-6000 was the yardage focus and many even shorter. That is why there were 3 sets.

Ciao

[Niall C]

Sean


Was there one architect who lead the charge in that respect ?


Niall

[Ken Moum]

I've no idea if that is what happened in practice but I don't see irrigation on its own leading to multiple tees when you consider that for centuries players of varying abilities and lengths have used the same tees.


Niall

Well, I've played something like 65 rounds on links courses in Scotland.  (one with you, thank you very much)  And even as a low-trajectory, short-hitting old guy, I have rarely felt overwhelmed by the course.  Exceptions are Royal Dornoch and Jubilee in St. Andrews for different reasons, I"ll address them later.


Here in the US, however, it's happened a lot more often. 


You are probably right that irrigation alone isn't the driver, but I can assure you that in the middle of the country, wall-to-wall irrigation has had a HUGE impact.


The other thing that happened at the same time was the perceived need to have courses that "test" the best players. 


The nine-hole course I grew up on in northern Minnesota 65 years ago, when I was getting serious about golf, had two sets of tees. One barely over 3,000 yards and one about 2,800.


No men played the forward tees, no matter how old or short hitting.  As far as I can remember no women played the longer ones.


In the spring, it was cold and the grass didn't get really thick, so even though we mowed the bluegrass at nearly an inch, it wasn't too bad. I don't remember much, but during June it had to start getting pretty slow, but by July the lack of irrigation meant fairways dried out and even with balata balls and persimmon woods, the 400-yard first hole was often reachable for me with a traditional blade 8 iron. And I was never a long hitter or good iron player.


About 20 years ago I was back and playing with a modern ball and driver, couldn't get there with two woods.


About the same time as full-coverage fairway irrigation coming to most of the courses I played (1970s and 1980s), Courses started getting longer...often times by adding "back" tees.


New courses not only had to have tees at almost 7,000 yards to be considered serious, forced carries suddenly started cropping up.


So, by the 1990s and the Multi-layer ball revolution, the die was cast.




BTW- my old home course is an perfect object lesson Niall.  Like the courses in Scotland you talk about being played off two or three tees by all abilities, the original nine is still intact, and has a 206-yard par three, but a 145-yard par three off an elevated tee, a 254-yard par and a par five that's only 415. So despite being over 3,000 yards, a third of the holes are easily reachable in regulation.

[Ken Moum]

The suggestion from Ken/Alice Dye is that multiple tees happened as a result of irrigation being introduced making fairways softer and there being a lot less run. Did the introduction of the two coincide ? Maybe, but how did that necessarily lead to graduated tees ? Before irrigation, players hit the ball different lengths without the need for half a dozen tees, so why multiple tees on irrigated courses?

Alice's argument only applied to having tees under 5,000 yards for women to play. Which AFAIK is a common feature of Dye courses.


But if you start with three at, say,  5600, 6,000 and 6500, when you add a set that's almost 1,000 yards shorter, and one more at 6900 to 7000, you've got five sets.


But the reality is that it's almost unheard of for older courses to have tees with that spread.  Glasgow Gailes Links for instance is 6322, 6535 and 6903 for yellow, white and championship according to what I can find. The blue tees are 5500. if you accept that here in America, on green, lush fairways, 5500 is too much for most women, you've got five sets of tees.


Scotscraig's yellow white and blue are 6310, 6550 and 6619. The reds are 5791.  Four tees to cover a measly 519 yards?


I recently played a newish course here in South Dakota where red, yellow, blue and black covered 5245 to 7179. That 1,934 yard spread gave them the opportunity to put in combo tees at 5636 and 6667 with no additional cost or equipment.


If you're willing to put in tees at, roughly, 4,800 yards, 5,500 yards, 6,200 yards and 7,000 yards, you only need four sets of tees.


Dump the "championship" tees and go with 4500, 5500 and 6500 and it's even easier.  Combo tees for two more sets around 5,000 and 6,000 if you like. 

[Sean_A]

Sean


Was there one architect who lead the charge in that respect ?


Niall

Not that I know of. Many archies got on board when it was no longer necessary to build walking courses. As you know, the concept has spread to GB&I for many big gun courses or new courses. I even see tees set up 150 yards or so down fairways on some courses. And that is what I am really talking about. I have no idea why a kid wouldn't hit a ball to the forward tee as a green and then play the "measured hole". There is no way as kids anybody I knew would have walked forward rather than play a shot. I see it as a wasted opportunity. Its possible to build a rudimentary short course within the existing course that may be 25 holes or whatever covering the same ground as 18...just by playing from tee to tee to green. It makes no sense to ask people to walk hundreds of extra yards with no ball in play. But of course, much of the time carts are used...

Ciao

[Niall C]

I think the advent of mega tees came with the long ball/metal woods and the push for 7000 plus yard courses as matter of fact. It then spread from 4-5 to 5-7 sets and has spread to courses which aren't 7000 yards. The concept is blindly being taken as gospel rather than exploring the idea that maybe all courses can't suit all golfers. Maybe we should be building shorter courses or at least courses where the shorter sets of tees are near greens. We are trying to jam round pegs in square holes with this concept. That is the difference from classic courses that haven't been badly mucked up added yards. There were tons of courses where 5500-6000 was the yardage focus and many even shorter. That is why there were 3 sets.

Ciao

Sean


I tend to think it's more than just pure length but also the nature of the course. Heroic carries, particularly forced ones with no alternative route would require a series of tees to allow all abilities to make the carry to the landing area. I wonder if that mind set of having a landing area carried over to holes without forced carries but still having a series of tees for golfers to reach the landing area ?


Now if I understand Jeff correctly, we have moved on from having all golfers notionally hitting the same landing area off the tee to the theory of proportionality which I take to mean if the tiger hits a driver 5 iron then the rabbit should also hit driver 5 iron. If I've got that wrong I'm sure Jeff will advise.


So in a few short steps we've gone from the golfer measuring themselves against the course to the course being measured to suit the golfer.


Niall

[Jeff_Brauer]

Now if I understand Jeff correctly, we have moved on from having all golfers notionally hitting the same landing area off the tee to the theory of proportionality which I take to mean if the tiger hits a driver 5 iron then the rabbit should also hit driver 5 iron. If I've got that wrong I'm sure Jeff will advise.


So in a few short steps we've gone from the golfer measuring themselves against the course to the course being measured to suit the golfer.


Niall

That is ideal for many, i.e., similar clubs into the green.  Personally, while pro golfers play courses about 25x their tee shot length (7500 yards for 300 yard drives, for shameless rounding.....) that puts the forward tees for 150 yard drives at 3750.  The highest I would go for any shorter tees would be 30x drive length, and I tended to graduate them as they moved forward, i.e. 25, 26 for lower handicap, 27 for average men, 28 for senior men and 29 for the true forward tees.  Of course, after the basic math, you end up not being perfect by virtue of following topo etc.


As to your second sentence, I am pretty sure gca's have always tried to design courses to fit players, and more so over time.  But, just as TOC eliminated the gorse in favor of mowed turf, because golfers found gorse and whins too tough to play out of, forward tees started getting added later, and natives got converted to mowed rough, etc. etc. etc., and the newest forward tee movement is just an extension of all those, I think.  Golf started in that Victorian age when everyone felt they should somehow be punished for their (golfing) sins, but the progression has always been towards easier and more fun. 


The only difference this time is that, like almost everything, it is based more on science, math, and statistical surveys.  I don't mind, just as I prefer modern medical thinking to blood letting of centuries ago.....

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I told you to ignore low comprehension Erik. 

Garland, please get the help you so desperately need.

Niall's point is that on a properly designed course, it is not necessary to build forward tees to have a great game.

I don't care if you're talking about the Old Course - a good percentage of people are NOT going to have an "enjoyable" time playing 6750+ yards. They're not going to enjoy hitting their fairway wood (often poorly) five or six times in a row before they get close to the green. They're not going to enjoy rolling the ball into countless fairway bunkers. They're not going to enjoy almost never having even a chip for a par, let alone a birdie putt.

For those of you who say that the 1 or 2 tee systems of the Golden Age worked "fine", how exactly do you know?

They haven't answered that question yet. Don't hold your breath, Jeff.

a) The USGA and others dictated this against the will of golfers
b) Golfers are just sheeple, so easily influenced (although it has always had a pretty good demographic, suggesting some very intelligent people)
c) If only those sheeples were smart enough to realize match play is better, it would be different.  I believe most don't play matches, because if I pay $XX for a round of golf, I want to play 18 holes. (Yes, I know you could play the remaining holes for fun)
d) If only everyone realized par isn't important (but keeping score is in fact important to most people)

Seriously.

AG, good post as usual.

Once you do that then I think you can start looking for the reasons why it happened.

Inclusivity. A growing game which included more than 40-year-old well-off white dudes. More juniors, women, older golfers who didn't hit the ball as far.

Before irrigation, players hit the ball different lengths without the need for half a dozen tees, so why multiple tees on irrigated courses ?

Do you legitimately think that this is really all that accurate? The distances that all players hit the ball now is significantly wider than it was in the 1800s and early 1900s. At both ends, really (though players could always suck, so a lot of it has come from the long end of things).

So, Niall, I went back as you suggested and "re-read" (and then re-responded) to everything you had to write, so now you do the same: go back and re-read all that I've written. And that Jeff has written, and AG.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Talking to another architect in my new role today, and happened to mention this thread.  He made an interesting point that he has found shorter tees, giving most players a decent club in, has allowed him to design more interesting green complexes.  One poster here has harped on designing "interest" tee to green, but at the same time, the mantra around here is to "defend par at the greens."


I have to agree with the gca on the surface.  I don't care for Doak's theory of leaving shorter hitters short of a green, although I have done that on long par 4 holes, presuming they have a wedge in, or what not.  It allows such things as tiny greens on long approach shots.  In architecture, the knee bone connected to the ........

[Joe Hancock]

I was on a consulting visit today, and the super and myself were standing on a par 3, contemplating a forward tee position. I want to relocate to provide the forward tee players an angle into the green that gives them a chance to skirt a greenside bunker with a ground shot. Perfectly, a group of 4 lady members came up on us, and asked what we were looking at. I explained my thinking, and one of the four volunteered to hit a shot. She hit it perfectly, but in the air and on the green. It still was valuable information.


The one thing all 4 said as they walked away from the tee was “ we like that new angle, but don’t make it any shorter!”


Back tees are 6000-ish, forward tees are 5000-ish, both par 71.

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