It is just getting silly

[Tommy Williamsen]

I played a course last week that had five regular sets of tees: Gold, Blue, White, Green, and Red. PLUS they had combinations: Blue/White and White/Green. That comes to seven different tee combinations. Isn't this just getting a bit silly?

[Cliff Hamm]

Extremely common in Florida and a good thing....Seniors need shorter tees than the regular 'whites'...most women shorter yet....than you have the 30 plus handicaps...and finally the 'very'elderly...the goal is to make the game enjoyable and having a variety of tees serves that purpose

[A.G._Crockett]

Tommy,
5 sets of tees does seem to be a bit on the extreme side.  But I think it perhaps depends on what the course is used for, too.  I play most of my golf now at a university course, and there is an option for 5 sets of tees, though the farthest back set (7350) is ONLY used for college tournament play.

I have to say, though, that at age 65 I've become a big fan of "hybrid" tees at courses that have too big a gap between regular sets of tees.  For instance, at my course, the blue tees are 600 yards longer than the whites tees; the whites are too short and the blues are too long for a lot of the seniors.  (Not ME, of course; I'm still REALLY long!  I'm talking about the old farts I play with. )  My biggest issue on a hybrid course is getting to the correct tee on each hole; that also seems to be a product of the aging process, unfortunately.

At the end of the day, none of this matters much anyway.  I like to play a course that is in the 6200 yd range, but if it's longer or shorter, that's ok.  But I don't see how a course offering more options could be a bad thing.

[Thomas Dai]

As long as the various tees are nicely positioned this seems okay to me. Keep folks playing the game and hopefully keep the pace of play decent.
No runway tees though and whenever possible walk-forward rather than walk-back tees.
Atb

[Peter Pallotta]

My only but biggest pet peeve, overstated: Hybrid tees suck the meaning and purpose of *architecture* entirely out of the game.
 
An architect may have tried to create some semblance of variety and flow and interest and challenge by juxtaposing harder holes after easier ones, birdie chances after par-savers, and cross winds after headwinds after tailwinds -- but all that effort is for naught the moment golfers can choose for themselves what teeing ground *feels right* on a hole-by-hole basis. 

Given the choice, not one golfer out of a hundred is going to choose anything other than what makes a challenging hole *easier* for them (even if they never admit it to themselves).  That long, into the wind Par 4 after a short, downwind Par 5? No problem: move up a set of tees and it's birdie-able too! The one perched and heavily bunkered Par 3 green after a number of at-grade forgiving ones? That's okay too: because from *this* tee box I can get a 8 iron way up in the air (while, ahem, from that one my 6 iron would come in too low)

Most golfers -- even the card and pencil/par matters types -- love that choice, ie to mock-up a course that best suits them instead of playing the one the architect designed. My guess is that most 7-tee-box-kind of architects love it too, as the response to their work will be blemish free: management will hear no complaints from golfers about liking the course "except for holes x, y, and z" when the golfers themselves can *re-create* holes x, y and z to best suit themselves. Satisfied golfers = satisfied managers/owners = an architect who might work again.

I understand: we're out there to have fun, we're not masochists, we want to make birdies and pars, we want to hit greens (in regulation) etc etc. But I thought that was what the *five tee boxes* were for in the first place! We have Whites and Greens and Blues and Blacks and Reds to choose from -- each set (presumably) allowing for 18 holes that are playable but of varying challenge for those that have chosen to play them.

Five sets of tees. Why in do we need *hybrids* too? My guess:
1) that as golfers we don't actually value and appreciate the *architect's* skill very much at all -- except when it (i.e. the course he's designed) allows us to highlight and revel in our *own* supposed skills, and
2) as golfers we're well on our way to losing any truly *sporting* interest we may have once had -- the challenge involved must be on our terms, not nature's. 

It's as if we've become fishermen who much prefer spin-casting at a stocked trout pond than fly fishing out at a fast moving river. Hey, sure: we'll still *catch fish*!

Peter   

     

[Sean_A]

Tell me, how does an archie build 5 sets of tees which are meaningful and efficient?  Five sets is a vain attempt at archies trying to make a course for all people.  The only way it is possible to do this properly is if the main push of the course is really designed for the few forward sets with the few back sets just offering what is left over. However, most of the time five sets signals cartball golf or maybe worse, a terrible walking course and worse yet, a terrible walking course mainly designed for back tees.  I don't buy into the concept for a NY minute...just another scam. You can't have it all.

Ciao

[David_Madison]

Peter,

I totally disagree. Other than for handicapping purposes (for course ratings), what's the point in tee markers if the people playing together have an agreed upon process for determining the starting point for any given hole? Ballyneal has it right - - the winner of the prior hole picks the next tee. Tee selection can be hugely strategic, a far more interesting thing than just going to where the hole is easy. For example, if the longest hitter in a group might pick a tee that offers only him the opportunity to carry a hazard or reach a green in regulation or a par-5 in two shots. A shorter hitter might select a tee that negates the long hitter's advantage and that instead rewards accuracy. And besides, mixing things up just for variety's sake is fun,and isn't that the purpose of this silly game anyway?

[Peter Pallotta]

David - no less an illustrious architect than Tom D, and no less than an experienced and knowledgeable group of golfers than Ballyneal members, would all agree with you. But then I ask again: do we simply admit that, for all the praise we heap upon great architecture and all that the term implies, we actually believe that *we* (any given group playing in a hybrid/flexible tee context) can create on a hole by hole basis a more varied and interesting and strategic golf course than the one the architect did? To me, that's what it comes down to. We want to re-create the course to suit us/our group on any given day, depending on weather and who we're playing with and where the match stands, instead of playing the course as it is, as we find it. If that's the case, might as well join a Doak-scale 3 instead of a Doak-scale 8 -- they're easier to find, likely less expensive, and, since we'll jump around anywhere we please, I'm sure we could find a way to make it *play* just like an 8, chock-full of short 4s and half-par 5s and sub-100 yard Par 3s and as much variety as our needs/imagination could wish for. Again, over-stating my case -- but I think a case *can* be made.     


Atta boy, Sean - I had only enough courage to attack/limit myself to the hybrid system, whereas you boldly took on the whole issue! Of course, you have more bona fides on this subject and around here than I do! 

[JJShanley]

Can hybrid tees prove useful if you have only two sets of tees, to reduce the cost of construction and maintenance?  I could see a course having a 6,800 yard tips with a 6,000 yard forward tees, and a scorecard with a combination that provides for something in between.

[Kirk Gill]

Peter, I've played with golfers who would play one set of tees other than one hole or two.......and the switch is for one of two reasons. Either the set of tees they've been playing has a hole with a long forced carry that they can't pull off (and they aren't interested in losing a golf ball), or the set of tees they're playing doesn't allow them to take a really fun or interesting tee shot (elevated tee, cool angle, etc.) I could see a "hybrid" tee system used to take advantage of these situations.........


That said, I don't even see that a lot. Most of the time, people just stick to the tees they've chosen. I grew up playing Denver Municipal courses.......with two sets of markers, blue and red, usually about 10 yards apart.

[Peter Pallotta]

I grew up playing Denver Municipal courses.......with two sets of markers, blue and red, usually about 10 yards apart.

I *still* play those kind of courses - and thus am constantly tempted to go the "hybrid" route: when you can drop your bag right between the two sets of tees and only have a 5 yard walk either way, it's easy to do...

[Kalen Braley]

The scenario that JJ mentioned is often the most common dilemma.  Short from the whites, long from the blues.  This is where having a hybrid config makes a ton of sense.  Because playing a par 5 40 yards longer is often not nearly as big an impact as playing a par 3 at 130 yards vs 170. 


PS. Years ago I played a course that was 7000 from the whites and less than 6000 from the ladies tees.  Yes it was at high elevation (~7000 feet), but 7000 is still way too long for a 18 capper...

[Sean_A]

I often play the shortest walk tee (especially in winter) unless a course is built from back tees or if there is a compelling reason to make the extra walk. I reckon if I need to deviate from the short walk tee too much the design is a bit messy. If I could get others off the "play the markers" mentality more often it would be a more pleasant game.


Ciao

[corey miller]

As part of my work with a renovation team on a classic era course...I was not much concerned with the move from three tee boxes to five.  I thought only about the implication for the "regular" tees and how with added length they always seem to migrate back.

After a few years my biggest gripe is that the more various tees one has the more likely that individual sets/colors will stay in one place and not move on a day to day basis.  We have four par 3's that from each tee (and skill level of player) play with essentially the same club.  Instead of using various boxes, that in some cases may have differences of fifty yards, we continue with the tees being camped out in one location.

Hate it....

[Ken Moum]

Peter,


Your point about architects and their intensions can't really apply to the range of golfers who might have a 200-yard variation in driving length.


Or, for instance,  the situation I'm faced with routinely...  either hitting a fairway wood to virtually every par four, or not being able to get home in regulation at all, ever.


And, as someone who plays 90% of his wife, I am actually aware of how seldom the most forward tees appear to have been placed with ANY intention or thought other than to keep them out of the way of the important golfers.


But re. Your point about moving up on hard holes, one of my biggest beefs with the majority of courses I play is that the tees in the 5900- to 6100-yard range I prefer have far too little variety in hole length.


I've said it before here, give me a course with 100+ yard variation between longest and shortest holes of each par figure and I'll be happy.


The course I've been playing later is in my old home and it was remodeled after I left to greattach improvement.


The almost-5900-yard tees have two par fours I can't reach and one that's a driver, wedge. Depending on the wind, I've hit everything from 9 iron to driver on the par threes.  And although the fives aren't as dramatic,  I can almost reach one in two and have hit a five hybrid on another after two good shots.


So, sometimes I change tees for BOTH longer and shorter because the "normal" ones are boring.

[A.G._Crockett]

My only but biggest pet peeve, overstated: Hybrid tees suck the meaning and purpose of *architecture* entirely out of the game.
 
An architect may have tried to create some semblance of variety and flow and interest and challenge by juxtaposing harder holes after easier ones, birdie chances after par-savers, and cross winds after headwinds after tailwinds -- but all that effort is for naught the moment golfers can choose for themselves what teeing ground *feels right* on a hole-by-hole basis. 

Given the choice, not one golfer out of a hundred is going to choose anything other than what makes a challenging hole *easier* for them (even if they never admit it to themselves).  That long, into the wind Par 4 after a short, downwind Par 5? No problem: move up a set of tees and it's birdie-able too! The one perched and heavily bunkered Par 3 green after a number of at-grade forgiving ones? That's okay too: because from *this* tee box I can get a 8 iron way up in the air (while, ahem, from that one my 6 iron would come in too low)

Most golfers -- even the card and pencil/par matters types -- love that choice, ie to mock-up a course that best suits them instead of playing the one the architect designed. My guess is that most 7-tee-box-kind of architects love it too, as the response to their work will be blemish free: management will hear no complaints from golfers about liking the course "except for holes x, y, and z" when the golfers themselves can *re-create* holes x, y and z to best suit themselves. Satisfied golfers = satisfied managers/owners = an architect who might work again.

I understand: we're out there to have fun, we're not masochists, we want to make birdies and pars, we want to hit greens (in regulation) etc etc. But I thought that was what the *five tee boxes* were for in the first place! We have Whites and Greens and Blues and Blacks and Reds to choose from -- each set (presumably) allowing for 18 holes that are playable but of varying challenge for those that have chosen to play them.

Five sets of tees. Why in do we need *hybrids* too? My guess:
1) that as golfers we don't actually value and appreciate the *architect's* skill very much at all -- except when it (i.e. the course he's designed) allows us to highlight and revel in our *own* supposed skills, and
2) as golfers we're well on our way to losing any truly *sporting* interest we may have once had -- the challenge involved must be on our terms, not nature's. 

It's as if we've become fishermen who much prefer spin-casting at a stocked trout pond than fly fishing out at a fast moving river. Hey, sure: we'll still *catch fish*!

Peter   

     

Pete,
I take your point, but your post begs the question of what the architect had in mind when a particular hole was designed, doesn't it?  For instance, we've all seen greens that were designed to accept a well-struck short iron or wedge, but simply won't hold a long iron/hybrid/fairway wood trajectory.  And we've all seen the opposite: great risk/reward par 5's in which a good drive forces/allows the golfer to make a choice on their second shot.

The problem is that, for shorter hitters, neither one of those holes works at all the way the architect intended from a set of tees that makes the hole too long.  In the first case the hole becomes effectively a par 5, and in the second case the risk/reward disappears, and the golfer is left with only one way to play the hole.  And in the case of the risk/reward par 5, the hole isn't necessarily easier; there might be more 4's made, but there also might be more 7's.

The 10th hole at my home course has a slight hill in the left middle of the fairway about 180 out from the green.  From the white tees, I can flirt with a deadly fairway bunker and try to catch the downslope and pick up an additional 15-20 yds of roll, but if I hit it in that bunker, I'm going to make no better than bogey.  From the blue tees, none of that matters; I can't reach the hill; I can only reach the bunker.  There's only one way for me to play the hole from the blues; stay to the right off the tee, lay up short of the green, and try to get up and down.  Which way is the way that the GCA had in mind when he designed the hole? 

BUT (and this is important!) I don't want to play ALL white tees; the course is much, much too short that way.  The blue-white hybrid tees allow me to hit every club in the bag, play the holes the way I used to play them before Father Time jumped on my back.  More to the point, I think I'm playing them the way that Mr. Fazio intended for them to be played, with the decisions that he wanted golfers to make both from the tee and on approach shots preserved intact.

Just my opinion.  Golf is still a lot of fun for me from somewhere around 6200 yds.  I don't necessarily score that much worse from longer yardages, but it's a lot less interesting as I bang away with hybrids and fairway woods hole after hole.

[Mike Hendren]

Bring back the runways - tees within a tee.

Bogey

[Michael Whitaker]

I often play the shortest walk tee (especially in winter) unless a course is built from back tees or if there is a compelling reason to make the extra walk. I reckon if I need to deviate from the short walk tee too much the design is a bit messy. If I could get others off the "play the markers" mentality more often it would be a more pleasant game.


Ciao

Sean - aren't you contradicting yourself? By playing the short walk tees are you not creating a "hybrid" course that is not truly one tee or the other?

[Terry Lavin]

Forward, middle and back ought to be enough, but too many managers, golf professionals and board members fall for the newest fad. Hybrid tees are all the rage for the craft beer swilling, beard tugging tee destroying post-millennial crowd.


Thanks. I feel better after venting.

[Tom_Doak]

Tommy:


I've seen a number of courses with six regular sets of tees.  Don't know if they had "combo" tees or not; I was too ill to check. 


I agree with you completely.  More and more tees have been built by modern designers as their courses became longer and more penal [to "win" Resistance to Scoring Points from GOLF DIGEST].  Golfers have gotten used to the idea that everyone should be entitled to reach the green in regulation, if only they play the right tee.  And too many architects have gotten used to just pandering to golfers, as a way of avoiding criticism ... i.e., "if you didn't like it, you must have been playing the wrong tees."


It makes me sad because I saw just the opposite in my year overseas.  Visitors and members all played from one designated tee [with a second for women].  If the wind was blowing in your face on a long par-4, they didn't move up, and they didn't change the par ... you just dealt with it.  Golf is all about getting the ball in the hole with the lowest score, no matter how the course is set up.


However, we architects don't put out the tee markers every day, and I don't want to waste precious moments of my life worrying about how someone else sets up my courses.  My courses are designed to be played from anywhere, by anybody.  On many of them, a 20-handicapper could play all the way back, if he doesn't mind piling up a fairly big score.  And a Tour pro could move up and try to drive the green on every par-4, and it would still be interesting for him. 


The idea that there is one RIGHT tee and that it's right all the time is just silly.  The only thing sillier is the idea that there are five of them.

[Carl Rogers]

Hybrid tees on some courses make some sense for me.
I played Dormie 2 weeks ago.  For the 5th & 15th Holes, it makes sense to move back a tee because the tees I play from make those 2 holes too short and really alters the character of those holes negatively.  It could be interpreted as a routing problem.


If the aerial game can be de-emphasized by always allowing the run-up shot, reduce the amount of water through the green, a real anti-slow play ethic and the ball be reduced in length, then the too many tees problem might solve itself.


I differ from many because I do think that "par" is a part of the game.

[Tom_Doak]

Hybrid tees on some courses make some sense for me.
I played Dormie 2 weeks ago.  For the 5th & 15th Holes, it makes sense to move back a tee because the tees I play from make those 2 holes too short and really alters the character of those holes negatively.  It could be interpreted as a routing problem.

Sorry, Carl, good players' vanity is not a routing problem.

[Ira Fishman]

Hybrid tees on some courses make some sense for me.
I played Dormie 2 weeks ago.  For the 5th & 15th Holes, it makes sense to move back a tee because the tees I play from make those 2 holes too short and really alters the character of those holes negatively.  It could be interpreted as a routing problem.

Sorry, Carl, good players' vanity is not a routing problem.

But average player's length off the tee can negate our enjoyment of good routing.


Ira

[Mike_Young]

More than 4 sets of tees suck...JMO

[Peter Pallotta]

Ken, AG - you both make good points, and that's part of the reason I say that I'm over-stating my case. I too have played courses where the blues and the whites, on a given day, seem not to 'play' - hole after hole - the way the architect intended. But, despite what Tom just suggested, I have to admit I have a hard time understanding why that should be. I mean: how many factors are there that might impact/impinge upon the design intention? There's wind (though I assume the architect took the prevailing winds into account) and there's the 'set up' on a given day (though I rarely see anything remotely like runway tees anymore, and so the difference in where a maintenance crew puts the blue tees from one day to the next might vary, like, 5 yards). In short: I can't convince myself that on a well designed course a need would arise to use hybrid tees. But I grant that is only in theory - both of you and others suggest that, for whatever reasons, the actual situation is very different.
Peter