Mike,
That happens to be the number our club will have after it finishes its new forward tee project. I will be curious if more men will then move up to the existing forward tees (5200) which for shorter hitters like me is more than enough of a challenge on a course with 10 uphill greens.
Ira
One would hope, but I have had a personally crappy experience over the last year re. forward tees and bitter old men.
But first, I believe that it MIGHT work that way if the new tees aren't an added "color." IOW, if you move the current forward markers to the new tees and make the former forward tees a new color, say gold (for Sr. men). Even then you could end up like the county course in Topeka where the women refused to play the "new" red tees, so they got put back to 5000+ and the golds ended up the shortest tees. And men over 70 played them in all comps. They're still those colors, see card below.
Where I play in Mesa, Red Mtn. Ranch, the Pete and Perry Dye built a set of really well thought out forward tees, but sometime in the last 40 years, five of them were basically abandoned because (I've been told) the better female players thought they were too short. Now they've been reopened as purple tees for a red/purple combo set, but almost none of the women will play them.
Worse the LGA won't let anyone play them in competition unless their handicap is 30 or higher. (This is the same LGA that limits handicaps in their events to 36.) Both of which has my wife mad as hell, even she's a ~21 index.
Now to my personal experience. I am a VERY short hitter, CHS with the driver right at 70 mph, but with a much better than average short game, which makes me very sensitive to overall length of a course. This something I've understood for years.
So a year ago, after one of the group I regularly play with decided to move up to the red tees @ 4800 yards, with the group's agreement (he had polio when he was young and has some severe limitations, but still plays several times a week), I decided that I'd take the Tee It Forward movement seriously and move up as well. After all, my 180-yard average is perfect for 4800 yards.
I all went fine for a while, despite an occasional comment. I honestly thought that me moving up would result in a handful of the other short hitters coming along in short order. FWIW, my index dropped a bit and I even got within 3 shots of shooting my age with a 78.
That was not to be.
When we got back from 2 months in Scotland in October (and me recovering from breaking my left wrist 7 weeks before we left) my index was up several shots, so coming back to a short course, with a healthy wrist my index started to drop. From 22 when I got home, to about 16. Of course, in that run, I was pretty successful in our $10 game.
And the whining commenced. Every time I played someone made a comment, usually about how FAR I hit it. Well, cripes, I started 50 yards ahead of you on that hole, and now I'm 10 yards in front. I'm still hitting a longer club into the green than you. And never mind two holes back when I started 30 in front, and you still out drove me by 20.
I spent WAY too much emotional energy worrying about how I'd respond the next time I played, and it finally came to head when the fellow that organizes the game on Friday sent out rules that Everyone will play from the white tees or further back except the gentleman I mentioned earlier.
The fact that a couple of long hitters with crappy short games played longer tees because they got more strokes was fine, but me moving up and giving up strokes wasn't.
I moved back to a red/white combo, which was pointless, quit playing on Friday so I play one more round a week with my wife, but the comments didn't stop. So now I'm playing the whites with them twice a week.
They broke me.
Sorry for the long post, but I needed to get this out there.
BTW, playing at 4800 yards on this course, made me better understand what a great job Pete and Perry (or Perry and Pete) did on Red Mtn. hitting it 180 here brings a whole new world of strategic interest if you're paying attention. There are seven par fours where you have to think hard about your line and/or consider hitting a shorter club to stay out of trouble.
Except for one hole, the forced carries are much, much more reasonable. And if you played the original forward tee, angle change on three of the par threes makes them vastly more playable for a short hitter.
The only thing them missed, is that two of the par fives are 420 and 426, uphill. Which is a load for short hitting women.
The card: