The Psychology of Color

[Pete Buczkowski]

A course that I frequent has sets of tees at roughly these distances: 7100 (black), 6700 (white), 6200 (gold), and 5400 (green) yards, with slopes from 135 to 122.  Predictably, the majority of players play from the white tees, even though many do not belong there.  Even the starter says that most people play the whites, and goes as far as calling the gold tees the "senior set".  I should point out that there is also a recommended handicap level for each set of tees (the whites range to 16!), but it is mostly ignored.

I wonder if Tobacco Road has it right by not having any colors at all - they have symbols for their tees.  Each set of tees simply has a yardage and a recommended handicap level, so nobody feels goated into playing the wrong tees.  Plus, they strongly advise against the back set, making the second set seem like the back tees, which pushes many to play the third set.  Why can't more courses adopt this practice?  

[Jason Topp]

One practice I have seen on a number of courses that bugs me is to not put back tee markers on the tee boxes and then put the markers in in between boxes.  

Thus the card says

    Gold - 7200 yds
    Black - 6800
    Blue - 6400
    White - 6000

The course puts no gold tee markers out and then places other tees well behind the markers to discourage players to move up.  As a result, we usually ignore the tee markers and play from the appopriate plates.

[Pete Buczkowski]

Dave,

I'm not so concerned with the 5 or the 12 or whatever.  For all I care play the tips or whatever tees they want - I doubt that it will have a great effect on pace.  However, the 120 shooters that I see playing the so-called whites of 6700 yards, its a completely different matter.

[Brad Tufts]

For me, I aim to play a course between 6600 and 6900 yards.  I realize that 6900 on a par 70 is a great deal longer than 6900 at a par 72.  I have encountered the problem that Jason mentioned at resort courses especially.  I mean, you get credit on your handicap for the rating of the color tees you choose, regardless of where the blocks are set up (usually forward), but it does burn me when I decide to play a set of tees that are 6700 from the card, and end up playing a 420-yd par 4 from 360.  But alas, this is how the course is set up for the day, so I guess we will have to deal with it.

-Brad

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Pete:
I think the problem is that for most recreational golfers white tees are where they think they should be regardless of yardage/difficulty. This course should change the colors of their tees to:
7100 Black or Gold
6700 Blue
6100 WHITE
5400 Green or Red

Another thought would be to eliminate tee colors altogether as some courses are doing by having NUMBERS instead of colors. Some courses in Florida are doing this: Back Tees are 1 and go down to the forward tees which are 4 or 5 depending on how many teeing areas exist on the course.

Steve

[Mark Brown]

Get away from colors and name the tees in a way that doesn't have any link with distance.

Players need to be educated that they should play the tees that enables them to play the course the way the architect designed it, ie. they should be hitting approach shots with everything from a wedge to a long iron or fairway metal, to enjoy their round.

[A_Clay_Man]

Players need to be educated that they should play the tees that enables them to play the course the way the architect designed it, ie. they should be hitting approach shots with everything from a wedge to a long iron or fairway metal, to enjoy their round.

Mark, While the above may sound good, I find it hard to believe that if a golfer can learn to play the correct set of tees, they can should learn to go to thier ball and hit it again.

Neither is the case for the people we are talking about. However, on the days when I am one of those people, I know when to give up.; But there are also days when I am playing the way back tees (wrong set for me) but I find the round more enjoyable. Sure, Im not hitting greens in reg, but I am also not getting into well placed trouble.
 

[Cliff Hamm]

Somehow golf seemed simpler in the 60's when color was consistent.  Typically three sets of tees red (ladies), white(men's) and blue (pros). If the course was of true championship caliber there may have been a gold tee for championship, but rarely so.  I am amazed today when people pick tees by color not distance.  One local course sets the white's at 5900 and most men play the white's.  Another has the white's at about 6500 and again most play the whites.  Seems to me you should play the appropriate tee based on distance not color.

[wsmorrison]

In his Analysis of Layout essay for the Oct 1927 Green Section Record, William Flynn wrote :

"In fitting the course to all classes in everyday play it is necessary to maintain relative values in the holes.  This can only be done by using two and in some instances three tees to a hole the various players using the tee that fits their particular game.

The value of a hole is immediately lost when the 200-yard driver uses the back tee on a normal 420-yard hole.  It is impossible for him to get home in two, whereas had the forward tee 40 to 50 yards ahead been used he would then have played a long iron or spoon shot to the green with a resultant thrill of satisfaction and at the same time be within his limitations.

A great many players are averse to using forward tees perhaps because they were originally christened "ladies tees" but regardless of that fact it seems that a great deal more enjoyment could be had if golfers used the tee on the various holes that really suited their game.

A little card tacked on their locker door with the following inscription might go a long way toward correcting their prejudice against the so-called "ladies tees."

Golfers, Attention!

In order to accomodate all classes of players your club has gone to the expense of building forward, intermediate, and back tees on many holes.  These tees are kept in order and markers are placed on each one.  Except in tournaments please use the tee that fits your particular game and enjoy the course."

Seems like Dave and Flynn share a similar view of this matter.

By the way, I don't think Flynn is advocating a GIR mentality at all.  He was indicating a method for ensuring that all classes of players have a similar shot value and thus each class of player would have a similar shot test within their own distance limits.

[Doug Siebert]

My home course has tees from shortest to longest as red (5300?) white (5900) gold (6600) black (7000+)  I still see very inexperienced players often playing from the golds.  I don't think it has to do with any desire to play from white tees, just that a lot of people know enough to know they shouldn't play from the tips, so they move up one set from the back.

On courses with five sets, I usually see most people playing from the middle tees, so maybe it is a "I want to play from the middle, but decide ties in favor of moving back"

Were it up to me, I'd put up a sign on my home course that says something like this:

red: recommended for women, juniors, beginners, seniors
white: recommended for experienced women, experienced juniors, occasional golfers, experienced seniors
gold: recommended for experienced, regular golfers only
black: recommended for very skilled golfers only

What you want to do is tilt the beginners and occasional players toward more forward tees.  People who play frequently (of any age or sex) can make the judgement for themselves.  Maybe not always correctly, but changing or eliminating colors, posting notices on the card, etc. aren't going to change that.  Shivas' friend who hits it only 230 knows that his 5 isn't the same as my 5 in terms of whether to play the tips, but he should have the right to play there if he wants to work on his fairway woods and short game.

If you eliminate color coding from the teeboxes, then it means half the groups will be walking up on multiple teeboxes to squat down and check out the symbol on the teemarkers to see if it is a deer or an oak or a squirrel or whatever.  Or if you use tee markers that look like a duck or a squirrel to avoid that problem people will steal them to put in their garden at home.

[Jim Thompson]

We actually directly considered this in setting up our tee blocks.

We went with Red (7169), Black(6749), Green(6232), White(5558), and Yellow(4845).  What has happened is a number of seniors who would otherwise avoid the "senior tees" are playing our whites and really enjoying the game as they played it in their youth.  All players are seeing bumb and runs and temptation shots are back in play and the round is full of options most have either never experienced or haven't seen for a number of years. Others are stopping to look at the card and analyze where to play. Dave you'll be happy to know the undecideds are referenced to our 12th Hole a Par three of 258, 230, 192, 158, and 100 and asked what the longest par three is they ever want to play.  Even if they don't know that its a redan.  It has worked very well and improved playability and enjoyment.

Cheers!

JT

[Jim Johnson]

Really interesting thread here guys.
I think some of you are on the right track;I'll throw in my own twist. I think that colour is definitely an issue with tee markers; distance doesn't seem to matter to a lot of folks.
Why not try totally "bizarre" colors? Instead of the traditional colors...red, white, blue, black, etc...why not go with purples, greens, oranges, etc. etc.??
When they stand at the first tee, and see these kinds of colors, perhaps they may just look at the scorecard, which they have in their pocket anyway (or on their cart), see the total yardages, and use judgement from that, not the color of the tee markers.
JJ

[Pete Buczkowski]

Thanks for all of the thoughtful responses so far.  I really like Jim's idea of reversing the colors with Red as the back tees, and setting the whites as the second set.  The more I hear about Angels Crossing, the more I like it!  I'm going to try hard to escape the FL summer next year to catch a game at your place Jim - wish it was around when I lived there.  

[Pete Buczkowski]

Really interesting thread here guys.
I think some of you are on the right track;I'll throw in my own twist. I think that colour is definitely an issue with tee markers; distance doesn't seem to matter to a lot of folks.
Why not try totally "bizarre" colors? Instead of the traditional colors...red, white, blue, black, etc...why not go with purples, greens, oranges, etc. etc.??
When they stand at the first tee, and see these kinds of colors, perhaps they may just look at the scorecard, which they have in their pocket anyway (or on their cart), see the total yardages, and use judgement from that, not the color of the tee markers.
JJ

Interesting thoughts JJ.  Don't know if you are aware, but the RTJ trail already does this - the colors at all the courses are Purple (back), Orange, White, and Teal.  Its really necessary for them to have the majority of players on the whites, otherwise pace of play would get out of control!

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

Would you mind telling me where Flynn's remarks end in your post #9. (It'll save me hunting through all his green section articles and such. Actually which article did you get that from?).

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

October 1927 Green Section Report.  It is found on the  second page of the essay which is pg.195 in the journal. Just after this passage, Flynn goes into what types of holes make up the average good course.  Formulaic, yes.  But a well-rounded test for the club player.  Flynn later gets into his regard for accuracy, carry and overall length.

[ChasLawler]

Wouldn’t it be easier if every course just used the same colors?

such as…
Black – 6800+
Blue – 6300+
White – 5800+
Red – 5800-

Obviously you can play with the yardages a bit, but the idea is that most golfers have a regular color tee they play from at their home course. It just gets confusing when you go somewhere else and the colors are different.

[mike_malone]

 I am familiar with some short hitting players who prefer the white tees because they know they can not reach the green. They would rather layup in front of the trouble by the green and use their short game to prevail in a game based on their handicap. If they were to move up a set of tees they would bring the trouble by the greens into play.

[wsmorrison]

Mike,
This is one of the things that Flynn was cautioning against.  The shot testing or shot values are lost by players going off the "wrong" tees.  These players are avoiding their weaknesses rather than working to strengthen them.  Show them the error in their ways!

[Pete Buczkowski]

Dave,

Maybe its because I now live in FL, but believe me, it definitely has an effect on the courses here.  I was playing with a group of really bad golfers, asked where they want to play, and they said "We always play the whites".  From 6700 yards the best of the other three shot no less than 118.  Now I think it was my fault for asking them where they want to play - not much option though since it was my work group.   I am glad to hear you don't think this is a problem for the mainstream public...maybe I should move to Chicago.  

Pete

[Pete Buczkowski]

Dave, I don't disagree with you there - they can be boneheads!  (No smiley inserted.)  However, it definitely affects more people than you think.  My Dad has fallen victim to it as well.  At my old home course at UNC, the whites are the short set at 5500, while the "Carolina Blue" tees are at 6200.  He insisted on playing the whites since that's what he always plays, he said "They must be white for a reason".  The course where he regularly plays sets the whites at 6150.  Disclaimer: I grew up in the poor suburbs of Detroit.  

Also, in my dozen or so rounds around the course mentioned in my first post, I haven't seen anyone play the gold tees (6200); they all play the whites at 6700.  So its not just my buddies that are the boneheads!  Plus this is not a fast 6700, its a Florida overseeded slow 6700.  Vacationers.  

[Jim_Coleman]

    Choosing which set of tees to play depends on whether the players are interested in maintaining their man or woman hood, or whether they're interested in "having fun."  And I think most golfers (other than abject beginners) know what they're doing when they choose a set of tees.  Choosing different colors, numbers, names etc. would be properly perceived as contrived  
    Oddly enough, women seem to be the worst offenders of "macho goilf."  They are happy to play the "front tees" (today's p.c. nomenclature), but don't try to shorten those tees so that the "average" woman is hitting the same club as the "average" man.  A sixteen handicap woman feels cheated and patronized if she's hitting a mid or short iron into a par four.  We tried to shorten the women's tees at our course so the women could reach some of the holes (there are several where at most only 5% can reach).  They adamantly refused, preferring to hits woods into all the holes and be unable to reach half of them.  Alice Dye pointed this out when designing front tees on many of Pete's courses, but that's about it.

[TEPaul]

That October 1927 Flynn article in the USGA Green Section Report relating to this subject and Flynn's overall feeling about it is most interesting indeed.

It is not important that I agree with Flynn on his feeling and ideas on this subject, because frankly I don't. It is only important that I understand completely what he was trying to say and why.

Wayne and I have talked for a long time about portraying Flynn and his ideas about golf architecture during his career for what they really were. In this way we seem to agree that Flynn could be and should be what might be considered a true "transition" architect in the overall evolution of both golf and golf architecture in the last century. In other words he really was conceiving, designing and constructing into the way many things were changing about the game and relatively rapidly.

It appears Flynn (in this article) was very much proposing the effective use and relative scale of what might be called "GIR in the same number" for all levels of players.

Personally, I don't really like that concept---I think it was the beginning of both perceiving and designing into a form of "strategic political correctness" and frankly that's just not the way of the world between levels of players and never should be in my mind.

I prefer, in theory if perhaps not in complete practice, the  idea of length as Ron Prichard suggests an architect such as Ross ORIGINALLY suggested it and used it when all golfers teed off from the same and single tee markers for all. In other words there only was one set of tee MARKERS way back when and all golfers used them (the same markers).

The idea was if a little old lady needed four of her best shots to reach a green and a long man needed only two---Heh, that's just the way it was. What in fact was needed was handicapping by shots per hole, or some other handicapping form and not by adjustable length per hole! That concept of not using adjustable length is just the way of the world, in my opinion---that truly is reality and a golf course just like Nature itself should reflect that.

Would it be harder for an architect to do successfully throughout the entire length of holes instead of simply relying on tees of differing lengths? Of course it would be---but again it's the way of the world----everyone should begin from the same starting point if they're all to end at the same ending point! The expected shots it takes them to accomplish any hole from the same starting point to the same ending point is just the way it is!

Again, in my opinion, one of the worst things that ever happened to golf and golf architecture is the continuing perception of "GIR in the same number of strokes for all." It's just far too inexact to ever try to design and handicap this type of things given all that the entire spectrum of golfers can be. (legitimate 18 handicappers can be either very long or very short---and there's never going to be anything that architecture or handicapping can accurately do to reflect how to level that fact! So, in my opinion, they should simply stop trying!).

I say bring back that glorious analogy of the tortoise and the hare and apply it again to golf. You want to talk about real strategies? That my friends was real strategies----eg any golfer's very own!!! and certainly not something artifically layed on them by some architect in an attempt to create formulaic equality!

[wsmorrison]

It seems that we view this Flynn passage a bit differently although maybe not as much as I first thought.  I didn't see it as a GIR issue but rather equalizing shot values, although I guess it boils down to it in a sense.  GIR would seemingly follow shot testing.  I hadn't really considered it that way, but I guess you're right.

As I view it, if the low handicap player has to pull off a 3 wood approach to the green, isn't it more interesting to require that the higher handicapper have the same shot value?  Of course the only way to do this is playing from a different tee.  Do you think it is a better setup to have the higher handicapper hit his 3rd (or more) approach to the green with an entirely different club and trajectory?  The theory of shot testing is totally lost.  Was the philosophy of shot testing to Flynn subordinating the old way of however many it takes, everybody was playing the same distances?

Now, as to match play, in the traditional scenario of everyone teeing off from the same spot, the tortoise can potentially compete against the hare but within a completely different framework.  Number of total strokes played (nothing to do with GIR) can be equalized but not shot values.  The tortoise has to make up ground with a superior shot around the green and/or putt.

If stroke play is the primary reason that GIR became so important it would seem that the impact of shot testing in golf architecture would be a factor as well.

[TEPaul]

Wayne;

Flynn being a "transition" architect was obviously responding to the way golf was going at the time he wrote those articles. He talks about "relative values" (obviously being relative shot values to the distance various levels of players hit the ball) through the use of using two or sometimes three sets of tees---

"In fitting a course to all classes in everyday play it is necessary to maintain relative values in the holes. This can only be done by using two and in some instances three tees to a hole the various players using the tee that fits their particular game."

My point is that the distance various levels of players hit the ball does not relate to handicap level and it obviously never will---so using various tees by handicap level will always be a most inexact procedure.

But today differing course ratings from different tees will adjust the handicaps of players regardless how short or how long they hit the ball.