Ben, it would seem that combo tees help mitigate the problem of having too many tee boxes, would it not?
Who on this thread do you think would move others up a tee through coercion? What method of coercion do you think they would use? Do you think municipal golf courses will eventually have armed guards, hired under the umbrella of "job creation," who force golfers to move up a tee if they play slowly? I must say that such a future seems realistic to me after watching the first two movies in The Hunger Games series recently.
Pat, your suggested slogan is a reminder of how much the concept of fun has been marginalized by the way golf is presented to the public. Watching Tour players grind it out and publicizing courses with long rough, long yardages, and narrow fairways has made the public image of golf one of difficulty rather than one of enjoyment. The tee it forward movement got a few of my friends to move up for a few weeks, and they all really liked it. Eventually though, they started to feel like they were cheating the system (even though most were still shooting in the 80s or 90s) and moved back to make things more difficult. You're right that it's in the best interest of the game to change the attitude that says we should all play the most difficult version of a course that we can handle, but I fear that golfers might have been taught to hate themselves too much for that to catch on now. I hope I'm wrong. I don't care what tees anyone plays from, but I do think a lot of golfers and the game itself would benefit from a greater focus on enjoyment, and making more birdies and pars certainly helps a lot of people enjoy the game more.