Stephanie Wei on Properly Placed Tees--for Women and Everyone Else

[Benjamin Litman]

An excellent article, replete with GCA references (Bandon and Cabot, among others, make cameos), by Stephanie Wei on the use of properly placed tees to bring more women into the game and make it more enjoyable for everyone:


http://content.yudu.com/web/y5b2/0A1hhqc/NCGAFall2015/flash/resources/42.htm

[Jeff_Brauer]

Been designing that way since 2008.....good stuff.

[Jason Topp]

One challenge with shorter tees is how to make the hole shorter but still retain the interest in the design.  We played the courses at Reynolds Plantation from tees in the neighborhood of 6300 yards which is probably an appropriate length for me.  The downside was that tees further back presented interesting angled carries over hazards whereas the forward tees neutered that interest by putting us on the other side and having us hit straight down the fairway. 

[John Kavanaugh]

My favorite concession in women's sports is the smaller basketball which makes shooting and ball control much easier.  Wouldn't it be a much simpler solution to give the women equipment that is easier to hit and a ball the performs better?  There is no reason why a ball hit with a device at 65 mph couldn't travel 200 yds.

[Rich Goodale]

JakaB

Do the women really play BB with a smaller ball?  Nobody told me about that?

ForkaB

[John Kavanaugh]

JakaB

Do the women really play BB with a smaller ball?  Nobody told me about that?

ForkaB

Yes and it is spectacular. You can't tell until you start raining threes. It looks and feels like a regulation ball until you put them side by side.

[John Kavanaugh]

My wife just confirmed that she would be thrilled to play golf with a larger ball that goes further.

[Mike Nuzzo]

A larger ball doesn't travel as far!
Which would also be better for everyone, if everyone played the same ball.

[John Kavanaugh]

Mike,

Just between us engineers. Given the right mix of composites a larger ball would not only go further, it would float. I'd throw in a gps locator and gyroscope just for good measure.

[Sean_A]

Its seems to me the premise of the argument is reaching more greens in regulation.  If so, why not increase par for the course?  Or better yet, create a par score and a bogey score.  Combine this with gernerally shorter courses and therefore some shorter tees, and there is no need to build 6 tee behemoths with miles of cart paths stretching along tee boxes.  Or, maybe, just maybe, there should be more courses for ladies...meaning the yardage caps out at 5500 yards.  Anyhthing has to be better than continuing to build gargantuan things which in theory suit all golfers, but in practice don't...and instead encourage riding cart golf rather than walking.


Ciao

[Adam Lawrence]

I think the premise is more about giving a similar experience to all golfers.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sean and Adam,

It is both - the ability to hit more greens, and the ability to have a similar experience as average male golfers, i.e., being able to hit most greens based on a decent tee shot.

Sean,

Adding par doesn't really work, because its the boring, middle third shot that is no fun, even if the forward tee player technically hits the green in regulation.

I tend to agree courses should start to specialize a bit, taking away those 7200 yard tees no one plays and focusing on a more limited market segment.  Not many courses are willing to target only the 7-10% of golfers who are women.  It was tried years ago in TX, and it didn't work.  Still not sure the time is right.

As to paths, when I am asked to design a 7500 yard course (and I would love to be asked to design one again!) I have taken great care to position things so the cart path hits the middle tees to shorten the run, allowing back tee players a bit of a hike, since so few of them really play there.

[Paul Gray]

As ever, the biggest issue is surely the ground game, or lack of. There's a reason 85 year old ladies still bunt a ball around my home links. They would have had to pack the game up years ago if all they knew was lush grass and an aerial game.