It is just getting silly

[Tom_Doak]

It cannot be the architect's intent for every player to take on every fairway hazard with just the right balance.


It cannot be, because if one succeeded in getting every player to the same spot off the tee, then all of the second shots would be either too easy for the better players, or too hard for the average player ... or both!


So we have to let some players get well past the trouble off the tee on some holes, if we want them to have a reasonable second shot.  Or maybe we put bunkers where they challenge the 220-hitter more than the 260-hitter on a couple of holes, because otherwise the 220-hitter will get bored with not reaching the bunkers all day.


Even if I let you try to put every tee in the perfect spot, you can't, because sometimes the topography doesn't allow it.


In summary, it is vain for any player to think that all of the features should be designed around his or her game.  If we truly want to design the course for everyone, that means sometimes we need to take turns on who's challenged most on different holes.

[Peter Pallotta]

In summary, it is vain for any player to think that all of the features should be designed around his or her game.  If we truly want to design the course for everyone, that means sometimes we need to take turns on who's challenged most on different holes.

Tom - And that to me is it, in a nutshell.
That's the situation/context -- or for some, that's the "problem".
And for some golfers, some of the time, the "solution" to that problem is to play a mixed/hybrid set of tees.
I know you'd be the last person to tell them not to, or suggest that they shouldn't.
That's what *I'm* here for...

[BCowan]

More than 4 sets of tees suck...JMO

You simplified it perfectly.  It comes down to child worship.  The baby boomers let Johnny and Susie customize any dinner they had.  They grew up not knowing the word No.  Now we have to have 4 tee markers on a 24 yard tee box.  5-10 sets of tees with combos. Heaven forbid someone has to make a hard decision 


Then trunkslammer uses craft beer anaolgy which our founders brewed with their own recipes to compare to the baby boomer child worshipers  .


The fact we have to continually go over this.  I played UM on Sat which is 6600 from the tips, hit plenty of long irons. More then many 7000 yard tracks I've played.  If a course has elevation change and firm conditions then the number on the scorecard gets thrown out the window. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I don't have any problem using six tee sets.  Yeah, its hard to design for all levels of players, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.


But, agree with those who say courses ought to be more targeted. For 90% of courses, the tee to eliminate would be the back tees, the ones over 7K.

[John Cowden]

"Par is just a number".  Who said it first?  Who can accept its ultimate wisdom?   Just play the frickin' game and enjoy it if you can.   

[BCowan]

I don't have any problem using six tee sets.  Yeah, its hard to design for all levels of players, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.


But, agree with those who say courses ought to be more targeted. For 90% of courses, the tee to eliminate would be the back tees, the ones over 7K.

BS on all accounts.  Tees need to be more spread out.  7100, 6400, 5800, 4400.  If fairways and boxes arent over watered the elephant in the room, you are wasting maint time picking up 4 sets of tee markers on a 24 yard box. 

[Pete Lavallee]

Your math seems off a bit. The front tee box needs to be 150 yards forward of the back one given the 7100 and 4400 example.

[BCowan]

Pete,


I think you are miss understanding me.  Im saying the courses that have 6 tee markers total also have 4 sets of markers on a 24 yard long tee box alone. From a maint standpoint of picking up markers to mow is annoying.


I'm saying if it's maint firm, you can have more yardage between markers and archies can choose ridge or landing slots more freely IMO

[Pete Lavallee]

But 18 tee markets 24 yards apart is only a 432 yard difference?

[Frank M]

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.

This is exactly what I do. Shortest walk = the tees I'm playing from unless there is something I'm really missing by not going to some other tee. I don't care if the shortest walk means I'm playing the forward tees.

I worked at private clubs my whole life and I could not believe how almost every member would play the same tees every time they went out for a round. If they played 150 rounds a year, they would play the same tee 150 times a year.   

[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

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?

Whitty

I don't think so because I will play compelling tees.  Besides, I play with enough people who like to follow the rules that I get plenty of choice.  That is mostly how I figure out that as often as not, the shorter walk tee is just as good as the normal tee.  Bottom line, tees are way too focused on yardage rather than angles. Change the angle of a tee and now I am interested, but how often are tees regimented in straight lines  like little soldiers?  Sure, the archie thinks he is clever in off-setting them a few yards, but the end result is the same...tees primarily based on yardage when in truth it should probably be equal weight between yardage and width.  Create angles and the "need" for 7000 yards largely disappears.

If par was part of the game, I think I would have quit by now or simply only play the forward tees. There are so many par 4s these days I cannot reach in two.

I guess when you really come down to it, if courses are going to be 7000 yards and designed from the back tee, what is the difference how many sets of tees there are? May as well be 10 or 12 sets because the basic premise of the design is off kilter unless the course is designed primarily for very good players.  The course will be a terrible walk for all but the very best players.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Arn't there essentially two types of golf - social/fun and formal competitions?


In social/fun playing from any tee isn't really an issue providing there are no pace of play issues. In formal competitions its's all play from the same box.




atb

[Mike_Young]

Tees just happen to be the topic of the time.  Guys writing how they have rediscovered golf design via 7 tees and kid tees and dog tees etc.  I would love to get by with three tees but probably has to be 4.  Personally I have never seen an aesthetically pleasing golf hole with a stretch of 5,6,7 tees.  Once the magazines find something else to write about the tee subject will go away.  Old guys for years have just walked up to a spot where they like to play from and tee it up.  Now we talk about the brilliance of some dude who starts placing tees  200 yards away from a green site.  Golf, as match play, can be played from anywhere two golfers decide.  They can decide to begin a hole on the putting green if they choose.   

[BCowan]

But 18 tee markets 24 yards apart is only a 432 yard difference?

No, Pete I'm ridiculing a 24 yard tee box with 4 set of tees on it.  There should be more distance between markers

[Ira Fishman]

I do not keep score (a topic for another thread if anyone is interested) so par/score is irrelevant to me.  So like everything else, it all depends regarding number of tees and/or use of hybrid tees.  On shorter courses where there are not elevation changes that significantly impact shots to the green, three tees should certainly suffice and hybrid tees probably not needed although I have no objection if someone wants to create his or her own hybrid scorecard.  On medium to longer courses or those with uphill approaches, probably need more than three tees and a hybrid scorecard works if holes are picked based on length, approach shot, green size/complexity, etc.  Four tee areas especially if boxes are separate and are placed with line of charm in mind should be plenty, but then hybrid makes sense for enjoying a well-designed course without having to hit woods/long hybrids into most Par 4s and many Par 3s.


Ira

[Kyle Harris]

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 lack of imagination can negate our enjoyment of good routing.


Ira

Fixed that for you. Glad you made 3 on the 5th and 15th at Dormie the first time you played it.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I don't have any problem using six tee sets.  Yeah, its hard to design for all levels of players, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.


But, agree with those who say courses ought to be more targeted. For 90% of courses, the tee to eliminate would be the back tees, the ones over 7K.

BS on all accounts.  Tees need to be more spread out.  7100, 6400, 5800, 4400.  If fairways and boxes arent over watered the elephant in the room, you are wasting maint time picking up 4 sets of tee markers on a 24 yard box.

Ben,


Agree, missed the part where 4 tee sets were on one tee, closely bunched.

[Tom_Doak]

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?

Michael:


Like Sean I sometimes convince people to play the course with the shortest possible walk, which results in a combo of back tees and some ladies' tees.  At least three of my courses have done a rating and slope for that combo set and called them the Doak tees.  It spreads out the play onto lesser-used tees and mixes up the challenge, without the necessity of building and maintaining more separate tees and having to re-set more tee markers every day.


Or there's The Loop, which is pretty much all short grass so you can move the markers to anywhere you want!  Call me an anarchist, but better that than a control freak.

[Peter Pallotta]

Very interesting.
Sean and Tom and others sometimes play 'the shortest walk possible' and/or hybrid tees.
But in every one of Sean's excellent course profiles (which I read religiously), he goes through the course hole by hole with descriptions like "a cracker of a two shotter" and "a stout Par 5" and "from the daily markers, a chance at birdie if you avoid the gorse" etc etc. I've never once read him describe and evaluate a course in terms of the shortest walk possible; it's always from one set of tees.
And is there such a course description/evaluation in any of Tom's books?
Of course, I know both are telling the truth, and both value the "freedom" of playing from whatever tees/combination of tees they like.
But do either of them really think of a golf course and a golf course design in that way? All the 10s and 9s in the world: are they 10s and 9s because they play magnificently from a hybrid set of tees?
(Sure, they probably *could* play that way, but *were* they played that way when Tom first gave them a 10 or a 9?)
Do any of you who are raters judge a course from a hybrid set of tees? 
And if you don't, then is this a subtle but powerful form of bifurcation, i.e. we judge the architecture-as-architecture one way, and the game it allows us to play another? 
We value courses that are playable by all -- but if you can jump around to whatever tee most interests you then isn't *every* course playable by all?
Peter

PS - Yesterday I broke 80 for the first time in my life. It was from the *blue* tees, 6500 yards. Call me a nut-job, but it was for me a very satisfying accomplishment.  And it was more satisfying that I broke 80 for the first time in my life using persimmon woods and playing the course the way it was set up - not deciding to move up to the whites on the long hard holes.

PSS - maybe it's a matter of being sophisticated, in golfing terms. I look through the names of the posters who sometimes take the shortest walk possible/play hybrid tees, and there's not a "beginner" in the lot. Everyone of them, from what I can tell from their years of posts here, has played golf for a long, long time and on many many courses, and thus has likely burned off the last remaining remnants of a card and pencil mentality. Maybe it's just relatively inexperienced rubes like me - who took up the game in their mid 30s - who take "the card" and the "markers" so seriously. We're still trying - at least on the golf course - to "keep score".   

[Matt MacIver]

I think I'm general four linear tee boxes ought to be enough. But should the hole allow it I'd like to to see 1-2 more tee boxes at dramaticly different angles, with minimal carry issues. Play one of those occasionally and you've got some thinking to do, half-par holes, etc. 


I too often play the "shortest walk" course when I'm able.  I'm a big fan of the daily 6 easy/6 medium/ 6 hard setup.

[JMEvensky]

PS - Yesterday I broke 80 for the first time in my life. It was from the *blue* tees, 6500 yards. Call me a nut-job, but it was for me a very satisfying accomplishment.  And it was more satisfying that I broke 80 for the first time in my life using persimmon woods and playing the course the way it was set up - not deciding to move up and to the whites on the long hard holes.

Mazel tov. Was a tucked-in sweater involved?

[Peter Pallotta]

Thank you, Jeff.
And....Yes!...I had my brown/argyle-ly print sweater tucked neatly inside the waistband of my trousers the whole round. (We had an unusually cool day yesterday). It is a thin but extra large/long sweater, and keeps me warm over a dress shirt but doesn't pull up/out of the pant.
Again, call me a nut-job, but I firmly believe that *looking* so good helped me *play* so good! 

[Sean_A]

Pietro

Very true, I look at courses in the main from the daily tee perspective...in praise of yellow tees as Finegan would say.  Most of the time I don't even bother looking at back tees because it is usually a simple matter of adding yards.  If there is interest in those added yards it is often easily imaginable in that I might know if a hazard or feature is more or less in play.  I don't want to get too caught up in that game because it becomes more about what I like rather than looking at the course for what it is.  All that said, most of my photos are from fronts of tees, beyond driving zones or off centre...so a more forward look if you will. 

Its a strange thing, there is nothing like the great long par 4.  But one has to wade through so many of the type to find keepers that its an endangered species.  Far, far too often archies try to derive interest from more yardage.  That is a fleeting method of design which for the most part doesn't interest me.  I know this because I have played tough as old boots 5000-6000 yard courses which are very engaging.  When you look at design from this perspective, it is easy to laugh at the notion of six sets of tees. When convention drives decision-making to the point of insanity (and to me building courses that require a cart because of 150-250 yard spread in tee markers is insane) its time to redefine convention.   

BTW...well done!

Ciao

[Mark Pritchett]

......and yet we criticize courses with only two tee boxes. 

[BCrosby]

Peter -


Big ups for breaking 80. Satisfying indeed. The world is now your oyster.


Bob