Multiple Tees on New Courses

[Brock Lynch]

This discussion started on the Sand Valley - Course #4 Post. When building a new course, how do you decide how many tees there will be and where will they be placed? I'm curious to hear what the designers out there have done or will do in the future.

[Peter Pallotta]

I think the future is us, Brock, and that it's here already in all its precious and unsustainable glory.
Just a brief few years ago, I could never have guessed that a beloved architect (Bill Coore) would ever build a highly praised course (Sand Valley) that had not 3 sets of tees, or 4 or 5 sets, but 6 sets of tees!
Just a few years ago (or so it seems) that type of shameless pandering ('to golfers of all skill sets') and misguided design philosophy ('with everyone getting to play the same golf course') and tired marketing cliches ('a challenge for the experienced golfer but playable for all') was the purview of only the most reviled of architects, designing the most banal and soul destroying of real-estate courses, with spectacular, view-maximizing routings that made carts an absolute necessity and that 'justified' having 4 or 5 sets of tees -- and even then not 6 sets!
As I say, that's what it seemed like to me, only a few short years (and a lifetime) ago.
Who would've thought that, in the 'future', even a non-purist would be pining for 'just' 3 sets of tees at a course like SV: e.g. 4800 yards, 6350 yards, and 6900 yards? And who would've thought that we'd have convinced ourselves that this set-up didn't serve everyone perfectly well?
Peter

[JESII]

Well Brock, 0 for 2 out of the blocks in actual designers responding...but...


Peter, as always, thought provoking post that clarified something for me. I've never been to Ballyneal so will take everyone's word for it's exceptional quality but have always been uncomfortable (maybe skeptical is a better descriptor) with the concept of not having tee markers.


The suggestion from Tom and all of the courses proponents is that this is the ultimate creation of freedom for the golfer has rung hollow to me. I get it, play from wherever you want so the holes are never the same. Let the player with the honor choose where to play from adds a unique wrinkle to the game...great!


I've felt (again, from a distance) that this was a cop out from selecting holes. Similar to how 6 sets of tees from Bill Coore at Sand Valley bothers you, Balleyneal seemingly has infinite tees.


I would love a course (maybe Tom's new course at SV) to try going back to the roots by offering very few sets of tees and creating a course that's interesting and playable for as many people as possible from those tees. The architects may ask me, a low handicap guy that tries to play a little competition, how I can be challenged by a course a short hitting grandfather might. Fair question but the answer is always, it's the individual shots and holes that create the challenge and interest, not the total score I might shoot. If I played Tom's pending SV course in 3 or 4 under par and felt every shot and hole were interesting and fun, that's a much better experience and "training" than playing a slog of a 7200 yards course in 75 shots.

[Peter Pallotta]

Sorry, Brock, 0 for 3...

Thanks, Jim, and in turn your mention of the tee-less Ballyneal resonated with me too (also from afar). I think especially because it's Tom's course, as SV is C&C's -- architects who love & praise St. Andrews as the epitome of design.

I've always assumed that, for 100+ years thoughtful critics/observers have celebrated The Old in large part because of its variability, i.e. one golf course and set of questions and challenges and options when the wind blows this way, another kind of course and wholly different set of challenges/options when it blows the other, or more fiercely, or when the course is very dry and playing hard & firm & fast.

Yes, you have 'freedom' at Ballyneal without prescribed tees and 'freedom' too at SV with 6 sets of tees, but I'd suggest that it is a very different kind of freedom than what St Andrews has offered all these years.

At the former courses, it is the 'freedom' to feel a strong wind in your face and move up a set of tees so you can hit a 6 iron into that Par 3 instead of a 2 iron, or to move further back when the wind is behind you and the course is firm & fast and you're afraid that, wanting to hit driver all day long, you might on this day actually reach the fairway bunker that's 280 yards out; in other words, it is the freedom to ignore the architecture completely, if and when it suits you.

At the latter, on the other hand, it is the freedom to try to make the best & smartest choices you can so as to shoot your lowest possible score on this specific golf course and on this particular day; in other words, the freedom to enjoy and embrace the architecture, even if it doesn't suit you. 

With the former you have the faux freedom of a constantly-satisfied ego -- which is in fact (and as better men than me have long recognized) a very subtle but powerful kind of slavery. With the latter, you have the true freedom to respond to 'the world' as it is and as you find it -- no matter how challenging, or how unsuited/unprepared you are to meet those challenges, and no matter how 'unfair' it is.

And if I got on a high horse (oh, what fun  ) I'd suggest that the former is the 'freedom' of children and of narcissists (or of those who, for 10 rounds a year, want to tap into their childish narcissistic sides), while the latter is the freedom of true golfers!

The spirit of the game used to be: 'play the golf course as you find it and the ball as it lies'. Has it now instead become for so very many: 'make the course up as you go along, and play the ball any way that you like'? 

'The customer is always right', is that it? Especially when that customer is willing and able to pay you jolly boatloads of money, and so expects & demands to be 'always right'? 

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Well Brock, 0 for 2 out of the blocks in actual designers responding...but...


Peter, as always, thought provoking post that clarified something for me. I've never been to Ballyneal so will take everyone's word for it's exceptional quality but have always been uncomfortable (maybe skeptical is a better descriptor) with the concept of not having tee markers.


The suggestion from Tom and all of the courses proponents is that this is the ultimate creation of freedom for the golfer has rung hollow to me. I get it, play from wherever you want so the holes are never the same. Let the player with the honor choose where to play from adds a unique wrinkle to the game...great!


I've felt (again, from a distance) that this was a cop out from selecting holes. Similar to how 6 sets of tees from Bill Coore at Sand Valley bothers you, Balleyneal seemingly has infinite tees.


I would love a course (maybe Tom's new course at SV) to try going back to the roots by offering very few sets of tees and creating a course that's interesting and playable for as many people as possible from those tees. The architects may ask me, a low handicap guy that tries to play a little competition, how I can be challenged by a course a short hitting grandfather might. Fair question but the answer is always, it's the individual shots and holes that create the challenge and interest, not the total score I might shoot. If I played Tom's pending SV course in 3 or 4 under par and felt every shot and hole were interesting and fun, that's a much better experience and "training" than playing a slog of a 7200 yards course in 75 shots.

Jim:


Your last paragraph is my ideal.  I held out on putting in "back" tees at Pacific Dunes and Barnbougle because I have seen how many modern courses have back tees that even a scratch player or club pro may struggle to break 75 from.  I just don't understand the point of that.  It's possible to test a player but let him shoot in the range of +2 to -2 ... you don't have to beat him over the head every hole to make him think.


For Sand Valley, if the back tees are 6200 yards long [say] and they are each 25 yards long, you could play at 5800 yards just by playing the front of the back tees.  We will probably have two more sets of tees after that, but I wish I could just have one.


As for Ballyneal, the decision not to put out any tee markers WAS a cop-out to a degree.  It would have been impossible to set up three or four sets of tees that would work for every golfer on every day, in the changing winds they have out there.  The best way to play the course would be to mix things up and play different holes back and different holes forward on each round ... not in a prescribed pattern [such as all downwind holes from the back] but mixing them up.  But that would put a lot of pressure on the superintendent to set up the course right every day, with players telling him he was constantly wrong.  So I preferred to put the onus on the players, to pick the tee that was right for them in the moment.


And sure, there are a lot of narcissists [I prefer the term "weenies"] who would choose to play each hole from where they could comfortably carry the relevant hazards, instead of from where they might be challenged, or occasionally have to lay up.  But I'm not going to lay awake at night trying to figure out how to bring those people back into line; and I'm not going to litter the landscape with tees to try and accommodate them all.  I'll give them three or four choices per hole, and put it in them to do the right thing.

[Tom_Doak]

This discussion started on the Sand Valley - Course #4 Post. When building a new course, how do you decide how many tees there will be and where will they be placed? I'm curious to hear what the designers out there have done or will do in the future.

Brock:


The client always has something to say about this, of course.  One of my favorite places ever is Garden City Golf Club, which survived with two sets of tees [and in most cases, a single tee per hole] for more than 100 years.  We've added a few senior tees there in recent years to help the older guys get around, but they don't get used much.


If it were up to me, I'd have three sets of tee markers per hole, with maybe an occasional alternate tee that could be rotated into play.  Golf survived just fine with three sets of tees until the 1980's, and that should still work if the course is designed appropriately, so that players have a reasonable approach shot to play even if they are straining to reach the green.  If the wind is in your face and you can't reach a par-4 in two, the Scots would just tell you to man up and deal with it . . . it happens all the time over there.


I'm sure Jeff Brauer will be here momentarily to defend the placement of six tees per hole.  I think that's pandering to golfers, myself.  You can make the case that we need more tees than we used to because modern equipment has exaggerated the gaps between the great, the good and the average golfer; I wouldn't argue with that.  But I think the problem is that designers have reacted the wrong way, stretching every course for Tour pros who never play them, littering them with hazards that give most people heartache, and then putting in extra sets of tees as a "solution" to dealing with the problems they created.  Modern courses should not be nearly as hard as they are, and if they weren't, then they wouldn't need all those silly tees.

[A.G._Crockett]

For the life of me, I can't see the problem with multiple sets of tees, including "hybrid" courses.  Other than the facts that it isn't the way things used to be done in the good old days, and that this site is heavily skewed toward grumpy old men who tend to long for the good old days, I just don't see the problem.
I just don't.

[Edward Glidewell]

For the life of me, I can't see the problem with multiple sets of tees, including "hybrid" courses.  Other than the facts that it isn't the way things used to be done in the good old days, and that this site is heavily skewed toward grumpy old men who tend to long for the good old days, I just don't see the problem.
I just don't.

I don't either. The only complaint I've seen that actually makes sense is an increased maintenance cost, but if clubs/members/players don't mind paying the extra cost... who really cares? The next biggest complaint I've seen is that people don't like how it looks, which is subjective and silly. I couldn't care less if a golf course has 8 sets of tees if it helps people have fun.


Also, yes, I understand that adding 500 extra yards to build back tees increases the acreage etc. and can have significantly higher costs. But that's not what I'm talking about -- I think that's a separate issue. If a course is 6800 yards from the tips with the back tees right next to the previous green, but has additional tees at 6500, 6200, 5800, 5400, and 4900, I just don't see how that affects the course in any real way (other than the aforementioned maintenance costs).

[Thomas Dai]

As Tom has mentioned above, modern equipment has widened the distance gap between different levels of player as has I would suggest lush green limited-roll fairways.
Also, forced carries are a total pain for the lessor player.
Some questions -
i) Do we want lessor players and those with limited physically strength to have a place in the game?
ii) Do we want folks to be able to play the game in much later life?
iii) Do we want youngsters to take up the game at a younger age?
iv) Do we want the money, cha-ching, that those players mentioned in Q’s i), ii) and iii) above bring to the game, the business, the wage packets etc?
If you do want the above, well courses with limited tees and forced carries ain’t I suggest gonna help. And to you young long hitting bucks, just remember one day in the future you’ll more than likely be an old, infirm short hitter too!
Atb

[Tommy Williamsen]

I am on a golf trip. The last two courses I've played have a variety of options. Course 1 7400, 7100, 6700, 6500, 5900.  5600, 5200. Course 2: 7300, 7150, 6700, 6200, 5600, 5400. I played them at 6500 and 6200. Hard to believe that there were three sets of tees behind me. A couple of the distances were combo tees.

[Tom_Doak]

How many sets of tees does Pine Valley have?


How many sets of tees does Merion have?


How many sets of tees does Garden City Golf Club have?  [Correct answer = 2.]


How many sets of tees does The Old Course at St. Andrews have?  [I think it's four:  championship, medal, boxes, forward.]

[Edward Glidewell]

Tom,


Here's my question in response to yours -- would any of those courses suddenly be worse if they had 2 or 3 extra sets of tees but everything else remained exactly the same? I simply don't see a correlation between number of tees and quality of design; just because some great classic old courses have a small number of tees doesn't mean that a small number of tees leads to a great golf course (which of course I don't need to tell you, of all people).

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,


Here's my question in response to yours -- would any of those courses suddenly be worse if they had 2 or 3 extra sets of tees but everything else remained exactly the same? I simply don't see a correlation between number of tees and quality of design; just because some great classic old courses have a small number of tees doesn't mean that a small number of tees leads to a great golf course (which of course I don't need to tell you, of all people).

Well, there is a correlation:  most of the top 100 courses are older courses, and not many of them have adopted the modern crutch of going to five or six tees.  Four is the most you'll find on about any course built before 1980.


Does that mean Pine Valley would fall from the top 100 if they went to six sets of tees?  No.  But Pine Valley with six sets of tees wouldn't work as well.  You'd have to start giving up the island fairways, because somebody playing from the fourth set of tees would have driver taken out of their hands at the 7th hole, or the 11th, or the 13th.  You would start to tear away at the foundation of Pine Valley, and make it more like everywhere else.


That's my problem with six tees.  It's not just the entitlement of modern golfers who think everything should be optimized for them, individually; it's that going in that direction results in homogenizing the game.  If you need to have a course where you can tee off from anywhere you want, I've built a couple of those, too.  Just don't insist we make them all that way! 


Most of the best golf courses are built to challenge you.  If you don't want to accept the challenge, you should stick to where you're more comfortable instead of demanding that they change.

[Ira Fishman]

Tom,


Was 5 sets of tees a convention for the courses at Bandon with which you just needed to live?


In any event, at any course under 7000 yards, three would be sufficient BUT FOR the male ego which prevents most men from playing the forward tees.  Because they generally will not, they often play a set that likely is to slow play down.  Their decision not to enjoy a course as much by playing a too difficult set of tees is their decision until it interferes with other groups' enjoyment.


Ira

[Edward Glidewell]

Tom,


Here's my question in response to yours -- would any of those courses suddenly be worse if they had 2 or 3 extra sets of tees but everything else remained exactly the same? I simply don't see a correlation between number of tees and quality of design; just because some great classic old courses have a small number of tees doesn't mean that a small number of tees leads to a great golf course (which of course I don't need to tell you, of all people).

Well, there is a correlation:  most of the top 100 courses are older courses, and not many of them have adopted the modern crutch of going to five or six tees.  Four is the most you'll find on about any course built before 1980.


Does that mean Pine Valley would fall from the top 100 if they went to six sets of tees?  No.  But Pine Valley with six sets of tees wouldn't work as well.  You'd have to start giving up the island fairways, because somebody playing from the fourth set of tees would have driver taken out of their hands at the 7th hole, or the 11th, or the 13th.  You would start to tear away at the foundation of Pine Valley, and make it more like everywhere else.


That's my problem with six tees.  It's not just the entitlement of modern golfers who think everything should be optimized for them, individually; it's that going in that direction results in homogenizing the game.  If you need to have a course where you can tee off from anywhere you want, I've built a couple of those, too.  Just don't insist we make them all that way! 


Most of the best golf courses are built to challenge you.  If you don't want to accept the challenge, you should stick to where you're more comfortable instead of demanding that they change.

You're right; I used the wrong word. I really meant causation, not correlation. Those courses aren't great because they have a small number of tees. They are great courses that happen to have a small number.


As for Pine Valley -- why would it matter if someone playing the fourth set of tees couldn't hit driver? That would be a choice they made when selecting those tees for play.


Regardless, I'm not arguing that courses should be REQUIRED to have five or six sets of tees. I'm certainly not insisting they all be built/modified to reach that as an ideal. I personally couldn't care less if a course has two or seven, as long as the architecture isn't affected in any meaningful way (and I don't believe it is in the vast majority of cases -- I'll give you Pine Valley). I just don't understand why the number of tees matters so much to some people that they downgrade a course simply for having multiple sets.

[Thomas Dai]

Over time tees have gone back, hole lengths have been extended.
Given that folks are living longer, playing golf for longer but as they do so hit the ball shorter distances have any forward tees been moved even further forward?
Just asking.
atb

[Rick Lane]

I'm at a 90+ year old course in the USA.....we have long had three sets of tees....red, blue, black.    Added green at the front of the existing blue tees aimed at older players....really only 10 yards or so difference from Blue on each hole.   Did give us a bunch of "hybrid" options though, which we all like.   

What we DID add to shorten was four or five new "yellow" tee boxes generally 20-50 yards in front of the Red tees....because we found that those red tees made us adjust "par" on those holes as generally the women (who tended to play red) could not reach them as par fours, so they became awkward par fives.   The yellow tee thing solved that.     

[A.G._Crockett]

How many sets of tees does Pine Valley have?


How many sets of tees does Merion have?


How many sets of tees does Garden City Golf Club have?  [Correct answer = 2.]


How many sets of tees does The Old Course at St. Andrews have?  [I think it's four:  championship, medal, boxes, forward.]

Tom,With all due respect, the greatness of each of the courses that you reference here has absolutely dead zero to do with the number of tees that each has.  And I simply don't believe that the greatness of any of them would be in any way diminished by additional tees, or hybrid tees.  In the same way, of course, a great course with six sets of tees would remain great if the number was reduced.

I've yet to come off of any golf course and think of the strengths or weaknesses of any hole, or of the entire course with the number of tees as a factor in my evaluation; I can't imagine why I would.  I won't say it's completely irrelevant, but it's damn close.

I get that a lot of people like the simple, clean lines of one, two, or three sets of tees, and that more than that appear cluttered and busy.  But that's a look, and nothing more. 

[David_Tepper]

"Given that folks are living longer, playing golf for longer but as they do so hit the ball shorter distances have any forward tees been moved even further forward?"

Thomas D. -

Yes, I see this happening now. Dornoch introduced a set of tees well forward of the red markers a couple of years ago. Clubs/courses in the San Francisco area have done the same.

DT

[Peter Pallotta]

Setting aside for a moment David's example of an existing course that has added tees -

When a new course opens with 6 sets of tees + hybrid sets, and when that new course is at a development like Sand Valley and financed by a developer like Mike K, where every possible and imaginable marketing "i" has been dotted and every promotional "t" has been crossed, what is that '6 sets of tees' meant to signify? what's it meant to promote? what ideas about golf and gca is it meant to celebrate? what value system/ethos of the game is it meant to suggest and to symbolize?

I mean: there's not one single thing about SV that hasn't been thought through very carefully and/or specifically prescribed, from the choice of architects to the overall aesthetics to the price point to the level of difficulty (on fairways and greens) to the types & number of bedrooms -- so it's almost impossible to imagine that the existence of 6 sets of tees (+ hybrid sets) was an accident. So why has Mr. K insisted on it? It's because, I'd say, it completes the PR package and sends a clear 'message' to potential clients, a message that Mr K strongly believes will appeal to the majority of 'retail golfers' he hopes (and is sure of) attracting.   

Well then: what 'message' is he trying to send? What's he trying to tell us about the nature/quality of the golf to be played at SV?I don't have the answer, but I have my guesses. If you have yours, hold them up and then ask yourself if the answer, i.e. if what he is telling clients about the quality/nature of the architecture and the essence/meaning of the game they will find at SV, can possibly be similar to the message/meaning/quality/nature/essence of the great golden age courses that have been mentioned here -- stellar and time-tested examples of the finest golf course architecture in the world, and courses that for decade after decade since their openings have provided excellent golf to countless numbers & kinds of golfers, all with only 2 sets of tees (or 3 sets of tees, or even 4). 

My point: to say that 6 sets of tees (+ hybrids) merely 'appears cluttered and messy' and that any complaints from the likes of me (leaving TD and Jim S out of it) are just old-man grumblings and in the end just about 'looks and nothing more' seems to me to be pretty superficial thinking -- especially when it comes from someone like AG, who is usually anything but a superficial thinker. There *are* meaningful architectural reasons for the number of tees one employs, and real impact on how the design is then conceived and executed and on how the game is played. Indeed, there *must be* such reasons and impacts. How do I know? Because Mr. K himself tells me so in insisting on and promoting said number.

So endeth the lesson for the day; I'm going off to have a glass of bourbon on ice...or maybe 5 or 6 glasses of bourbon on ice -- I mean, what difference does it make, eh? 
P   


     

[Ira Fishman]

Peter,


Quite sorry, but bourbon with more than one (two at the most) cube of ice defines the opposite of the purist, minimalist design.


Ira

[Peter Pallotta]

 
Plus, Ira, you said better in 20 words (in your post #13) what it took me 250 to say!
I fear I'm like Jerry Lewis that way -- he said he so loved riffing, when he opened the 'frigerator door and the lights went on he did ten minutes!
P

[Kalen Braley]

IIRC,


Seems there was quite a bit of complaining/grumbling when the R&A added all those extra tees on TOC, especially the likes of the "OB" one on 17.  Given that tees and thier placement are an integral part of the course, I wouldn't rule out evaluating a course based on such (or the modification of them) in at least some way...

[jeffwarne]

For the life of me, I can't see the problem with multiple sets of tees, including "hybrid" courses.  Other than the facts that it isn't the way things used to be done in the good old days, and that this site is heavily skewed toward grumpy old men who tend to long for the good old days,

Guilty...
If a course NEEDS 6 sets of tees, it's probably not a great course.
If it HAS 6 sets of tees, it may or may not be great(and chances are that if it's great, the tees are a new addition-unless it's modern and just following the 'New" rules)).
The best courses IMHO are started from similar places with interesting choices and routes for different classes of player rather than shorter tees simply dictating the strategy-with exceptions of course when impractical due to terrain or occasionally for variety.
Golf is a social game-sometimes it's nice to play the same course as your grandmother-and even more fun for her when she kicks your arse.
6 sets of tees  reduce the imagination of the design in many cases, and if someone beats you from 5 sets forward, it's probably time for them to move back (or you to move up) and there's not a ton of satisfaction in that....


I mostly hate that EVERY hole needs the 6 sets of tees.
It certainly seems with Peter's setup(3 tees with 2100 yards of differences) the guy demanding the 2nd set or the 5th set could find a way to create a yardage/interest level without EVERY SINGLE hole being proportionally distanced for him (i.e. a driveable par 4 doesn't need 6 sets-nor does a short par 3-other than for turf rotation-or a 380 yard par 4 can be a short hole for a pro and a long hole for a super senior, but then the next hole the super senior could play the way forward tee to enjoy his short par 4)


Palmetto has it about right with 3-4 super back(40-60 yards) tees to occasionally challenge the expert, but allow him to play the tees the majority of the club plays the rest of the time.


Once upon a time people played a course, and didn't think about things like "greens in regulation"


"get off my lawn"

[Tom_Doak]

Let's look from a different angle.


Most have agreed in principle that a great course doesn't need six sets of tees.


So if I build them, am I not subtly telling you that I'm not confident the course is great?


It's often the things you don't do that are the most telling ... like not building mounds, not proscribing long rough, not putting a photo on the scorecard, or not going to 7200 yards.