White or Yellow Tees

[Deleted member 16999]

Next AGM sort it out.....

Keep trying tbh, now in second year of being on committee and the answer I get is, they say it’s for course protection.
Bit stuck in the past in someways, ie, it’s always been that way!

 

[nickjdavis]

I think that consideration has to be given to the size of the teeing area and the potential wear and tear caused by a procession of golfers playing off the white tees. If the club has the ability to regularly move the teeing markers back/forward several yards then I don't see any real harm in letting "general play" off the whites. If however the teeing ground is quite small then clubs may well be forced into making the decision to restrict general play to the yellow tees.

When visiting a course I personally will always look to play off the tees that give an overall yardage of between 6100 and 6400 yards or so....start getting above 6500 yards and it usually (there are some exceptions where the ground conditions actually help negate the effects of length... especially if they are firm) becomes unenjoyable with a struggle to hit greens and have opportunities to make pars (I'm not a long hitter but par 4's over 400 yards aren't an issue.... its just that I don't want to play a course where every hole is driver, fairway/hybrid or the par 3's need me to nail my best long iron every time.

A lot of it depends on how the course was designed originally... often you find courses that have been extended and the fairway hazards just don't come into play off the back tees for "normal" golfers, and you can thrash away with a driver with no fear of reaching them. Far more preferable to play off a tee that makes you stop, think and consider your choices of club.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Completely agree with this, our whites are out every day and we can play off them (I do every time I go for a game). Although our tees are all pretty big so they can move them around a bit to avoid any wear and tear etc, maybe why some places don't?

That’s the reason why we don’t - our tee boxes are small ( most parklands seem to be ) so it’s hard to move the whites around that often to help with the wear but on the whole the whites aren’t a massive difference

I’m happy to bow down to the knowledge of the green staff.

And when I go away I’m not really bothered which tee - doesn’t really change any enjoyment if off a yellow tee

 

[Deleted member 16999]

I think that consideration has to be given to the size of the teeing area and the potential wear and tear caused by a procession of golfers playing off the white tees. If the club has the ability to regularly move the teeing markers back/forward several yards then I don't see any real harm in letting "general play" off the whites. If however the teeing ground is quite small then clubs may well be forced into making the decision to restrict general play to the yellow tees.

When visiting a course I personally will always look to play off the tees that give an overall yardage of between 6100 and 6400 yards or so....start getting above 6500 yards and it usually (there are some exceptions where the ground conditions actually help negate the effects of length... especially if they are firm) becomes unenjoyable with a struggle to hit greens and have opportunities to make pars (I'm not a long hitter but par 4's over 400 yards aren't an issue.... its just that I don't want to play a course where every hole is driver, fairway/hybrid or the par 3's need me to nail my best long iron every time.

A lot of it depends on how the course was designed originally... often you find courses that have been extended and the fairway hazards just don't come into play off the back tees for "normal" golfers, and you can thrash away with a driver with no fear of reaching them. Far more preferable to play off a tee that makes you stop, think and consider your choices of club.

Great post :thup:

 

[Tommo21]

I would always play off whites if possible. That way there's no real shock if playing the yellows to then go to the whites for a comp. At Dunbar there's loads of tee space so playing whites at your own discretion is fine. Besides that, most tees apart from the 4 par threes are mainly driver tees so very little divot wear is present. Whites every time.

 

[NWJocko]

A lot of it depends on how the course was designed originally... often you find courses that have been extended and the fairway hazards just don't come into play off the back tees for "normal" golfers, and you can thrash away with a driver with no fear of reaching them. Far more preferable to play off a tee that makes you stop, think and consider your choices of club.

Good post in general. At my place however, given the distance I hit it (or more accurately don't hit it!!) if I play off our yellows I can hit driver past all the trouble but off the whites can't, so is a much better/tougher course, for me, the farther back the tees are.

 

[MartynB]

If you’re allowed to play off the whites by all means do so, but only if you have a good chance of making GIR. I see too many old boys playing off the whites even when it’s not a comp which just makes slow play even slower. I think it’s a misplaced macho like thing with some thinking the yellow tees aren’t for real men.

 

[Tommo21]

Keep trying tbh, now in second year of being on committee and the answer I get is, they say it’s for course protection.
Bit stuck in the past in someways, ie, it’s always been that way!

The course is not there to be protected its there to be played......unless the teeing areas are small. If you advertise a course of say 6500 yards and your only allowed to play that in competition then the advert should be questionable by the members if that's how the membership is sold. After all it could mean the yellows are getting used all the time so how do you protect them. All that's required is general tee maintenance and divots are part of that.

 

[Slab]

Not sure I buy into the 'i always want to play the full course' point of view

I have 5 different course scorecards in my desk draw right now from recent games, the shortest course from the back tees is 6900 and is the only one under 7000, the longest is 7530

I just don't see folks teeing it up there
(all tees open every day unless big comp looming)

I also collect many hundreds of scores for a couple of society groups and no one is reporting they played from the tips, in fact I've only known one instance where a couple of groups played the course at its full length for a laugh (outside of the tournament type comps) and scores were all pretty poor

To play the 7500 course off the yellows is still 6650 which is the most popular, so while 'I wanna play the full course' might get proclaimed i guess it might be a bit different when its not just 20 yards back

 

[Pathetic Shark]

I played at Arbroath a few years ago on my own and was about to tee off the yellows on the 1st when the pro came out of his shop to watch. I made some comment about charging for lessons to which he really rudely replied "I just came out to make sure you didn't go off the whites". So I didn't .... on that hole. But I sure as hell did on the other 17 much to the delight of two of the greenkeepers who were all for me doing it and encouraged me to go and tell this nob that I had done it as well.

Pyrford have white, yellow and red tees and you choose what you want to play from. The whites on some holes are way too far back for the seniors to make the carries over the water so they play their comps from the yellows.

 

[Carpfather1]

Personally I prefer playing off the whites if I can ,it’s the full course then which is what it should be plus it’s not such a shock in comp play ,my current club plays a lot longer off whites and the position of the whites compared to yellows on a few holes makes you take a different approach.

 

[Capella]

In Germany this seems to be handled a bit differently (at least at our club and every other club I played at so far). The yellow tees are used for most club internal competitions as well (or for the ladies the red ones) and the whites (black for the ladies) are only used for the club championship or for official ranking competitions (which are all played off scratch). The whites do have a slope rating, so it would be theoretically possible to use them for handicap comps as well, it is just not done. Also, when you ask someone "shouldn't we play off the whites/blacks for a change" (which is totally allowed, at least at our club, for social rounds you can tee off where you want), unless they are long hitting 16 year olds full of bravado, they will look at you like you are crazy and say: "What would we do that for?"

Difference isn't that great at our course either. On most holes, the white/black tees are just a few meters further back on the same tee box as the yellows/reds. The overall difference in lengths for the course is less than 200 yards from yellow to white or from red to black.

 

[Imurg]

At many clubs there's so little difference between whites and yellows that it doesn't matter which tee you use.
Admittedly, there are some huge differences but often is 5-10 yards - that ain't making a difference to anyone.
The Zoo averages 20 yards between white and yellow while a more premium club near me averages just 10 with some as little as 3 yards.
The average golfer can't reach the hazards presented from the white tee, that's why the yellows are there. As we are well aware, there's no such thing as the average golfer but some courses, from the back tee, are simply a slog.
You should be able to play a tee that suits your ability.

 

[hors limite]

Our pro took a group to a 45 hole set up in Spain for a week.We were all "seniors" and not the biggest hitters.The courses were pretty long so,in the spirit of maximum enjoyment, he insisted that we all played off the reds. Must say that having the chance to hit greens in regulation added to what was a great week.

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Our white tees are out through the summer not just for medals and comps, however I have no problem with restricting them for comps, medals, and matches all through the year. Our tees aren’t that big, and there is nothing worse than trying to tee up in a comp on a chewed up tee.
As far as the “wanting to play the full course “ arguement, do you also argue that the pins should be on the very back of each green?

 

[Tommo21]

Our white tees are out through the summer not just for medals and comps, however I have no problem with restricting them for comps, medals, and matches all through the year. Our tees aren’t that big, and there is nothing worse than trying to tee up in a comp on a chewed up tee.
As far as the “wanting to play the full course “ arguement, do you also argue that the pins should be on the very back of each green?

I think playing the full course should be an option outwith comps. At Dunbar the whites can vary but not many play off them anyway. It's about choice. No, I don't or is anyone else, so far, arguing for pins to be at the back as part of the full course debate. In my opinion pins should be mixed as a general rule.

 

[Tommo21]

Our pro took a group to a 45 hole set up in Spain for a week.We were all "seniors" and not the biggest hitters.The courses were pretty long so,in the spirit of maximum enjoyment, he insisted that we all played off the reds. Must say that having the chance to hit greens in regulation added to what was a great week.

I'm all for that.....

 

[patricks148]

I think playing the full course should be an option outwith comps. At Dunbar the whites can vary but not many play off them anyway. It's about choice. No, I don't or is anyone else, so far, arguing for pins to be at the back as part of the full course debate. In my opinion pins should be mixed as a general rule.

yep, not sure why pins would ever be a priority, but playing from the whites often gives you the option to play the course as it was designed to be played, esp real championship courses. My place is a far better course off the whites, and would say the same for plenty of others, where maybe the yellow are a bit of an afterthought

 

[HughJars]

Play off the whites whenever you wish, as Mark Crossfield said in one of his vids, what are they keeping them for, the Open Championship.

Our whites are pretty small, so to save them from wear and tear they are reserved as is generally the norm in Scotland, for a medal or match.

Also, if yellows are general play, but some people play off the whites you run into clashing speeds of play, with the resulting aggro that folk who refuse to let quicker groups through inevitably cause

 

[jim8flog]

At ours male players are only allowed to play off the tee of the day with the exception of the scratch team who can use the whites in the two weeks prior to a match.

Our tee of the day is white when there is a competition on and you do not want to play in it but you can still play off the yellows if you prefer.

Ladies and juniors of both sexes can use the reds.