Winter League / Winter tees start

[Lord Tyrion]

Just wondering... for those courses that do have a set of winter tees, any reason why they are not rated? (If they aren't already done that is...)

Our place has muttered about doing it, but have not so far. It's possibly an ingrained thing, we are so used to Oct-March being winter golf, a time to try things out, not take it quite so seriously. When the weather gets bad, the course will also play very long, even with some tees moved, so it would artificially skew h/c imo. They did try a few years ago at my club but people simply didn't enter the comps and just played social golf and so they quickly dropped it. The club runs both a winter league and a general sweep each Saturday and Sunday through the winter. As I say, it is ingrained and would take quite an effort to change the mindset.

 

[WorldHandicapSystem]

Thankfully we don’t have winter tees or greens. I do wish we would make mats mandatory though.

 

[simsini]

Hi All,

Quick question (UK clubs), when does your club move to winter tees and the winter league start?
Ours has a hard and fast rule of 1st October meaning 6 months ‘summer’ and 6 months ‘winter’.
Apart from a couple of bad days the full course is perfectly playable and in my opinion should not be on winter tees till November.

Would appreciate knowing info about other clubs

Thanks in advance

No mats here. The members would kick off and rightly so. I've only ever played a course with mats for 2 winters in all my time playing golf, absolutely hated it.

 

[Robster59]

Just in from our club.

"From Monday 3rd November Introduction of fairway/ tee mats/ winter tees and removal of all white and orange tee markers.
The introduction of compulsory use of fairway mats or, playing from the first cut rough and also mats played from all the tees will be introduced from Monday the 3rd November 2025 and all tees will be red and yellow throughout the winter.
If playing from the first cut please play 10 feet into the first cut of rough."

We very rarely move on to winter greens unless the ground is frozen.

 

[IanM]

Winter tees (mostly mats) starts today at Newport. Why this early I don't know. 6 months on the full course a year is too short.

And how good has the weather been over the past two weeks? Certainly way too early.

Surely this should be a conditions based decision, not a fixed date in the calendar?

 

[simsini]

Just in from our club.

"From Monday 3rd November Introduction of fairway/ tee mats/ winter tees and removal of all white and orange tee markers.
The introduction of compulsory use of fairway mats or, playing from the first cut rough and also mats played from all the tees will be introduced from Monday the 3rd November 2025 and all tees will be red and yellow throughout the winter.
If playing from the first cut please play 10 feet into the first cut of rough."

We very rarely move on to winter greens unless the ground is frozen.

Might as well play on an indoor simulator all winter.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

Our course is still as good as it was through the year , no need to go anywhere near winter tees etc

 

[Mel Smooth]

Our white tees went in last week and the winter league commenced yesterday. Preferred lies needed in the fairway but the ruling yesterday was in the general area.

 

[rulefan]

Preferred lies needed in the fairway but the ruling yesterday was in the general area.

???

 

[Mel Smooth]

???

Well it was the first round of our winter league, betterball over 13 holes so there was no real need to have the course in handicap counting conditions.

The Saturday stableford was preferred lies on closely mown with lift clean and replace in the general area.

 

[Robster59]

Might as well play on an indoor simulator all winter.

What a strange statement to make.
You're playing off a mat only off the fairways, but all the challenges of playing on a course still come into effect. Wind, rain, slopes, rough, bunkers. That's one hell of a simulator that does all that. You still get the full enjoyment of playing a round of golf.
Winter in Scotland has a significant impact on the course conditions, and this is all about course protection.