The Wrong Tee Box...47
How to Score Worse and Enjoy Less
Golf course architects design par 4 and 5’s with a landing area typically wider, maybe flatter, and absent of sand traps or penalty areas. When those landing areas are relatively close to the green, the architect will often construct the green wider side to side, narrower front to back, and often elevated above the level of the fairway. This configuration calls for higher trajectory ball flight that will not roll off the back. When the landing area is further from the green, the architect will build the green narrower from side to side, deeper front to back, and more level with the fairway. This allows for a longer shot which will have a lower trajectory. Such a shot can roll up on the green but will not likely roll all the way over.
Too often, players choose the wrong tee box which in most cases means they choose a tee box that makes the hole too long. When they do, they cannot reach the landing area on the shorter holes and therefore need to use a longer approach iron with a lower trajectory that will be challenged to roll up the elevated green or to stop on that shallow front-to-back putting surface. On the longer holes, they play too far back in the fairway requiring a shot with a very small shot dispersion to a narrow green.
While it’s your prerogative to choose a tee box, how can you determine the tee box that best suits your game? The USGA has recently completed a study of 20,000 golfers. Scrutinizing the data, they found a surprisingly simple correlation between an optimal 18-hole yardage and your seven iron.
Here’s another perspective on tee box selection. If your drive would be 230 yards and you play at 6,700 yards, then a tour player whose drive is 285 would proportionately need to play at 8,100 yards. Using those same ratios, we find that if a tour player drives 285 and plays at 7,300 then a player driving 230 should proportionately play at 6,200.
One other note regarding the tee box. None of us is getting younger. At some point, we need to move up.
Each Thursday we’ll bring you a helpful insight.
Swing to the target,
Ed
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