Since then, clubs around the world, including Augusta National, have been making courses longer and more difficult. Essentially “Tiger Proofing” the courses as it became known. Understandably so for the 0.92% of players who play to a plus 1 handicap or better because watching a tournament in which the leader is 32 under par is not overly entertaining.
What this has done globally, however, is to push the focus to
difficult and shift the focus from
fun. Why did we start playing the game in the first place? Was it because we picked up an iron and shanked one into the woods and said to ourselves, “that was awful, I think I’m going to love beating myself up for the rest of my life!” No, it was because of that one magical moment when you hit
one great shot and said, “wow, that was fun!”
So where am I going with this? Ultimately, to most golfers, having more fun means making more pars and birdies. One of the easiest ways to make more pars and birdies is to ensure you are playing the proper tees. See, there is a simple formula for calculating what tees you should be playing and that is:
5 iron (or hybrid) distance x 36 = your yardage
Let’s use my numbers for a second. I hit my 5 iron 185 yards, so the total distance I should feel comfortable playing is 185 x 36 = 6660 yards and that’s perfectly accurate. Yes, I could step to the blue tees that play a little longer, and that just means that on a couple of the par 4s (number 2) I may need to hit a longer club into the green. Now, let’s say you hit your 5 iron 140 yards. 140 x 36 = 5040 yards. With the Red tees playing 17 yards shy of 5000 yards, that might feel like a comfortable tee to play or maybe the purple hybrids at 5313.
At the end of the day, what club do you want to be hitting into a par 4 is the ultimate question. Personally, I’d like to have no more than a 6 iron into the green, since my left to right dispersion increases substantially with a 5 iron in my hands, thus missing more greens. I came across a great post recently that showed the percentages of second shots on par 4s hit with:
1iron to 4iron
1hybrid to 4hybrid
2wood to 5wood
| Plus Index |
0-5 Index |
5-10 Index |
10-15 Index |
15-20 Index |
20-25 Index |
| 8% |
11% |
15% |
19% |
24% |
29% |
This data simply tells us that a high percentage of players are hitting
waaaaay too much club into par 4s. As your clubs get longer, your dispersion gets greater, meaning that if you have a hybrid or a 4 iron in your hands, you have a far more likely chance that you will miss the green.
So, the debate will continue, and the traditions will as well. It’s tough to move up a tee, I know. I get it, and everyone does. At the end of the day, it’s on the course designers. They should be aware of the stats listed above and design for the masses, not the small percentages. To encourage more participation and see more smiles coming off the golf course, the golf courses need to be shorter and set up easier for the club golfer, and not longer and harder. I personally think that if this were to happen that more players would remember why they started playing golf in the first place and that was to have
fun, be social, and perhaps compete a little on the side.
If you have made it this far, I want to thank you for reading. I would love to hear your opinion on the matter as well. Drop me a line at
[email protected] and if you are the first person to use the hidden word in the article, the one that looked different than the rest, I’ll give you a sleeve of ProV1s. You are not allowed to just send the word, however, I would like to hear your opinion.
Now get out there and have some fun!
To book a lesson with Ryan, click
HERE