SirShanksAlot Tees Off On Tees

Gxgolfer · July 8, 2005

By SirShanksAlot.com

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I really don’t like to go off on a rant… SirPuttsAlot is so much better at it than me… but sometimes I just feel the need to write about things that bother me. Today I think I will rant on a little bit about the wonderful world of golf tees.

Now you might stop and think… why would someone waste their time writing about golf tees? Aren’t tees just the little wooden pegs that people stick in the ground? Don’t golfers just buy a bag of tees at their local shop and move on with their lives? I wish it were that easy…

Over my 11 years of selling golf equipment, I’m guessing that I have probably sold a lot of tees. More tees than I can remember and more tees than I care to remember. It used to be that there was one type of tee, in one length, in a few colors, and in various denominations. My… how times have changed. Now there are tees of various lengths, in various colors and in various shapes. There are brush tees, lucky tees, triangle tees, step tees, aluminium tees, long drive tees, par 3 tees, rubber tees, plastic tees and biodegradable tees. But why?

Is there really that much difference between various types of tees? I can see how different lengths might be a benefit but do we really need so many types? I thought I would never say this but customers are starting to get confused when shopping for golf tees. An actual conversation that I had with a customer on Tuesday…

Customer - “I need to buy some golf tees”
Me - “Ok, do you have a big driver?”
Customer - “Yes… I like to use the long tees”
Me - “No problem, why don’t you try the 2 3/4 inch tees. They’re fairly tall”
Customer - “I have used those before but I can’t use them for irons”
Me - “Sure you can… you just have to push them into the ground a bit more”
Customer - “Huh… I didn’t even think about that! Can you hit them a long ways with these ones or do you have ones for extra distance?”
Me - “Well… they are tees… they can’t really add a lot of distance”
Customer - “My buddy has some that add 15 extra yards to his drive. He bought a pack of them and gave me some to me. I hit every drive straight down the middle”
Me - “We carry the Brush T’s… some people say that they help with distance”
Customer - “No I’ll just hold off for now. I have a few more of the tees that my buddy gave me. I usually only break a tee once every four rounds anyways..”

I get so many people telling me about different tees that they have used and how many of these “wonder sticks” have added some serious distance. I’ve even had some people tell me that they will only buy certain colors because they are the longest ones. Makes perfect sense to me… a ball that is teed up on a red tee goes farther than a ball teed up on a white tee. How naive can some people get?

I also get the customer that wants to buy golf tees in gigantic bags because they break so many. I have had people tell me that they break over 20 tees a round. Wow… let’s do some math here…

18 Holes x 1 Tee Per Hole = 18 Tees

By buying tees in bulk… this customer is able to save upwards of $0.01 a tee! Put that money in the piggy bank and you’ll be able to buy more tees before you know it! Who cares if half of the tees dry out before you can use them… you’ve save over $1.00!

I also can’t get over how people scour a tee box in search of tees left behind by their fellow golfers. It’s like a pirate looking for treasure… and often the golfer is rewarded with two or three “like new” tees. What a score! They may go on to shoot 120 but they will leave with a handful of tees. I think it’s so funny when a golfer slices a brand new ball into the trees but is totally devastated because they broke their tee. Who cares about the $5.00 ball in the trees! Oh well… as long as people have fun I guess!

I’m not really angry about anything but I just find it so amazing that some people spend so much time and effort picking out their tees and how some tees have developed a cult-like following. I bet Dr. George Grant (the man that patented the first golf tee in 1899) never thought his simple invention would ever get so high tech and complicated!