What age would you play Senior tees?

[caniac6]

26 minutes ago, playit said:

 

And his age?

Less than 65.

[playit]

1 hour ago, caniac6 said:

Less than 65.

Just curious. I guess he likes making birdies.

[BlackDiamondPar5]

17 hours ago, oikos1 said:

The USGA has course ratings for men and women.  Women receive a different course rating, and therefore different stroke allocations, than men.  And that is based on distance.  Which was my original point in regards to age.

 

b. Same Tees:

Men vs. Women Men and women playing from the same set of tees will have different ratings. Because the women's USGA Course Rating usually will be higher, women receive additional stroke(s) equal to the difference between ratings, with .5 or greater rounded upward. Example : If women playing from the middle tees from which the women's USGA Course Rating is 77.3 compete against men playing from the middle tees from which the men's USGA Course Rating is 70.9, the women will add six strokes (77.3 - 70.9 = 6.4 rounded to 6) to their Course Handicap

Agreed but those are NOT men and women tees, they are different ratings for the same tees.  No person should be reluctant, regardless of age or gender, to play tees appropriate for their driving distance and skill. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/course-care/green-section-record/58/3/rethinking-forward-tees.html

 

[rwc356]

Age 69 and I moved up to a blend of senior / middle tees this year. Decision was not based on age, it was based on course distance. I've just gotten tired of most par 4's being a driver, 7W, chip. I can still reach the par 3's and 5's OK from the middle tees - just couldn't handle the 380+ par 4s. 

 

I agree that tee choice should be based on your distance capability and your desire for fun. I will still play the back tees occasionally and I know I will be hitting fairway woods into the par 4's and hybrids into the par 5's. Not something I want to do everyday but if I get enough strokes, who knows ....

[Barfolomew]

Hopefully never

[Mudguard]

15 hours ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

Agreed but those are NOT men and women tees, they are different ratings for the same tees.  No person should be reluctant, regardless of age or gender, to play tees appropriate for their driving distance and skill. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/course-care/green-section-record/58/3/rethinking-forward-tees.html

 

No they're not specified as such. But if the default tee is played by one gender, then it's gonna be referred to as that tee...

WHS mitigates it a little however for tournaments of any kind you'll probably need to specify which tee is being used, otherwise near pins, long drives etc become unfair. 

As I said, your handicap depends on your gender. Which I think is wrong. They need to average the distance component of the rating calculation and take gender out of it. 

 

One thorny issue we have with WHS is the Saturday haggle can be played off any tee. Three out of four Saturdays it will be a stableford. However we also have a twos component, there's a small payout per two made, and a jackpot for multiple twos. However the par threes range from 90m from the forward most tees, and 200m from the longest. So it's hardly equitable. As the jackpot often isn't struck, it can get to a reasonable size. Enough for a few of us to go to the "Red" tee and hit sandwedges into the par threes. 

[Bob M]

On 10/7/2021 at 10:16 AM, rwc356 said:

Age 69 and I moved up to a blend of senior / middle tees this year. Decision was not based on age, it was based on course distance. I've just gotten tired of most par 4's being a driver, 7W, chip. I can still reach the par 3's and 5's OK from the middle tees - just couldn't handle the 380+ par 4s. 

 

I agree that tee choice should be based on your distance capability and your desire for fun. I will still play the back tees occasionally and I know I will be hitting fairway woods into the par 4's and hybrids into the par 5's. Not something I want to do everyday but if I get enough strokes, who knows ....

 

Great post! I turned 65 in May and continue to play the white tees (about 5,800 yards at my home course).....for now. At this point, the longest par-4 that I can reach is about 365 yards, which takes Driver and 7-wood. From 7-wood distance, there is a high likelihood that I will miss right or left and have to chip on anyway. 

 

A few weeks back I played the front-9 from our Gold tees (about 2,700 yards with the full 18 being 5,200 yards) and frankly, had a ball! It was really fun to be able to go at the green with an 8 or 9-iron (or even a wedge) as my second shot.

 

Distance is the key, rather than age. According to "Tee it Forward" based on my typical length of drive, my ideal course length is 5,200 to 5,400 yards. 

[ZA206]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:12 PM, Pepperturbo said:

Moving up to easy old man's tee box just to be a "+" is cheater mentality.  NOT me.

 

And my wife is good-looking but not a trophy.  She is highly educated and a Corporate Director at a large company.  Call her that to her face, you may not like her reaction. 

 

Cheers to you Pepper for being a kept man!

It's a pipe dream for most of us! HAHAHA!!!!🤣

 

-ZA

[ZA206]

Most of the events I play in, the rule is 65 and older. There are several guys in my club/golf association who are 65+ that still hit it over 250 with the driver and it really ticks a bunch of us off.

 

As for myself, not sure when I'd move up. Either when the rest of my buddies want to move up (I'm not giving them strokes AND playing further back) or when I got to the point I was hitting mid and long irons into everything and never got to hit wedges.

 

-ZA

[BlackDiamondPar5]

1 hour ago, Bob M said:

 

Great post! I turned 65 in May and continue to play the white tees (about 5,800 yards at my home course).....for now. At this point, the longest par-4 that I can reach is about 365 yards, which takes Driver and 7-wood. From 7-wood distance, there is a high likelihood that I will miss right or left and have to chip on anyway. 

 

A few weeks back I played the front-9 from our Gold tees (about 2,700 yards with the full 18 being 5,200 yards) and frankly, had a ball! It was really fun to be able to go at the green with an 8 or 9-iron (or even a wedge) as my second shot.

 

Distance is the key, rather than age. According to "Tee it Forward" based on my typical length of drive, my ideal course length is 5,200 to 5,400 yards. 

I've been playing the white tee's periodically because my wife plays the most forward (gold) tees and the tee boxes are obviously much closer to the golds than the blues.  I have a lot of fun with the white tees.  Makes you play the course differently; a creek off one tee that isn't a factor from blue is very much a factor from white.  Also if my driver is hot it puts 4 par 4's within reach of excellent drives.  Definitely good fun and enjoyable to think about playing differently on your home course.  I'd love to see my home course come up with a blue/white combo tees. 

[NEOhio]

I’ve been in a Thursday league for 32 years that uses this formula;

Age and handicap added together; up to 89 blue tee, 90-99 white tee, 100 and over red tee. It’s kept guys in the league that otherwise would drop out as age increases and ability decreases. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by NEOhio

[RSinSG]

In the league I play in you can play the red tees once you hit 80 years old. There are two payouts for white and red, and most guys are happy to move up as they score better and win some cash.

 

A couple of years ago one of the nicer guys in the league moved up to the reds and every week his name was on the payout sheet. You would have thought he was leading the FedEx standings he was so happy. He also got his first HIO that year.

[Mudguard]

Moving up or down a tee block shouldn't make a difference to the results. Everyone's handicap gets adjusted, so I wouldn't even bother with age related tees. 

Pre WHS my handicap would change a single stroke between playing our shortest and longest tees, now from the black tees I'm a ten, from the red I'm a zero. So that ought to mitigate any age related issues. 

[playit]

What is WHS?

[ThinkingPlus]

44 minutes ago, playit said:

What is WHS?

World Handicap System - the mostly shared worldwide handicap system that all players play under who have handicaps.

[playit]

6 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Moving up or down a tee block shouldn't make a difference to the results. Everyone's handicap gets adjusted, so I wouldn't even bother with age related tees. 

Pre WHS my handicap would change a single stroke between playing our shortest and longest tees, now from the black tees I'm a ten, from the red I'm a zero. So that ought to mitigate any age related issues. 

 

Now that I know that WHS stands for World Handicap System, I don't understand your paragraph, above, in bold. Your index is much different with the WHS? Can you explain?

[ThinkingPlus]

5 minutes ago, playit said:

 

Now that I know that WHS stands for World Handicap System, I don't understand your paragraph, above, in bold. Your index is much different with the WHS? Can you explain?

The handicap calculations used to require a manual adjustment to handle the differences in course rating between tees (many folks neglected this manual step and played matches from different tees with incorrect handicaps).  Under the changes with implementation of the WHS, course rating is automatically included in handicap calculations.

[Mudguard]

18 hours ago, playit said:

 

Now that I know that WHS stands for World Handicap System, I don't understand your paragraph, above, in bold. Your index is much different with the WHS? Can you explain?

My index is no different. My course handicap varies dramatically (which it should given the change in difficulty).

 

Until the World Handicap System you would run most competitions or matches off the same tee, because if you used different tees (say forward tees for older players) you had to manually adjust everyone's handicaps. Why should someone who plays off a ten for a middle tee, stay on a ten for the forward tee etc. 

 

My home course probably isn't a good example as it has five tees, most courses here will have a couple, but the WHS has presented a new dilemma. Our Saturday haggle is a stableford three weeks out of four, so perhaps one medal per month (hey, we're a colony, stableford is how we roll). So each Saturday I have a choice, I could play the Black tees at 6400M but get ten shots, or I could play the Red tees at 4712M and get zero shots. Do I back myself to score more stablefords on the long or the short tees? It is interesting, there are some par fours that are reachable, all the par fives suddenly become reachable with an iron etc. 

 

The only issue we have is that we have a 'twos' jackpot, make two twos in a Saturday comp and you win an accruing jackpot. So when it gets up to a reasonable amount, suddenly sand wedge into the par threes from the Reds looks very appealing!!

[vandyfan]

Also, unpopular opinion, but if you are shooting in the 90s or higher, you might consider playing a few tees up and "earn" your way back. Courses generally can't, and probably shouldn't, mandate this but I think if people looked at which tees to play more as a function of their skill level instead of how far they can hit their best drives we might be able to get around in less than 5 hours at the local muni. 

 

When I came back to golf after a 5 year layoff I started at the forward tees and committed to having to shoot under 80 to move back. It took me a few months to get back to the standard men's tees and gave me an appreciation for playing from different tees. Just an idea. 

[Ri_Redneck]

I go by this:

 

Par 3s - Can I get there with an iron even if the wind kicks up?

Par 4s - Same thing for 2nd shot.

 

If I can say yes to both, I play those tees.

 

Also, everyone talks about length, but rarely talks about width. Super narrow courses can eat your lunch at any length, so if you're not a straight shooter, stick to the w i d e r courses and have more fun!

 

BTW, if you want a moral boost, go out to the Rocky Mtns and play some high elevation courses! They're a blast!

 

BT

Edited October 21, 2021 by Ri_Redneck

[rwc356]

On 10/18/2021 at 3:33 PM, Mudguard said:

Moving up or down a tee block shouldn't make a difference to the results. Everyone's handicap gets adjusted, so I wouldn't even bother with age related tees. 

Pre WHS my handicap would change a single stroke between playing our shortest and longest tees, now from the black tees I'm a ten, from the red I'm a zero. So that ought to mitigate any age related issues. 

 

When I moved to the blended tees (Senior / Mens), my average score went down about 4 strokes but my handicap only dropped about .5 - due to the lower course rating. I'm hoping I can improve my putting (weakest link for sure) and get the handicap down below 10.

[northgolf]

I'll move up to the senior tees when I am no longer hitting mid and high irons to the green on my second shot.  I'm 62 and I can play 6700 yds, much more than that and there will be par 4's that I would play as 4.5s.

[mmakowski]

Hopefully 70+

[MikeW2]

50…if the PGA guys graduate to the Senior Tour and their shorter tees at 50 then I should as well.

[phil75070]

Rather than confine yourself to a specific set of tees, the guys who have said they play "blended tees" have got it right. Pick and choose a few holes like par 4s that are unreachable in two and move up. You can always adjust the course rating and slope when posting a score. For example, my group plays two holes from the forward/red tees and everything else from the Whites. That reduces the course length by 126 yards meaning the course rating gets reduced by .6 and  the slope by 1.

[golfarb1]

The below chart is from the 2019 USGA 

Driver distance report released in 2020

The average of all golfers is 217 yards with only the 6-12 handicap group at 222 yards  and the 6<Handicap at 243 yards exceeding that average. 
Using the rule of thumb of playing courses 26-27 times your average driver length , the average golfer should play courses of less than 5860 yards. 
Given the average distance of those golfers with handicaps >12 , the determination to play the senior tees should be based upon handicaps and not age. 
Playing  shorter tees might make some feel less “macho “but it will probably lead to less frustration and faster play. 
 

[ThinkingPlus]

5 minutes ago, golfarb1 said:

The below chart is from the 2019 USGA 

Driver distance report released in 2020

The average of all golfers is 217 yards with only the 6-12 handicap group at 222 yards  and the 6<Handicap at 243 yards exceeding that average. 
Using the rule of thumb of playing courses 26-27 times your average driver length , the average golfer should play courses of less than 5860 yards. 
Given the average distance of those golfers with handicaps >12 , the determination to play the senior tees should be based upon handicaps and not age. 
Playing  shorter tees might make some feel less “macho “but it will probably lead to less frustration and faster play. 
 

But once you factor in the testosterone factor you need 7000+ yard courses.  Very sad, but well known amongst women.

[golfarb1]

If you look at the above chart more closely, one will notice that distances across all handicap levels have not increased since 2005., about the time that the USGA instituted the .86 COR( trampoline ) limit. 
Prices of drivers have soared since them. Isn’t that the definition of inflation - the same results for more money. 

[juststeve]

Not yet and I'm 73 years old.

 

Steve

[BlackDiamondPar5]

On 10/24/2021 at 8:16 AM, phil75070 said:

Rather than confine yourself to a specific set of tees, the guys who have said they play "blended tees" have got it right. Pick and choose a few holes like par 4s that are unreachable in two and move up. You can always adjust the course rating and slope when posting a score. For example, my group plays two holes from the forward/red tees and everything else from the Whites. That reduces the course length by 126 yards meaning the course rating gets reduced by .6 and  the slope by 1.

 

Are you saying I could play a blue/white combo on my course and somehow post a score even if they don't provide the slope and rating for those blended tees?  I'd be interested in know how that works.