Raymond Hearn Articles
Does your course’s teeing system make
sense?
From the July 2005 'On Course Magazine' for the Midwest Association
of Golf Course Superintendents
If tee
boxes could talk, they would likely sound like the late comedian
Rodney Dangerfield: They don’t get no respect. This has
something to do with not being as photogenic, as varied, as “sexy”
as greens, bunkers, and other elements of golf course architecture.
Commentators during the recent U.S. Open Championship couldn’t
stop talking about Pinehurst No. 2’s turtle-shell-contoured
putting surfaces and elaborate green complexes. But, having
logged my share of tube time watching the event, I recall almost no
pearls of wisdom concerning tee placements, beyond the observation
that, like most classic courses, No. 2’s tee boxes tend to be
relatively close to the preceding green.
Fair
enough, except that for all us non-Open players, tee placement and
maintenance are immensely important to strategy and – more important
in this “let’s-grow-the-game” era – in attracting and retaining new
and infrequent players, who tend by definition to be less
accomplished. So while I’m not surprised that Pinehurst’s
greens are the story of the tournament, I am frequently amazed at
how little understanding of, and attention to, the tee box system
receives from owners and managers who should know better. And
though the reasons for this lack of regard may vary, it seems to
apply across the spectrum of facilities: public and private,
high-end daily fee, muni, you name it.
An
unreconstructed perspective on tee box options may even be
deliberate, rather than inadvertent, as a noted national golf course
rater once explained to me. Having often encountered
resistance to the suggested additions or alterations to various
courses’ network of tee boxes, he noted that this reluctance was
usually explained not as stubbornness but as devotion to the game’s
traditions: “Our tees haven’t changed in a quarter of a
century. Why would we do it now?” Sadly, as the rater
also noted, such a defense of the faith generally coincides with a
decline in rounds played at pay-for-play courses, a struggle to
retain members at private clubs.
During my
two decades as a practicing golf course architect, examples of
faulty tee design and placement have come in innumerable forms.
But it is fair to classify the vast majority into five significant
problem areas, as follows:
-
Failure to include forward
tee options suitable for beginners and high-handicap golfers.
-
Inadequate matching of
teeing options with the variety of regular players at the
course, public or private, in question.
-
Angles of play that impede
rather than promote the course’s strategic attractions,
especially “risk / reward” options.
-
Sight lines that fail to
capitalize on design elements, natural or man-made.
-
Teeing areas that make
maintenance difficult or impossible due to size, location, or
composition.
Fortunately, there is a flipside to the relative lack of attention
devoted to the tee box’s contribution to the playing experience,
namely that all the above are also comparatively easy to fix:
In most cases, it is a lot easier and less costly to rebuild a tee
box than a green.
1. Failure to include forward tee options
suitable for beginners and high-handicap golfers.
Though the
guilty party shall remain nameless, one of my recent projects – at a
respected private club in the Great Lakes region – illustrates the
point. Asked to make suggestions on the remodeling of a couple
of discrete areas on the course, my first recommendation didn’t even
require a site visit: A look at the scorecard revealed that
the forward-most tees played more than 5,800 yards. When I
questioned two club officials about the length, they replied with
obvious pride, “We have always wanted to ensure that our club is
very challenging from all tees, even the forward ones.” The
irony here is that they had contacted me in the face of difficulty
in attracting new members, especially juniors and the families who
had been the core of their membership and were now the object of a
roster-building campaign.
Of course,
the club’s target market is similar to that of the game generally.
But as obtuse as the point may seem, novice golfers, like
high-handicappers, need a realistic challenge. Personally, I
like to see courses offer a forward tee that can be played between
4,800 and 5,300 yards, depending on other variables affecting the
design decision; and favorable reaction from clients, both private
and public, confirms that golfers welcome the practice. Player
enjoyment, not some arbitrary concept of a “stern test,” ought to be
the guiding principle.
Indeed,
where possible and appropriate to the clientele, I also recommend
that courses offer a “young junior” set of tees for beginning
golfers, pre-teens, and super seniors that can be played at about
3,500 yards. Usually, it is unnecessary to build permanent
tees for this golfing population, as moveable tee markers, placed
along the edge of the fairway, with play limited to certain days and
times, will suffice. The sense of making these tees “official”
can be instilled by printing separate scorecard -- a nice touch.
Again, it
sounds elementary but – take it from a guy whose job is to visit
lots of golf courses – the scarcity of playable forward tees is a
pervasive, industry-wide problem. And it is important enough
to beginners and high-handicappers to represent a crucial impediment
to expanding participation in golf.
2.
Inadequate matching of teeing options with variety of regular
players at the course, public or private, in question.
The
existing teeing system of a public course at which I recently
consulted exhibited another common flaw. In this case, the
scorecard described the four-tee selection thus:
blue tee = 6,950
white tee = 6,750 gold tee = 5,950
red tee = 5,200
Plainly,
what was needed was a middle teeing option measuring roughly 6,300
yards. This, despite the owner’s acknowledgement that
complaints from patrons regularly had to do with the course playing
either too long or too short; and that among these complaints, most
came from golfers playing the white or gold tees, seldom from those
playing the blues or the reds, that is, the longest and shortest
sets of tees. The topography at the course in question will
make the addition of a new set of tees easy – which begs the
question of why it wasn’t done before. But ask yourself:
How many courses have you played where the first review of the
scorecard revealed the need for a “missing tee?”.
Similarly,
the differentials between multiple tee placements can appear to have
no rhyme or reason. Absolute, constant proportionality – 10
percent increments in yardage, say, between one tee and the next one
farther back or forward – are seldom possible on every hole, due to
pre-existing landforms that make such a rigid scheme implausible.
Still, it’s surprisingly often the case that no semblance of
proportionality exists, thereby negating the fundamental purpose –
to equalize the golf experience for players at all levels of
competence – of multiple tees.
3. Angles of play that impede rather
than promote the course’s strategic attractions, especially “risk /
reward” options
A cousin of
tee design shortcoming #2 ignores another strategic aspect useful in
making a round of golf both exciting and manageable for a variety of
players. It is to make tee shots easier or more difficult
according to their angles, not just the distances involved,
particularly those involving forced carries.
For
example, last year I consulted with a very prominent golf course in
upstate New York whose four-tee-box system unfortunately made
absolutely no sense. On many holes the attack angle associated
with a hazard or hazards located near landing areas turned the risk
/ reward formula on its head: Instead of emphasizing
forgiveness from the forward tees, it was the back tees that offered
more spacious “bail-out” areas.
Worse than
the tee placements themselves, though, was that many of the forward
tees were actually angled toward trouble – a more egregious design
and construction flaw than a less-than-ideal tee location. As
I hope my recommendations made clear, however, such defects are
fairly inexpensive and straightforward to remedy.
4.
Sight lines that fail to capitalize on design elements, natural or
man-made.
As many
noted golf course architects have observed, a golf course’s setting,
its purely “cosmetic” aspect, is key to the golfer’s appreciation of
the experience, and this is even more true of the average player
than the scratch player, who may be interested primarily in his
ball-striking. It is often possible to maximize tee-box vistas
without seriously jeopardizing “shot values” or other strategic
aspects associated with playing the course. Many times, in
fact, all that is entailed is to move a tee box laterally,
typically10 to 25 feet. As a designer, I know this has worked
when someone says, “Wow, I never really appreciated the view on this
hole. The scenery in the distance is beautiful.”
5.
Teeing areas that make maintenance difficult or impossible due to
size, location, or composition.
Most
golfers would cite canted tee box surfaces, threadbare turf, and
other defects as proof positive of inattentiveness on the part of
management; and while this is sometimes a valid complaint, some tee
box configurations simply cannot be maintained adequately regardless
of the expertise and dedication of the greenskeeping staff.
Many times this is attributable simply to the tee box’s size, or
lack thereof, which leads to excessive wear from player use. A
tee box that is too big is a problem both vastly less common and
less serious.
With all
the attention greens receive in terms of soil testing, I would
venture to guess that about 60-70 percent of courses I have visited
have tees that contain a soil mix incapable of proper drainage and
turf nourishment. The solution is to analyze the soil mix
using a USGA approved testing lab. If soil quality is the
problem the solution is to rectify it through deep aeration and
aggressive topdressing or rebuild the tees using proper tee mix.
Other problems plaguing healthy tees are restricted access routes,
excessive shade, root problems from trees, inadequate sprinkler
coverage, and poor turfgrass choices.
Like much
of golf course architecture, a good tee box system has much to do
with common sense. But as elementary as all of this sounds,
the five points listed above will resonate with many, even most,
golf course owners. And the issues may be simple, but their
resolution is far from trivial in the pursuit of new members or the
golfing public at large. A good place to start is to consult a
golf course architect to discuss potential areas of improvement.
Your tees still can’t talk, but your customers will thank you.
The author,
Raymond Hearn, is a member of the American Society of Golf
Course Architects and also heads the firm of Raymond Hearn Golf
Course Designs (WWW.RHGD.COM)
located in Holland, Michigan. |
