Barb Hanson
It happened again. I played a new course that boasted “a tee for every game,” but there was no tee for me. This seems to be happening a lot especially with newer courses. There’s a forward tee somewhere between 4800 and 5000 yards. Then the tees lengthen to 5900 or 6000 yards followed by 6200, 6400, 6600 and maybe a championship tee close to 7000 yards.
I’m a 10-handicap who would like more length than 5000 yards. Something between 5400 and 5700 would be nice. But several times this summer I’ve had to “design my own course” in order to play a course that I find enjoyable.
I feel like the golf course architects are skipping a whole segment of golfers when they set up tees as described above. If men get a choice of 4 or 5 different lengths, shouldn’t women get at least 2 choices?
Barb, I am glad to see that I am not alone in my frustration with golf course yardage. I frequently play courses (new and old) that have yardage for 4900 yards or 6000 yard and nothing in the middle. I wish more courses would do what Chaska Town Course has done to solve the problem without creating an additional set of tees. They have added to the scorecard a distance that includes some holes being played off the reds and some off the whites. It made for a nice inbetween distance and all I had to do was pay attention to what teebox I should hit off of on that hole. Like you say, golf courses say they are trying to accomodate every golfer, but I don’t feel that they are doing much for women golfers other than to assume that they will all want to hit off the shortest tees.
Barb, agree with your assessment of tees. Whomever is setting up the golf courses doesn’t understand the varying abilities in the women’s game (just like the men). To go from 4900 to 5900 with nothing in between is absurd. Usually there is a good “combo” set of tees that would be very playable for many women. Some women have created this at their own golf courses. When are the courses or golf course architects going to get the message that women would like variety too?