It’s been a debate that has gone on almost as long as the game has been played: what is the proper distance golfers should be playing from?
Of course, many Neanderthal males often insist on playing “the back tees”, almost always stretching well past 6,000 metres and often measuring somewhere in the 6,200-to-6,400-metre range and beyond. Playing from the plates might be a boost to the ego, but it’s also pretty much a guarantee to be a killer for your score, and pace of play for the entire course, if you have no business being back there.
An Instagram post from athletic_motion_golf got our attention with a simple, yet seemingly perfectly reasonable, equation for what distance to play from.
Take your 5-iron distance and multiply it by 36 to get the distance you should be playing from.
Of course, we immediately got our phones out and started using the calculator. One editor who hits his 5-iron 175 metres came out to 6,300, and he plays tees at 6,344 on his home course. Another who hits it 160 (calling for 5,760 metres), plays a course just under 6,000 metres.
But won’t it get too short? We don’t know – you tell us. At 150 metres, that would be a course measuring 5,400 metres. But if you’re hitting your 5-iron only that far, maybe you should be playing that distance, at least if you want to really enjoy the game. The days of men’s tees and women’s tees should be over. In fact, it’s antiquated to use the term “women’s tees” at all. It should simply be the distances and which sets of tees we look at.
If your 5-iron goes only 70 metres, a regulation course isn’t fun. But one with tees – even if in the fairway – measuring 2,520 metres would be a great way to keep people in the game. Think about it.
A few years ago, the USGA attempted to get golfers to “Play if Forward”. It was, in some ways, a tough message for golfers to wrap their head around. The hope here is that some simple maths makes that process easier to understand.
