Machismo Mafia On The Tee

Black, blue, white, green, gold--nearly every golf course offers a choice of tee boxes meant to make the game enjoyable for every player. Unfortunately, testosterone determines the tee box most players choose.

Instead of playing a course length appropriate to their physical ability and skill level—one where they can play every club in their bag, face the widest variety of challenging approach shots, and get the greatest amount of satisfaction from the game—they insist on hitting from the back tees. No girly men here!

Ask them why, and they’ll say something like “I want to see all the course.” It’s a stupid observation, but one unfortunately true in a way they don’t realize. Because they’re trying to hit their tee shot farther (consciously or not), they’re much more likely to drive the ball off-line, greatly increasing the chances of seeing the rough, the trees, the lakes, the next fairway, and the patio beyond the out-of-bound stakes. Sure makes the game fun.

Even when they somehow make the fairway, these “bombers” are usually well back from the position where the course designer intended the second shot on the hole to be played. Most courses are designed for a 250-yard drive, which is what the USGA expects the scratch player to hit. The machismo mafia may think they drive the ball 280 or even 300 like the pros, but I guarantee they hit the vast majority of their tee shots 235 or less on a good day. Once a month it goes 260; once a season 280. We all remember those bombs; unfortunately the reason we remember them so well is that they are the exception to the rule.

So, in those rare instances where it lands in the fairway, where does that 235-yard drive leave you for your second shot? Playing a hybrid or a fairway wood of (heaven forbid) a long iron into a green meant to be approached with a mid- or short-iron. And it’s a long way, so you swing harder, just like you did off the tee.

If the only time you hit a short iron is for your third shot on a par four, you’re playing from the wrong tees.

You should be guided to the correct tees by your handicap. Most courses recommend about a 10 or less play from the blues. Anything higher should go from the whites. Only a true scratch golfer should even think about playing the tips.

Another way is to analyze the scorecard in relation to your game. If your (honestly-measured) average drive goes 235, subtract that from the yardage of the par fours on the course. If you’re left with over honest five-iron distance on more than a third of the par fours, you probably should be swinging from the whites.

Playing the right tees isn’t about shooting a lower score, by the way. It’s about getting the most enjoyment from your game. It takes a lot more skill to execute a wide variety of second shots than it does to bomb one off the tee and into the woods.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo

Invasion of the Square Heads

The morning mists drift serenely across the lush landscape at dawn. Suddenly, an other-worldly CLOANG! wrecks the pastoral calm and a white bullet streaks down the middle of the fairway. The square-heads have arrived.

The heads in question aren’t bobbing above alien shoulders; they’re attached to graphite shafts on revolutionary (looking, at least) clubs new in golf pro shops everywhere last year. Both Nike and Callaway introduced drivers with heads shaped like square bricks, firing yet another salvo in the golf equipment manufacturers’ battle to give the average golfer a fighting chance to make par.

The first thing everyone says who hits one--or even hears one being hit--is how weird they sound. I remember the same thing being said when metal "woods" began to replace persimmon ones, too. But the nostalgia for timber lasted about thirty seconds when golfers saw how hot the ball came off the face of titanium drivers. Suddenly, that "awful" sound faded into the background.

The same is happening with the square-headed drivers. “The people who’ve tried them like them a lot,” says Ardsley (NY) Country Club head pro Jim Bender, who put a Callaway FT-i in his bag when it came out as a prototype and fitted several Ardsley members with it last spring. “Distance-wise, we’re finding they’re about the same as the FT-5 driver, which is a really good model, too.”

What’s the advantage? “It’s maxing out the distance like all the other big-headed titanium clubs, but, with the weight distribution at the four corners, it allows for less opening and closing of the club face when mis-hits are made, so the ball stays on a straighter line.”

Even the low-handicapper can benefit from the new design, according to Bender: “The ball doesn’t curve as much, so if I’m hitting a draw that I used to curve ten yards, now I’m only curving it five yards.”

The real payoff comes, though, for those of us who only hit the sweet spot when we’re in a candy store. “It’s great for when you hit that toe ball or the heel shot every now and then,” Bender says. “It doesn’t go off-line like it does with some of the other drivers.” So who cares what it sounds like?

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo