Play from the right tees

By Steve Gordon

I played golf at River Winds on Father's Day. My long time golf partner and I signed up for an afternoon round and we were teamed up with a single player which was just fine.

We're on the first tee and sitting at the 6576 yard white tees we usually play. We're both seniors but we can still hit it OK. The single player was a guy probably in his 50's built like a barrel standing maybe 5-8 and wearing a golf shirt several sizes too big not tucked in.

Now it's not fair to judge anyone on appearance but I put that description in just to provide you with a mental image. Anyway, he hung back on the tee as we were preparing to tee off. He said to go ahead and hit and we proceeded to put a couple decent drives out on the opening par 5 hole.

As we walked back to the cart he stepped up on the 7086 yard black tees. Well...ok we thought. Looks are deceiving? Maybe this guy has some game? One swing answered that question. I am not a pro that I can judge a player on his swing, but I work as a starter at a local club two days a week and you get a good feel generally for who the players are and aren't watching the various swings. This guy wasn't a player.

I think he hit multiple tee shots on nearly every hole so it's a good thing the foursome behind us wasn't pushing. They did get to view this spectacle a couple times however and I am not certain but I think I heard chuckling? He had to have lost at least a dozen balls in the course of the round.

I could not wrap my head around it but I had to block it out and play my game with my partner. I mean it wasn't my place to say anything to him as much as I wanted to and I was kind of hoping that after a couple holes he'd cave and move up to the white tees with us where it would still be questionable that he could keep pace with us from there. We are mid teen handicaps but we were playing pretty good overall Sunday.

Obviously the Play It Forward concept escaped this player. H was wearing a USGA member hat so he had to have heard about it. He could not reach many of the par 4's in regulation and even came up short on two of the longer par 3 holes. Forget the 642 yard par 5 13th hole (white tees are 592) on even getting to the green in three.

We enjoyed our round as we don't get together as often as we'd like because we don't live in the same state and it's tough to schedule and arrange to meet to play. We didn't cross paths with him often as he was far behind us on the tee, further behind on the fairway and so the only time we were all in the same proximity was on the green putting.

I am writing this just to point out the classic example of why people should pick and play from the proper set of tees suited to their ability. My partner and I have been places where we played the senior tees because the conditions and the white tees were just too much golf course for us.

It is hard to imagine that this player enjoyed his round unless he is a masochist. During the round he did say he was going to play several rounds in Scotland and Wales in a couple weeks. I wonder how that is going to work out?

The point is to play the proper set of tees with a yardage that you can enjoy the game and gives you a chance to score well. My personal theory on this is that if you can't play reasonably well from a certain set of tees you need to move up. Sure, it's a challenge, but if you don't have the game then you aren't challenging yourself, you are just beating yourself up.

If he played Oakmont from the back tees I'd say playing by the rules I could see a score somewhere near 150 or more. Even with his multiple mulligans at River Winds there is no way he could have broken 100 Sunday not to mention it wouldn't be a legitimate score.