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Advanced Forward Tees - FOR GOLF TODAY
Released on: Dec 1, 2007
Advanced Forward Tees
FOR GOLF TODAY
Bob Goligoski
Eight-year-old Jarrod Endter teed off from about 90 yards out and watched excitedly as his ball found the green on the par three hole. It was the first time Jarrod had landed a green from a tee box since he took up the game at the ripe young age of seven.
Jarrod’s feat was recorded at the Carson Valley Golf Course in Gardnerville, Nevada, near Lake Tahoe. Carson Valley was the first golf course west of the Mississippi to build permanent tee boxes (two on each of the 18 holes) that lie in front of the standard blue, white and red tee boxes and give children and other golfers a shorter, quicker and less frustrating course to play.
John Endter, who was on the course that day with his son, recalled that after his first-time shot, “Jarrod was whooping and hollering and jumping up and down. He was major league fired up.”
John, Jarrod and his sister Kelsey, 12, live in nearby Minden, Nevada, and frequently play the regulation 18-hole, 41-year old course.
John, who plays from the standard tees, explained that “these forward tees allow us all to play together. We have a lot of fun here. But I could see that there would be quite a frustration factor if Jarrod and Kelsey had to hit from the back tees as I do.”
Experiences such as those enjoyed by the Endter’s are sweet music to Tom Brooks and his wife Manya, co-owners of the Carson Valley course.
“We looked at golf’s declining numbers about four years ago,” recalled Tom, “and decided to do something about it. So we put in the advanced forward tees three years ago to help our business. And it certainly helped. This is a profitable golf course in an area where a number of courses are not making money.”
Carson Valley’s junior instruction program, which formerly attracted only 40 to 50 youngsters under 17 each summer, now has upped that number to about 300 participants annually
He believes that the forward tees and other programs at Carson Valley have gone a long way to attack “the three main problems holding back the growth of golf – it is too hard to play, it takes too long to play and it is not affordable.”
U.S. Kids Golf, the largest manufacturer of children’s golf clubs in the world, is credited with coming up with the concept of golf courses installing permanent forward tees – two additional tee boxes for each hole – about seven years ago.
Dan Van Horn, who founded the Georgia-based company, said that “it just made sense to try and shorten the courses to get more people into the game. Ski resorts, for example, do this with their bunny runs for novice skiers and then have longer intermediate, advanced and expert runs for other skiers.
“Today you have all these different ladies tees that are still too long for kids, other beginners and some seniors too. So to make it fun, we came up with this idea. The reality is that you usually want to go play with your family.”
Jim McGrath, general manager of the Santa Teresa Golf Course in San Jose, said that “we put in these advanced tee boxes last year. A course set up with the standard tee boxes, plus these advanced tees, allows established golfers to go out with golfers just starting out and all of them can enjoy the course.”
Santa Teresa’s advanced tees most distant from the green are essentially in the landing area where an established golfer would land his or her tee shot. So the established golfer would be taking that second shot roughly from where one partner would tee off. And then the real neophyte in the group would be ready to hit from the tee box closest to the hole in the general area where the other golfers landed their shots.
So foursomes stay together and can record similar scores. The pace of play problem is solved as hackers, who formerly might take 10 or 12 shots per hole as they worked their way down the fairways, now typically shoot two or three over par per hole.
Van Horn estimates that about 300 golf courses – out of an estimated 15,000 nationally -- have some sort of forward tees. But it is undetermined how many of these courses have built permanent forward tee boxes and how many have simply planted a junior tee plate marker somewhere on the fairways between the ladies tees and the greens.
Tom Brooks opined that “it is quite important to put in permanent forward tee boxes. The kids and others starting out want to have their own tee boxes. It gives them a sense of ownership.”
(I played recently on a typical Bay Area municipal course where the junior tee areas were marked only by plates on the course. In many cases, they had been semi-covered by mowed grass and other debris and were quite hard to locate.)
The Carson Valley course score card also has been expanded to include the two forward tees, marked as the yellow and green tees on the course. The length of the green tee course is 1,967 yards with individual holes ranging from 37 to 195 yards. The yellow course is a 3,511-yard challenge with hole distances of 53 to 332 yards. The full regulation course from the tips is 6,020 yards.
U.S. Kids Golf recommends a green tee course length of 2,200 yards and a yellow tee course of 3,750 yards.
The Santa Teresa course generally followed those guidelines. “This has given us,” said McGrath, “basically an executive course inside the regular course.”
Why don’t more golf courses put in permanent forward tees to lure new golfers and increase their business?
“That is the big question,” said Brooks. “I really don’t know why.”
McGrath believes that perhaps some courses are leery “of having too many kids on the course. We have not found this to be a problem. I don’t think that enough people have discovered the idea and thought about it.”
Van Horn added, “This is such a logical idea. But I don’t think many people have given it much thought.”
He believes that real progress potentially is being made with the advanced tees concept because “the PGA had jumped in. We recently presented the idea to the PGA and asked them to partner with us to promote it. They said yes and have started advertising and promoting forward tees late this year.”
Van Horn checked demographic surveys recently and found that although the total number of golfers remains essentially the same from year to year, the children’s segment is growing.
“Courses that put in these advanced tees have found that it does help their business,” he said.
During the summer months, Santa Teresa used to open its course for free to families one day a week during the last 90 minutes of daylight. About the time the advanced tees were put in, the demand for the free family time grew so quickly that the course now offers the free golf five days a week during the summer.
McGrath said that “the forward tees are what really make this idea work. Now they don’t need to take 10 or 12 shots per hole and they can play more holes. This has resulted in more business because some of these people have started coming back earlier in the day as paid customers.”
Besides the added business, the advanced tees at the Carson Valley Golf Course helped it gain considerable recognition last year when the National Golf Course Owners Association voted it the best learning course of the year in Nevada.
Van Horn said we “applaud Carson Valley’s commitment to help kids develop their games and make it easier for families to enjoy time together on the golf course. When a course is fun to play, families will come to play together and they’ll keep coming back.”
It is difficult to determine how far the forward tees idea has progressed into reality in the U.S. A spokesman for the Northern California Golf Association said that while the NCGA supports the effort to get more people to play golf, it does not monitor courses to determine advanced tees status.
Also, the U.S. Kids Golf web site, which has a section where one can ostensibly find courses in a given state with advanced tees, is of little help as the section is clearly not up to date.
There are also courses such as San Joe Municipal which have ventured part-way into the scene. About a year ago, the course built one advanced permanent tee per hole – dubbed them the orange tees and added it to the score card. While the course plays 6,700 yards from the tips, the orange tees play out at 4,200 yards.
Most golfers may not even notice when a course puts in permanent, advanced tee boxes. The tee boxes usually are on the side of the fairway, are not very elevated and are essentially non-obtrusive.
U.S. Kids Golf sells the tee plates to golf courses at $900 for a full set. There are two plates per each tee, one near the cart path to note the general location and a larger plate out on the course to mark the actual tee location.
Usage of advanced tees appears to have gained a stronger foothold in the eastern half of the country thus far. Golf course managers there have offered several comments on the trend similar to that uttered by Cimarron Grubb, general manager of the Maumelle Country Club in Maumelle, Arkansas:
“Since the addition of the U.S. Kids Golf fairway tee markers, our juniors are playing more and the parents have become more active. We are using the program as a strong selling point for potential new members for the club. I would highly recommend this program.”
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