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Overlooked in the recent Distance Insights Project report from the USGA and the R&A was the following statement: “We have identified a concern that many recreational golfers are playing from longer tees than is necessary relative to their hitting distances.” More simply stated, we are playing from the wrong tees. Many of us. Perhaps most of us of a certain age.
This idea crystallized something that had been troubling me for some months: that 2019 was the worst performance year of my 49 years playing this confounding game. It also was the year in which I had the least fun. There is a 100 percent correlation between playing poorly and no fun.
I asked my golf pro about this, and he asked a perfectly fair question: Do you know how long you play the course? I actually had no idea. I simply went to the men’s regular tees every time I played, as I have at this golf course for more than three decades.
The problem is that the regular tees clock in at about 6,800 yards. I cannot play any longer, if I want to have fun, from 6,800 yards. A harsh realization.
I wasn’t trying to make a statement by heading to these tees; it was simply habit. These are the tees that I and my golf pals play from, just as we always have.
I recently shared my learning breakthrough with Jason Gore, the former PGA Tour player who became the USGA’s senior director of player relations in 2019. To my observation about habit, he blurted out, “What we need is a national step-down day.”
Gore was playing professionally in 2011 and probably wasn’t paying attention when the USGA and the PGA of America teamed up to create the “Tee It Forward” initiative. This was an idea advanced by Barney Adams, the founder of Adams Golf. The program designated a two-week period in July during which all golfers would be encouraged to play courses at a length aligned with their average driving distance.
The problem is that this initiative was a one-year wonder; it disappeared quickly, subsumed by some other platform (remember “While We’re Young?”).
The leaders of our global game have their plates full, and I am reluctant to add yet another task to their to-do lists. But bringing back the Tee It Forward program, and making it a sustained annual effort, is an idea worth considering.
In the meantime, if you are looking for me on the golf course this year, check the 6,300-yard tees.
Jim Nugent