Is 6500 really like playing the ladies tees??? What is your handicap?

Most courses I play are between 65-67 from the blues...Crowded Muni's in NY, though.

6400 is really short for men, but really long for ladies (club tees).

If I play another course, I would always go for trny tees if possible. Feel like a waste of course and experience if I don´t. Just my opinion obv.

I'm used to playing closer to 7k I guess, I really don't know what a ladies distance is but to see most par 4s so short seemed odd to me... My handicap is that I'm bad at golf (or a 27 for now)

Don't hate me for saying this but if you're a 27 handicap you'll learn a lot more and have a lot more fun by playing from 6400 than you would from 7k. (And 6400 really isn't like outlandishly short, my old home course is only 6004 yds due to property constraints) Then as you improve, drop to a further back tee. 7000 or 7400 as a 27 handicap just seems to me like a lot of frustration and almost a waste of time.

Yeah I'm a 16 handicap and play from what ever tees are between 6600 & 7000 which are normally the blues. Whites around here are normally 6200-6600 (lots of senior citizens). But the main reason I dont play the whites is if Im paying to play a course might as well get the full effect. But anything over 6800+ just winds up being a really long day so I try to avoid the tips if the course has those tees.

Doesn't course rating and slope account for all this?

You can hit 250 yard drives in the fairway and still be a 27 handicap. If your short game is not good. Playing from the shorter tees doesn't do much to alleviate short game woes.

If GambleGamble can hit solid drives in the fairway he can probably play the blues. Playing a shorter course won't help much if his short game is where he's weak.

I believe he used the word godawful to describe his play with the driver

But since god is infallible then gods most aweful (golf swing in this case) is still perfect right? So his driver is perfect imo.

Please move this post to RG&T

Yeah if you are a 27 handicap, def play something <6500 if possible. Makes for a much better experience.

Me and a few friends were at the bar the other day and the Golf Channel was on one of the tvs and that Titleist commercial came on where it says 5730 players or something like that play Titleist while the nearest competitor was 890. I commented that of those 5730 I would surprised if less than 5729 play anything other than ProV1 or ProV1x to which one of my friends responded that he would bet out of all those players at least 2-3% play something like NXT, Tour Distance, etc. just to get that ball's name out. There is no way any more than like 0.01% of those 5730 play non-ProVs right? Also, who is the nearest competitor? I thought it was probably Callaway.

COMPLETE golf noob here. Literally just getting into it. Got me a set of top-flite clubs (new). Was told by a buddy that I needed a wedge. But he wasn't sure what a hybrid was and said he will check out my set to see if they do the same job. Like I said I am a complete noob so the first few pages of this thread was information overload. can anyone suggest a solid starting point to build on without getting too technical like shafts/fitted. Im just looking to 'get my feet wet' atm. Cuz im clueless when it comes to handicapping/shooting 70/80/90 etc. I don't even know the proper way to hold a driver. Don't really trust too much info from some online sources. (Besides here). Lotsa thanks.

A hyrbid usually replaces a long iron and possibly a wood like a 5 or 7 wood (sometimes possibly a 3 wood). A wedge is going to be a lofted club typically in the range of 48 degrees to 60 degrees. Your set you bought probably includes a PW o many standard bags will also include an "approach" or "gap" wedge which is typically like 52 degrees or so and then a sand wedge which is typically around 56 degrees. I would say the average "beginners" bag would have driver, 3 wood, 5 wood, 3-PW, GW, SW and putter or possibly substitute the 3 iron and 4 iron for a 3 hybrid and/or 4 hybrid which has similar loft/distances as your 3 iron and 4 iron but are easier to hit due to how they are constructed.

Try going up to your local golf course and/or range and asking about beginners lessons. At least take a couple lessons to understand the very basics of the swing and then you can decide what to do from there.

If you are consistently hitting 250 yard drives in the fairway you aren't going to be a 27 handicap regardless of how bad your short game is. A 27 handicap shouldn't be complaining that a 6500 course is too short either. If you are a 27 handicap you are probably holding everyone up on any course, regardless if it is <6500 yards.

Where do you live? How much time do you plan on devoting to golf? Do you have enough money to pay for introductory lessons (~$250).

Almost certainly, your best bet would be to get started with lessons from an instructor who has experience teaching beginners. I wish I could start out with a fresh slate and learn good habits from the start.

i agree with all of this exept for the last part, thats pretty unfair to say imo...great golfers can take forever and awful golfers can play fast, to generalize and say that being over a 25 handicap means your holding everyone up is pretty ignorant

Great golfers can play slow, but it is pretty impossible for a 25+ handicapper to play fast. And I don't really think they were saying that 25+ will always hold people up, it is just that a 25+ playing from championship tees is all but guaranteed to be taking forever.

Ill try and cover all the comments etc:

I ended up playing the blues which played 6370 with a rating/slope 69.7/115

My driver was terrible for the most part today, and I switched to a 5i off the tee where I lose ~50 or so yards but I am consistently where I want to. FWIW I think I figured out my driver a little bit today, I got a little too cocky and let some minor things I worked on in lessons all winter slip away and as soon as I started implementing them again I got where I needed to be.

I for one dont **** around on the course and hold things up, played 18holes today in 3hrs 20min and played 18holes in ~5 hours on a full course on Saturday.

I counted my **** ups on the front 9 today:
3 drops
5 "duffs"
4 3putts
...so roughly 12 strokes that IMO can be cleaned up, 2 of the holes we were waived through by a 4some and I hate it and always rush to get out of the way and I definitely had some of these issues on these holes.

My main issues today, because even when I hit bad off the tee I am pretty consistent on the 2nd shot is my short game. Ive just been not good from within 70yds and consistently would take 4-5 strokes to get it to the hole from there but honestly once I get my touch back there Ill play closer to a ~20 handicap and could easily see breaking 90 a couple of times this year.

More detailed round going into the WYST thread

Not sure how you guys define "fast" but as a 34 handicap, I'm fully capable of playing within the pace of play at least. Even on a crowded weekend. A lot of the strokes added to a high handicap don't take a ton of real time. If you keep an extra ball in your pocket and don't waste time choosing clubs or taking more than 1-2 practice swings.

Ripping a ball into water then dropping adds a stroke but doesn't take a lot of extra time (I always carry an extra ball for drops).

Mega-slicing a drive OOB and either dropping where it went OOB and adding 2 strokes or re-teeing (and adding 2 strokes) doesn't take a whole lot of time.

Taking 3 shots to get out of 1 bunker doesn't take a ton of time.

4-putting doesn't take a ton of time.

And if my ESC is 9 for that course and I'm laying 7 and not on the green yet I can pick it up and assume a 9 max without having to hole out.

Wow.

6400 is not short. The typical yardage from the ladies tees is more like 5000-5500 yards. I'd say whites are normally 6000ish yards, however I live in Canada and maybe the courses are made shorter up here because the ball doesn't travel as far in the air (and the ground is often wet so we get minimal roll).

Most of the courses I play recommend playing the blues only if you are at least a 9 handicap, but if you hit the ball farther than the average guy and are say a 15 handicap then fine play the blues.

Being a 27 cap, you are going to have way more fun on the course if you play the whites, and it will speed up play so that everyone behind you will have more fun as well.

Look I wasn't saying that all high handicappers are slow and hold people up, I was simply saying that high handicappers are more likely than low ones to be holding up the show, that is all. It sounds like you guys play at a good pace which is great.


On a different tangent, my friends piss me off. I've really got to meet some people who enjoy golf as much as I do. Today my two golfing friends declined 9 holes this evening because one of them was "tired" after working a 4 hour shift. The other didn't want to play because "I dunno, its probably pretty wet out" since it rained this morning. Dude. Wet = scoring conditions man. ****. It is 71 degrees with no wind and here I sit, debating whether I really want to go play as a single or not.

+1 for most of this

I think people fail to realize that in most cases its only a ~stroke a hole and like PHB said in many cases its a drop, extra putt or even a good old fashioned duff and if the average shot takes about a minute you are only adding 18minutes or so to the round and also most people that are "bad" know they are so they tend to hurry up to make up for their extra time. I regularly play with a ~10 handicap and have played with better and if I was really taking forever then I assure you they wouldnt want to continue to play with me

I agree that your handicap does not determine how fast you play at all...I play with a guy who is roughly a 30handicap and he would probably finish 18 before Ben Crane finished the front nine.

However, You definitely will have more fun playing from the whites.
Hitting hybrids and long irons all day into the greens is not fun.
Hitting 0-2 GiR is not fun.

agree...maybes its a regional thing but around here whites at 6400 is probably on the high side for most of the public courses...its not often that i play a course that is 7000+ from the tips, the more expensive upscale public courses in the area may play 7000 or 7100 but even some of those are less than 7000

this is optimal and all good but unfortunately not the norm imo, its much more common to see people bomb it into the woods/OB and then spend 3-5 minutes wandering around looking for the ball

I agree.

The things that make someone slow are:
-the extra time they take on their pre-shot routine
-leaving their bag/push cart on the wrong side of the green
-spending extra time than normal to read their putts
-spending time searching for their ball because they didn't watch it land
etc..

if all four guys in a group waste one minute each per hole, then a four hour round turns into a five and a half hour round.