Not long ago, I dispatched a viciously slicing drive off the 1st tee at a golf club in Surrey, which eventually settled on a parallel fairway. While it wasn’t the start I was looking for, it didn’t bother me too much – I felt a par was still achievable and, if not, I had a shot to play with.
Shortly after picking my tee up, the slightly panicked starter rushed over. ‘You can’t play off the white tees,’ he exclaimed incredulously, as if I’d committed some sort of heinous crime or violated an ancient code of conduct, “there’s a competition tomorrow.”
I stood there slightly perplexed and didn’t quite know how to respond. I’d heard of some clubs’ obsession with preserving the white tees for competitions like some sort of golfing shrine, but it had never impacted me before.
I tried to explain that I play golf infrequently and I like to play off the white tees when I do. This is partly because I’m long enough to, partly because my friends and playing partners generally prefer to and partly because I get more shots off the whites under the World Handicap System.
At most courses, you can forget about extra strokes off the yellow tees, even on layouts I think are difficult. I have another issue with course rating and slope rating calculations, but that’s an article for another day.
After some back and forth, it became clear the starter wouldn’t budge, so I reached for another ball and played again. Happily, I found the middle of the fairway, but I no longer had a shot.
My colleague Jeremy Ellwood has written about how playing off the back tees is often the shrewd move when you’re putting a card in, and I fully agree. I don’t play as much as I’d like and I always submit a card as I feel it’s the best way to maintain an accurate handicap. So I was more than a little surprised to be told I couldn’t do it.
To be quite honest, I couldn’t have cared less if there was a competition the following day. How much of a difference is minimal additional footfall going to make? It wasn’t as if the white tee was pristine to begin with. It just feels so outdated – a relic of a bygone era – and it’s another example of golf needlessly doing something to create a negative feeling. It’s a sport that loves to shoot itself in the foot.
I know this sounds dramatic, but golf has always had an interesting attitude towards what the consumer can and can’t do and an interesting attitude towards visitors. It’s not a cheap game and someone who has paid good money to play a golf course should be able to choose what tees they want. Why should they care about a competition happening on another day that they’re not involved in? Isn’t the customer always right?
It’s clearly not a massive issue and I would happily return to the same course again, but that’s to do with convenience, location, history and a host of other factors. If a four-ball were deciding between two courses to play and one regulated the tees, it’s not unreasonable to suggest it could be a factor in the other facility getting the custom instead. Most clubs can’t afford to lose business for silly, inconsequential reasons.
I’ve spoken to a number of people about this and no one has been able to put forward a remotely compelling reason as to why the white tees should be out of play on some days. The most common responses have been members’ privilege, wear and tear and ‘that’s just the way it’s been done historically’. None of those are adequate in my view.
Every club has the right to implement whatever policy they want, but doing anything that leaves paying customers with a negative feeling – no matter how minor – seems misguided, especially when it's avoidable. For some reason, golf struggles to get out of its own way. There’s always a needless negative when the game’s endless positives should be front and centre.
