Are shorter options worth it?

For over a decade now, golf’s movers and shakers have worked to increase active participation in the game. One approach has been to encourage golf facilities to install — and golfers to utilize — forward tee markers. The USGA and the PGA of America introduced a Tee it Forward initiative in 2011, and during the years since, clubs have placed forward tees at increasingly shorter distances, in some cases inside 5,000 yards.

But are enough golfers utilizing these tees to justify the cost in dollars and labor hours of constructing and maintaining them? The turf professionals we spoke with said, “yes.”

Josh Saunders is director of golf course operations at Lancaster Country Club in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which features six sets of tees. The club will host its second U.S. Women’s Open next year after previously hosting the event in 2015.

A recently completed $2.1 million renovation to the William Flynn design included the installation of new forward silver tees on seven holes, enabling play from 4,588 yards. The new configuration is rated for men and women. A third nine, designed by Brian Silva, also has silver tees that are rated for both genders.

“I wanted to have forward tees on every hole,” Saunders says. “When I started,” — his first full season at the club was 2020 — “we had seven holes with the forward tees actually in the fairway, so they didn’t have their own identity. I didn’t like that they were in the fairways. They didn’t have level lies, it wasn’t a level tee box, and they didn’t have their own identity. You didn’t have a true tee box to play off of. So, one of the biggest things in our renovation was we built new forward tees on all seven of those holes to where the markers would now have their own presentation and their own tee boxes.”

Saunders says the benefits of having tees at that distance are worth the effort to maintain them. He notes the forward markers have enticed members to continue playing golf when they otherwise might have set their clubs aside.

“This is not an easy golf course,” he points out. “It is a championship golf course with 14 uphill second shots. For our senior players and higher handicappers, having the ability to shave off 350 yards overall by moving up a set of tees has prolonged their ability to play and their desire to play.” Brook Maxwell has been director of golf course operations at Pelican Marsh Golf Club, a private club in Naples, Florida, since 2009. The present version of the golf course, a Robert von Hagge design, was completed in 1996. It features no fewer than seven sets of tees, all of which are rated for both men and women. In 2016, architect Jan Bel Jan added additional forward tees to the layout. Today, the first two sets of markers play to 4,313 and 4,992 yards with a par of 72. By contrast, the deepest set of markers is listed at 7,050 yards. The tees are differentiated not by color but by Number I through VII on the scorecard.

The club hosts around 32,000 rounds each year. Approximately 2,000 of them, or just over 6 percent, are played from Tee VII, up front. Maxwell notes that the cost and effort to maintain the forward tees is minimal.

“It cost $50,000 and a set of tee markers to build them,” he says. “They’re not big tees at all. They don’t get a whole lot of traffic, so you don’t have to build them too big.”

Maxwell says it’s not a matter of how many rounds are played from the forward tees, but rather who utilizes them: “The kids and people who get a little older,” he says. “Nine-hole golfers. (Forward tees) have been a real hit.”

Bel Jan, whose design practice is based in Jupiter, Florida, is one of the industry’s most vociferous proponents for what she calls — and has trademarked as — scoring tees. Her interest in the subject dates back some 15 years, to the mortgage crisis of 2008, when many clubs were struggling to keep their members and stay afloat.

Bel Jan says it’s important to design forward tees with care to provide golfers with not just reduced yardages but also a total strategic experience.

“It does make a difference to make sure, with the target lines, that people can play from those,” says Bel Jan, who advocates for scoring tees from about 4,000 to about 4,400 yards. “And that, especially for those with slower clubhead speeds, there’s still strategy for those folks, but for those who choose to play (from forward tees) who are skilled players, single-digit handicappers, there is still strategy for them.”

Jennifer Torres is the superintendent at Westlake Golf and Country Club, a private club in Jackson Township, New Jersey, that is part of a residential community. The golf course features five sets of tees. The forward set, at 4,406 yards, is rated for women only, but the second set, at 5,128, is rated for men as well.

“I think my forward tees are used more than my tees that are in the back,” Torres says, “and we encourage that in order to get golfers through play, in order to encourage people into the game so they feel comfortable playing.”

Torres adds the forward tees don’t intrude on her team’s maintenance efforts. “I don’t see them as any hindrance to the playability of the course or my maintenance on my side. It’s pretty much routine for us. We have some more forward tees we put out that are more like family tees; they are in our fairways.

“It might require some time for our fairway guys to get (out of the line of play) when they’re mowing the fairways two or three times a week depending on the time of the year, but other than that, they’re getting off, moving the tees out of the way, and putting them back when they’re done. There’s no extra maintenance for us.”

TPC San Antonio supports two championship courses, each featuring five sets of conventional tees plus family tees. Each set is rated for both men and women. The Oaks Course, a Greg Norman design, is the venue for the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open and maxes out at 7,435 yards with a par of 72. The Canyons Course, a Pete Dye creation, plays to a maximum of 7,106 yards and a par of 72.

Adding in the family tees — 3,807 yards on the Oaks Course and 4,247 yards on the Canyons — and the separate course ratings that allow for combination tees gives golfers a vast assortment of options. But those options don’t necessarily result in more work for the maintenance team.

Andi Meadows is an assistant superintendent at the club, assigned to the Canyons Course.

“We have larger tee boxes that we can fit more tees on,” she says. “So it’s just like the same tee box really; we can just move them forward. Each tee box is a little different. Sometimes we include the blues and the greens (the third and fourth set of tees) on one tee box.

“Our family tees are in our fairways. We cut those when we cut our fairways, so it doesn’t add any additional time there.”

Meadows’s boss is Logan Behrens, the superintendent at TPC San Antonio who oversees both courses under director of golf course maintenance operations Roby Robertson.

“Most of (the family tees) are in the fairway,” Behrens says. “On par 3s, we’ll put them on the forward tees. As far as maintenance, there isn’t anything added other than moving the markers out of the way.”

Meadows notes that a segment of the course’s members are quick to take advantage of the Canyon Course’s forward tees, which are set at 5,053 yards.

“We have a large group of women out there that play, and older gentlemen as well, so, yeah, I see them, not as much, but I would say it’s enough to (justify) the thought and everything that goes into cutting them.”

Looking down the road, the practice of multiple tee options is likely to become increasingly prevalent as a means of bringing new golfers into the game and to allow an aging population to continue to be actively involved in the sport.

Steve Datwyler is the superintendent at The Golf Club at Ravenna, a private, single-owner club in Littleton, Colorado. He and his team maintain six sets of tees. Five of the six are rated for men and women, the shortest of them at 5,258 yards. The sixth, at 4,330 yards, is rated for women only.

“We’re finding as our membership ages, (the forward tees are) being used more and more, especially with the flex combinations,” he says.

Saunders says making the effort to maintain forward tees — at Lancaster Country Club and at any course — is an important step in “continuing the game.”

“I think that’s probably the best (way) to look at it,” he says. “I think when you look at specifically the forward tees, that could (include golfers) from a wide realm and a wide age gap, a wide demographic of individuals from juniors to seniors to males, to women, to high handicappers, to those that may play golf three times a year but simply want to come out and play nine holes with their significant other.

“That’s how I view a forward tee. It’s not just to grow the game, it’s to continue the game for everyone.”

Rick Woelfel is a Philadelphia-based writer and a frequent Golf Course Industry contributor.