Plenty of women play from a tee that doesn’t suit them, for reasons that have nothing to do with ability and increasingly, they’re not the only ones this applies to.
There’s an odd kind of pressure around tee choice that rarely gets said out loud: playing further forward feels like admitting something, and playing further back feels like proving something. Neither is really the point. The tee that suits you is the one that matches how far you actually hit the ball and a growing body of research suggests a lot of golfers, not just women, are playing from tees that are still too long for them.
Is it actually OK to play whichever tee you want?
Yes! Tee choice was never meant to be locked to gender or age in the first place; it’s calibrated to distance. If your realistic drive lands well short of where a hole’s design assumes, you’re playing a harder version of the course than everyone else on it, regardless of which marker has your name attached to it by convention. Equally, if you’re comfortably clearing every hazard the back tees present, there’s no rule saying you have to play forward just because that’s traditionally been “the ladies tee.”
Why some clubs are now adding tees even ahead of the reds
Research analysing golfer performance and tee selection data has found that even existing forward tees are often still too long for the players using them, with many forward-tee golfers unable to reach greens in regulation even on their best shots. That’s the reasoning behind clubs introducing an additional tee set ahead of the traditional reds. Not a gendered “ladies tee” at all, just a genuinely shorter option calibrated to actual hitting distance.
What about mixed groups — does everyone have to play the same tee?
No. The R&A’s own pace-of-play guidance explicitly states it isn’t necessary for every player in a group to play from the same tees, and that handicap adjustments and course ratings already account for players competing from different tees while keeping the competition equitable.
Under the World Handicap System, if the tees being played have the same par, no extra adjustment is even needed — the course rating difference is already built into each player’s course handicap. In practice: a mixed group, or a group with a wide range of ability, can genuinely each play the tee that suits them and still compete fairly. Everyone teeing off from the same marker is a social habit, not a requirement.
Why this matters for encouraging new golfers
This is where it stops being a technicality and starts being genuinely useful. If you’re playing with a friend who’s newer to the game, there’s no reason she needs to play your tee to “keep up,” and no reason you need to play hers to be sociable.
Letting a beginner play a shorter tee while you play your usual one means she gets a version of the course that’s actually enjoyable and scoreable, rather than a long, discouraging slog that makes her wonder if golf is for her at all.
How to actually check
Some lubs now display recommended distances per tee, or you can work it out roughly yourself. Compare your average drive to the yardage from each tee to the first significant hazard or green. If you’re consistently short of where the hole “expects” you to be, that’s the honest signal — not the tee’s colour, and not what anyone else plays.
The tee marker someone else uses says nothing about what you should use. The only useful measure is whether the course in front of you is actually the course for you!
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