The Blathering Duffer Tee It Up!

We’ve worked our way back from the Green with putts, chips and then approach shots. Now it’s time to discuss strategies and mistakes made from the Tee Box. Not just with driver, but also teeing of other clubs and managing the course from the Tee Box. If you have problems hitting the driver, I’ll give you a few ways to manage your miss, but I’m not going to tell you how to hit a driver…. Take a lesson to hit it better! In the mean time, use the hints to manage drives. 65% of penalties start on the Tee! 50% of Double Bogies start on the Tee! 2/3 of your scoring is directly related to your long game and that begins with Driver. As always, you need to know how far you hit your driver, best and average distance. With a range finder, zap hazards to determine if any of them are in range. What’s your shot shape? How wide is your dispersion? Does this pull into play that bunker you see? Course designers put bunkers and hazards right in the area of average driver distances so there’s probably something to avoid. AIM AWAY FROM THE HAZARD! Your goal is to Get It In Play! While stats tell us that hitting it as far as we can, even if it goes in the rough, is better than taking a shorter club, the stat falls apart when we go into bunkers or hazards. These will end up adding 2 shots to the hole score for mid to high handicappers and 1 shot for low HCPers. If there are no hazards, then swing away! Tee Box Alignment Those Pesky Grounds Keepers sometimes like to play games with you and angle tee markers away from center fairway. First thing when you walk up to the markers is to see where they are tempting you to hit and where you really want to hit. Also, find the flattest part of the tee box to hit from so the ball isn’t above or below your feet and you can maintain a balanced swing. Tee Height….Tee it high and Let it fly! Well, that’s the saying and its intended to get you to hit UP on the ball with the driver. Hitting up adds distance. How high should you tee it up? If you have a fade/slice, you want to tee it up a little higher, but not so high your club can slip under the ball. With club head on the ground, the top of the head should be at the equator of the ball. You can play with this a bit, you might want it slightly lower, but that’s a good start. If you draw or hook the ball, tee it down slightly. Maybe try just the top quarter of the ball above the club head. The more the ball is tee’d down, the more it will have a tendency