Moving On Up

With apologies to George Jefferson, Move On Up! Not to the east side, but to a Tee box that is better suited to your abilities.

Research has shown that most of us are playing a golf course that’s way too long for us because we feel for some inexplicable reason, we have to play from the whites or the blue tees. The truth is most of us should be playing from the “senior” or “ladies” tees, or maybe even the “junior” tees.

Look at this chart:

Driver Distance Recommended 18-Hole Yardages

300 7,150-7,400

275 6,700-6,900

250 6,200-6,400

225 5,800 -6,000

200 5,200-5,400

175 4,400-4,600

150 3,500-3,700

125 2,800-3,000

100 2,100-2,300

I’d be willing to bet these yardages suggested based on the length of your average drive are much shorter than the yardages you actually play.

When you move up you begin to play the game just like you watch it played on TV by the Pros. None of us hit the ball off the tee anywhere near as far as we’d like, or think we do for that matter. The average drive in a recent test of 50 male golfers with handicaps between 0 and 18 was just a bit under 230 yards. One third of them were less than 225.

Look at the chart above again. 225 yards equates to 5,700-6,000 yards. MOVE UP!