Tee (golf)

“ It is certainly to the old holes that the memory returns most fondly. The club-house stands in the bottom of a deep hollow, with hills rising pretty steeply out of it on three sides, and the first tee-shot has to be driven straight up a gully between two of them. Then comes a shot demanding the agility of a chamois and a maximum of local knowledge. With the left foot a good deal higher than the right we play an iron-shot into the distance, and if all goes well, shall find the ball on a green which is walled in by cops and bunkers. ”

“ A particularly elastic tee or series of tees seems to be needed so that the hole can be made a two-shot hole, even when the wind is adverse. At present the longest driver must often be content to reach the green with a pitch for his third, and is denied the crowning triumph of a critical second shot successfully accomplished. A wind against us at the sixteenth diminishes sensibly the sum total of enjoyment of the round, for that second shot is such an inspiring one. The green stands there waiting to be won, defying us to reach it, and to abandon the attempt without a struggle is sad work. ”

“ The best hole on the way home, however, is probably the sixteenth, or ‘Island,’ where there is but one way to secure an easy and comfortable approach, and that consists of pushing your tee-shot out to the right so that the ball comes to rest upon a very narrow neck. Take an easier route from the tee, and you will be left with as unpleasant a pitch as need be, and the greedy waters of a burn running between you and the hole. Burns play an important part at both the last two holes also, for one has to be carried from the seventeenth tee and another menaces the pitch on to the home green. ”

“ The hazards for the second shot should be so placed and designed as to give a well-placed tee shot every advantage—in other words, should make a man play his first stroke in relation to the second shot. There should be at least three tees for every hole, to take care not only of an adverse or favourable wind, but also of the calibre of the player. It is necessary on a first-class golf course to have short tees for the poorer players, otherwise they are everlastingly in the bunkers. The lengths which I give should be measured from the middle of the middle tee to the middle of the putting green. ”

“ Flitting, like arbitrary bees, from one hole to another, we must pause a moment over the first, which is one of the best of the long holes, and has an admirable tee-shot. So has the second, while there is an approach shot of much interest and delicacy to be played at the third. The sixth again is a memorable hole, of no great length, but considerable difficulty. We need but one shot to go from the tee to the high plateau green where the hole is, but the sides of the plateau fall very quickly away, and there must be plenty of stop on the ball or it will inevitably overrun its mark. ”

“ If, however, there are one or two dullish holes on the way out, the course begins splendidly with as good a two-shot hole as can well be; too good a hole almost to play so early before the match has had time to develop. A ridge running diagonally and away towards the left calls for a fine tee-shot if it is to be cleared in the straight line, while a sandy hill covers half the green on the right-hand side, and repays the man who has hit a good tee-shot by punishing his opponent who has not. ”

“ For Tee, Tee, only Tee!
I'm game to start all in the dark,
To the Links hurrying—resting never.
The Caddie yawns, but, like a lark,
I halt not, heed not, hastening ever
To Tee, Tee, only Tee!
Of chilly fog I am no funker,
I'll brave the very biggest bunker,
For Tee, Tee, only Tee!
A spell that nought on earth can break
Holds me. Golf's charms can ne'er be spoken;
But late I'll sleep, and early wake,
Of loyalty be this my token,
To Tee, Tee, only Tee!
Golf caddies are now very much in the public eye. The education of some of them is certainly not all that it should be. ”

“ Motor cars swept incessantly back and forth on the smooth roadway; a few riders, their horses wheeling and dancing, went down the bridle path, and there was a sprinkling of young men and women and some shouting and clapping on the tennis-courts. But golf was the order of the day. At the first tee at least two scores of impatient players waited their turn to drive off, and at the last green a group of twenty or thirty men and women, mostly women, were interestedly watching the putting. ”

“ After Cader we must take a short walk along a winding path among the hills which takes us on to the ‘Pulpit’ tee, where we stand high above all the world, with the sea on our left and the whole course stretching away before us in the distance. The tee-shot is by no means one of the most difficult, but certainly one of the pleasantest that I know, and gives a full measure of sensual delight. Then we must leave the hills for a while and strike inland to play some flatter holes that wind their way by the side of the railway. ”

“ There is, too, no better course for teaching the little chip or run up, play it how you will, from the confines of the green—the shot which professionals play so wonderfully well, and many amateurs play so badly.
The tee-shots are good, without being very remarkable, and there is perhaps a lack of full brassey shots to be lashed right up to the hole; that, however, is a criticism to which, in these days of mighty hitting and rubber-cored balls, many courses are open. ”

“ A hole more satisfactory to do in four than the second it would be hard to imagine, since both the drive and the second must be long and straight and the second must almost inevitably be played from a hanging lie. We may, if we like, approach it in cowardly instalments and play our tee-shot deliberately short of the sloping ground; if we do, we may possibly escape a six, but by no means shall we get a four. It is the hole for a man brave and skilful who can use his wooden club when the ground is not flat, neither is the ball teed. ”

“ To cry a brisk ‘fore’ is to absolve oneself from responsibility, and one may then let fly at any impeding player with a clear conscience. There is one particularly perilous spot, where the ball is apt to lie after a straight drive of moderate length on the way to the first hole. Here the player is in the midst of a veritable ring of death, since a hot fire may be opened upon him simultaneously from the seventh, eighth, and ninth tees, to say nothing of the first tee to his immediate rear. ”

“ To the right is a dreary tract of out-of-bounds, which is, to the morbid imagination, white with the countless balls that have been driven there. To the left is a narrow little ditch, and beyond the ditch rough and tussocky grass. To hit the tee-shot with reasonable accuracy ought not to be beyond our powers, but the second shot is undeniably a beast. We are undecided whether to aim out to the right and try for a hook or to the left for a slice, since for some reason it is horribly difficult to play a perfectly straightforward shot down a straightforward road of turf. ”

“ If, indeed, we can send the ball flying like an arrow from the bow, we may make for the little narrow neck, where safety lies; but it is far more probable that our ball will trickle gently down hill to the left, where a stream and a surrounding marsh await it. Save, therefore, when with a strong wind behind we may hope to get over all our troubles with one vast blow, we must play prudently from the tee with an iron club, and we shall still be able to reach the green very comfortably in our second. ”

“ Before driving he is privileged to place the ball on a tiny mound of earth or sand which is called a “tee.” The players drive in order and then continue making shots toward the hole until finally they have all “holed out” by “putting” their balls into the hole, and the lowest score wins the hole.
Golf is a game in which form is more essential than physical strength and which is adapted for elderly people as well as the young. The wooden clubs are usually made with either dogwood or persimmon heads and with split hickory handles or shafts. The handles are usually wound with a leather grip. ”

“ And here I think it possible to give ladies a hint by which they might profit: if they would but tee their ball high, going down the wind, they would find it far more easy to give it that hoist into the air which is essential for its getting advantage of the favour of the breeze. They seem to have a lofty-minded idea that there is something not quite right about putting the ball on a high tee—that it is rather on a par with potting the white at billiards. ”

“ By this time we are close to the famous ‘Pebble Ridge,’ and the real golfing country begins with the fourth hole, a fine two-shot hole with a well-guarded green. Next comes the fifth, and in front of the tee there is a bunker so colossal that the carry looks at first sight to be impossible. A good long carry it certainly is, but it is not nearly so appalling as it looks; a well struck ball will career gaily over it, and, if we feel frightened, we can make the carry a little shorter by going to the right. ”

“ The second and third holes have very similar tee-shots; there are several small sandhills to carry, and severe punishment for a pulled shot. The approach to the third hole is a particularly attractive one, since the green is almost entirely circled round with small hills, and there is only a very narrow opening through which to play; against the wind the ball may be pitched up boldly enough, but down wind there is nothing for it but a running shot, and that a very accurate one. ”

“ There can be no shadow of doubt whatever that the only scientific method of instructing a person in the art of playing golf is one which is diametrically opposed to that adopted by practically all the leading players of the world. Instead of starting the beginner at the tee and taking him through his clubs in rotation to the putting-green, the proper order for sound tuition would be to start him six inches from the hole and to back him through his clubs to the tee. ”

“ They are very good holes some of them, and the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth especially need long, straight hitting, but the last four or five holes take us back to the more characteristic country, and the finish comes in a blaze of glorious sandhills. A rather blind, and to the stranger a puzzling, tee-shot should land us safely on the table-land, and then far away and rather below us to the right we see the promised land, the seventeenth green, and with a good shot the ball will swoop away for an apparently incredible distance, and finish by the hole side. ”

“ After this slight alteration the ball flew splendidly, whether off wood or iron clubs, neither too high nor too low, but quite straight, and with the very slight rise towards the end of its carry that is the essence of perfect flight in a golf ball, some of the carries when measured from the tee being well over two hundred yards. ”

“ But long before that you would have come to the conclusion that golf, on Paradise green, was not a good game. One device used to be to cut some jagged raw edges to stick out on the ball's surface, before driving off the tee for this hole. Thus jagged, the ball would not fly properly, but it was better to lose a shot, owing to this jaggedness, through the green, than to lose twenty on the putting green. On the rough edges of its scars the ball would come to rest even in Paradise. ”

“ I should probably have passed this remark, but for the fact that it is emphasised by the statement that in order to get any sort of flight at all the ball must be directed upwards when it is hit from the tee, which again, as a matter of practical golf, is what nine of ten golfers do, although we are told that "a player who is only at the beginning of his practice, and has little knowledge of the principles of the game, will generally be found trying to hit his ball in an upward direction." ”

“ The quad of a small College like Corpus makes rather a small golf course. The only way was to tee the ball well up and flog it out over the College buildings into Christchurch Meadows, or wherever else it might choose to fall. Occasionally we used to try to astonish Merton by a bombardment. But it meant a lavish expenditure of golf balls, for there was no prospect of getting any of them back again. The best possible tee to use, if you are driving, or ironing, off a hard surface like a quad, is a clothes brush. ”

“ An ideal hole should provide an infinite variety of shots according to the varying positions of the tee, the situation of the flag, the direction and strength of the wind, etc. It should also at times give full advantage for the voluntary pull or slice, one of the most finished shots in golf, and one that few champions are able to carry out with any great degree of accuracy.
Should an ideal hole be ideal for the plus, scratch, or long handicap player? As players of all handicaps play golf, a hole should as far as possible be ideal for all classes. ”

“ To hit quite straight at this hole is the feat of a hero, for let the ball be ever so slightly pulled, and we shall infallibly be left playing our second shot from the tee. Nearly everybody slices at the Dowie out of pure fright, and is left with a tricky little running up shot on to the green. The perfect shot starts out of the right, just to show that it has no intention of going out of bounds, and then swings round with a delicious hook, struggles through the little rushy hollow, and so home on the green ”