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I Played the Forward Tees for a Month, and My Ego Survived (Barely)
Third ball in the rough by hole six, and the twosome behind us is standing on the tee watching me kick around in knee-high fescue like I dropped my car keys instead of a golf ball. Mike's already got his phone out. "I'm buying you a metal detector for Christmas," he says, loud enough for the group behind us to hear too.
It's never really about the ball. It's the standing around, the group behind stacking up, the quiet math of knowing I'm the reason this round is taking four and a half hours instead of four. I've felt some version of that feeling more Saturdays than I'd like to admit.
Playing forward tees for a month cut my lost-ball count by roughly half, put approach shots into greens with clubs I could actually control, and shaved real time off every round. The only cost was about a week of grief from my group — grief that stopped almost the exact moment my score did too.
I'd played the same set of tees for twenty-five years out of pure habit. Driving home after that round, I did the math on how much of my season gets spent looking for golf balls instead of hitting them, and decided to try something I'd been quietly avoiding for a quarter century: moving up a full tee set for one month, the same way I've tested plenty of other things as a bogey golfer — no lessons, no shortcuts, just one variable and an honest look at what it actually did to my game. You're allowed to improve your own experience, not just chase a number on the card.
What Are Forward Tees, and Why Do Grown Men Avoid Them?
Every course sets up a few different tee boxes so golfers of different distances are effectively playing a scaled version of the same course. The forward tees are simply the shorter set, built for someone whose drives don't carry as far — nothing more complicated than that.
For decades, though, courses colored their shortest tees red, and the shorthand became "the ladies' tees," even though that's never actually been the rule. Tee choice is supposed to come down to swing speed and driving distance, full stop — not gender, not age, not how tough you're feeling that morning.
The PGA of America and USGA have been pushing back on this since 2011 with a joint program called Tee It Forward, publicly backed by Jack Nicklaus, built specifically to get golfers of every level playing a length that matches their actual game instead of their pride. Plenty of golf courses have since renamed or reshuffled their tee colors for exactly this reason — get rid of the color-gender association, and more golfers will actually use the tees built for their distance.
I'm not totally sure why the stigma stuck around this long. My guess is nobody wants to be the first guy in the group to move up. Playing once a week with the same three buddies, it felt less like a strategy decision and more like a confession.
💡 Why the Stigma Doesn't Hold Up
- ⭐ Tee choice is supposed to be based on swing speed and driving distance — never gender, age, or how tough you feel that morning
- ✅ Plenty of single-digit-handicap women play tees longer than plenty of 20-handicap men
- 🔧 Courses are actively renaming and reshuffling tee colors specifically to kill the old "ladies' tees" label
- 💰 Matching golfers to the right yardage isn't a new idea — the PGA and USGA have been running this exact program since 2011
Here's the thing nobody talks about: the tee color has nothing to do with the round you actually play. What happened once I moved up did.
Why I Actually Decided to Move Up
The round that finally pushed me over the edge wasn't even my worst one. It was finding out, on the drive home, that Jim's dad — who's played the forward tees at our course for years — shot four strokes better than any of us that same morning from two hundred yards less golf course.
So I set some rules for myself. One month, four Saturday rounds, same regular group, moved up one full tee set — from our member tees to the tees our course still calls the gold tees. No swing changes, no lessons, nothing else different. I wanted to isolate the one variable and actually find out what it did.
Announcing it at the next tee time went about how you'd expect. Mike asked what changed, in the tone of someone hoping the answer was embarrassing. I told him straight: I was tired of playing a course built for a game I don't have anymore, if I ever did.
Being a weekend golfer stuck in that same mid-handicap groove for years isn't a failure — it's just where most of us actually live. A weekend golfer's job on a Saturday isn't to prove anything to the group standing on the first tee. It's to have a good round.
What Actually Changed on the Course?
The biggest shift showed up immediately, and it had nothing to do with my swing. It was what club I had in my hand on approach shots — mid-irons into greens instead of the hybrids and 3-woods I'd been white-knuckling for years.
Lost balls dropped fast. I'd guess I lost about half as many that month, mostly because I wasn't carrying hazards and forced carries that were never really built for someone with my swing speed in the first place. From what I've noticed playing once a week, most of my searching had never been about bad shots — it was about being handed a yardage I couldn't reasonably cover.
Pace of play improved for the whole group, not just me. Fewer searches meant fewer five-minute stalls, and for the first time in a long time, we weren't the group getting waved through by a marshal. If you're trying to figure out which tee box actually fits your game, pace of play alone is worth paying attention to — it changes for everyone in your group, not just the guy who moved up.
The other thing that surprised me: a couple of par 5s were suddenly reachable in two, which hadn't happened in years. It's a genuinely different kind of hole when you're deciding whether to go for it instead of just plotting the least embarrassing way to lay up three times.
What About My Ego (and My Group)?
The ribbing started before I even hit my first tee shot from the gold markers and didn't let up for two full rounds. "Gold Tee Johnny" got used more times than I'm proud of, mostly by Mike, who has never in his life missed a chance to needle someone.
Here's my honest theory after a month of this: stigma does more damage to a guy's score than yardage ever does. Sitting in that fairway search party for the third time in six holes, second-guessing a tee box instead of just playing from the one that actually fit me, I believed it a little more every week.
By the third Saturday, Mike wasn't laughing anymore. He was asking what I'd shot. I'd posted a personal-best round the week before — not by a landslide, but by enough that I'd earned the right to actually mention it at the 19th hole instead of just hoping nobody asked.
You earn the right to brag, you don't just claim it, and that finally clicked for me sitting at the 19th hole with an actual number to back it up. A real personal best, even from a shorter course, counts. Working on golf confidence that's actually earned beats the version you're faking from the tips — the same lesson I took away from finding out whether golf lessons are actually worth it for a guy like me.
Did It Actually Lower My Score?
Yes, but not in the dramatic way you'd hope for. I didn't drop ten shots overnight. What I got instead was consistency — fewer blow-up holes caused by trouble I was never going to carry anyway, more greens in regulation, and rounds that felt less like survival and more like golf.
Putting counted exactly the same as it always has. Moving up doesn't fix a three-putt, and it won't turn a bad short game into a good one. What it does is stop punishing you for a driving distance you can't control, which is most of what was actually inflating my score in the first place.
One practical thing worth knowing if you're tracking a handicap: the USGA and R&A now require any tee set under 6,000 yards to carry a rating for both men and women, specifically so scores posted from forward tees count. Check your course's scorecard or GHIN listing before you assume — most courses have caught up, but it's worth thirty seconds to confirm before you post anything.
Who Should Actually Try This?
If you're spending more time searching the rough than actually swinging, that's usually the clearest sign your tees are set up for a longer game than the one you've actually got. Slower swing speeds, higher handicaps, and groups tired of getting stuck behind slow play are the obvious fits.
The PGA's own Tee It Forward guidelines match average driver distance to a recommended course length — if you're averaging around 200 yards off the tee, their chart puts your ideal course length in the 5,200–5,400 yard range, which is a lot shorter than the 6,400-plus most member tees run. It's a genuinely useful starting point if you want real numbers instead of a guess, and worth five minutes with the full guidelines chart before your next round.
The USGA has also published some straight talk on why forward tees get overlooked at so many courses, and how facilities are working to fix it — worth a look if you want the deeper why behind all of this, not just my Saturday morning version of it. And if you're still not sure which tees you should actually be playing, that's worth five minutes before you assume the answer is whatever everyone else in the group happens to play.
If you already know your course rating and slope for the tees you normally play, comparing that to the forward set is a quick way to see exactly how much easier — or how much more honest — the shorter course actually is for your game. For anyone working on bogey golfer strategy in general, tee selection is one of the few adjustments that changes your score without asking you to change your swing at all.
So, Would I Recommend It? The Verdict
📋 What Actually Happened When I Tried the Forward Tees
- 😤 Before: Losing multiple balls a round, holding up the group behind us, and quietly dreading holes I knew I couldn't reach
- 💡 The experiment: One month, four Saturday rounds with my regular group, moved up one full tee set, nothing else changed
- 🎯 What changed: Roughly half as many lost balls, mid-irons into greens instead of hybrids, and a noticeably faster pace every round
- 🏌️ The verdict: I'd do it again — and I'm honestly not sure I'm going back to the tees I played for the last twenty-five years
Yes. Unhedged, no asterisk. Moving up made the round better in almost every way that matters — more fairways, more greens, faster pace, and a scorecard that actually reflected the golf I was playing instead of punishing me for golf I never had.
The one real caveat: tell your group before the first tee, not after. The surprise version invites a lot more grief than the announced version, and you want the ribbing over with before you're trying to concentrate on an actual golf shot.
It's not the flashiest thing I've tested — nothing beats finding out whether some viral swing tip actually holds up for a bogey golfer — but it might be the one that's saved me the most actual strokes for the least amount of effort.
Fellow Golfeasers, you're always just one round away from finding out your own course has been quietly punishing you for two decades. Mine had. Yours might too.
What I'd Tell a Buddy Thinking About Moving Up
🏌️ Before You Move Up a Tee Set
- ✅ Move up one full tee set, not two — you want an honest test, not a completely different sport
- 💰 Tell your group before the first tee — the announced version gets a lot less grief than the surprise version
- 📍 Give it three or four rounds minimum before deciding anything — one good or bad round doesn't tell you much
- ⛳ Confirm the tees are actually rated before you post a score for handicap purposes
Forward Tee Questions, Answered Straight
Do forward tees actually help a bogey golfer score better?
Yes, mostly by cutting out the double and triple bogeys that come from trouble you were never going to carry anyway, not by making every hole magically easier. Expect more greens in regulation and shorter approach clubs, not necessarily a ten-shot drop overnight. Putting still counts exactly the same from every set of tees.
Are forward tees only for women or beginners?
No — tee selection is supposed to be based on driving distance and swing speed, not gender or experience level. The USGA has been actively pushing courses to drop the old "ladies' tees" language and colors for exactly this reason. Plenty of low-handicap women play tees longer than plenty of high-handicap men.
Will my group make fun of me for moving up?
Probably, at least for the first round or two — mine did. It tends to stop fast once your pace of play speeds up and you're not the one holding up the course every other hole.
How do I know which tees I should actually be playing?
A simple starting point is your average driver distance — the PGA's Tee It Forward guidelines match driver distance to a recommended course yardage. If you're regularly searching for lost balls or laying up short of every green, that's usually a sign you're playing a tee set built for a longer game than the one you actually have.
Can I still post a handicap score from the forward tees?
In most cases, yes — the USGA and R&A now require tees under 6,000 yards to carry a rating for both men and women, specifically so scores from those tees count. Check your course's scorecard or GHIN listing to confirm the set you're playing is rated before you post.
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More Honest Tests From a Bogey Golfer's Bag
- I Took a Lesson So You Don't Have To
- What I've Tested, Ranked: The Bogey Golfer's Verdict
- What a Real 20-Handicap's Stats Actually Look Like
Johnny is a 25-year weekend golfer who's double-booked tee times, forgotten his clubs an hour from the course, and made pretty much every other trip-planning mistake there is — so you don't have to. Guided by The Golfeaser Manifesto, he started Golfeaser.com to prove that weekend golfers are a special, funnier breed who improve the experience, not just the scorecard. He's also the guy behind The Weekend Golfer's Social Playbook — a three-step system for finding your people, running trips that actually come together, and earning the right to brag at the 19th hole.
