Welcome to the tee.
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1. Get the formalities over
Arrive in good time (at least 3-4 minutes) and shake hands with your playing colleagues and partners. You’ll be spending the next 3-5 hours with them so it’s good to set the right tone.
Make sure you have filled in your scorecard correctly with your name, current handicap (check the noticeboard to ensure it hasn’t been adjusted lately), the date, tee-time and identify on the card which tees you are playing from (white/yellow/red etc.)
At this stage make sure you
exchange it with an opponent, remembering what happened to Mark Roe and Jesper Parnevik in the recent Open, when both were disqualified for failing to do so.
Before you tee up, clearly mark your ball distinctly (ideally with a waterproof Sharpie pen) and announce the brand and number.
2. Sensible club selection
In a competition you’ll want to get off to the most solid start possible so think carefully whether driver is the best choice, if starting on a par-4 or par-5.
It’s a tough club to hit accurately if you’re nervous – and you’re bound to be – so consider a fairway metal or even a mid-iron to get the ball in play.
It’s rare to start on a par-3, unless you’re a member at Royal Lytham – venue of this week’s Weetabix British Women’s Open – so choose a club that will hopefully find the middle of the green. No heroics in trying to knock out the flagstick!
3. Tee up nearest the danger
Sounds a bit crazy but if danger lurks on the right of the fairway, you’ll have more chance of hitting the short grass if you tee up on the right and aim away from the trouble.
If danger threatens to your left the same applies. Tee up left and aim away from the problems.
4. Stand in the right place
When you’re awaiting your turn to play stand in the right place.
It’s irritating when you’re addressing the ball to see colleagues standing just over your right shoulder. You can see them out of the corner of your eye.
Either stand directly opposite – and not too close so your toes can be glimpsed at the start of the backswing – or stand a good distance behind the player’s back. No whistling, no rattling change in your pocket, no chatting, even in whispers!
5. The teeing ground
Contrary to a widely held thought, the teeing ground in summer conditions, is not a six-inch strip between two markers.
It extends forward to an imaginary line between the front of the markers and backwards in a rectangle no deeper than two clubs length (any club).
So no need to stand in the worn patch towards the front of the tee. As long as your ball is within the confines of that imaginary rectangle (the sides behind the markers are the outer limits of the teeing ground) you can stand where you like to find the flattest, firmest ground for your stance.
6. Tee high to draw, low to fade
Especially with today’s deep-faced drivers and metalwoods, it’s worth remembering that a ball teed high so its equator is level with the top of the club will produce a more solid strike with a tendency to draw from right to left.
A good point when the first tee shot is to a right to left dogleg.
Tee the ball down if you favour a fade from left to right. When the ball is teed low down we tend to swing the club on a steeper swing plane promoting the out-to-in path required to move the ball to the right in the air.
