GolfPlus May 2018 Digital Edition (May 2018) | Page 10

The Ubiquitous Tee
he phrase “teeing ground”
is the area in which a player
commences the play of the
hole also called the tee.
However, since the tee is also
a small peg on which the ball
is placed and also symbolizes the act of
placing the ball (teeing it up) or the actual
time of the day that you get to kick off,
there could be confusion the minds of
some as to whether, the word tee is a
noun or a verb! of the hole” signifying that starting point
where play is to be initiated.
Kenneth Chapman’s book “The Rules of
the Green” provides terrific insight into
the origins of the tee. Over the years this distance to the next
tee extended to two club lengths, then
three, four, then eight to twelve. It
wasn’t until 1882 that The R&A decreed,
“the ball must be teed within the marks
laid down by the Conservator of the Links
which shall be considered the “Teeing
Ground”. The balls shall not be teed in
advance of such marks or more than the
two club lengths behind them.” Thus the
It would appear that origins of the word
tee seem to be in another obscure Scottish
game called curling where the tee was a
target, whereas, the first of the original
Thirteen Articles of golf in 1744 said “You
must tee your ball within a Club’s length
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
Reading this you may wonder by what
convoluted logic did those golfers want
to drive off the next hole within one club
length of the hole last played? In the old
days, there was no distinction between
the fairway and the green, the shepherds
just dug up a hole and decided that’s
where play ended.
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genesis of the modern day Rule 11 in
Golf.
TEEING THE BALL
The actual act of teeing the ball has
seen variation as the game developed.
In the eighteenth century, the ball was
placed on a small mound of sand by
20 G o l f P l u s
MAY
2018