"Tee It Up" A Short History of the Golf Tee

 

“Tee It Up” A Short History of the Golf Tee

The golf tee has a long history starting fairly soon after the advent of golf in Scotland and Holland.  The beginnings of golf found golfers placing the ball on the ground or turf and stroking the ball.  Someone in the distant past decided that hitting the initial drive could be aided by raising the ball off ground level.  Definitely easier to drive the ball where they wanted it.  Less worry about catching the club head in the turf and shanking the shot.  Less worry about topping the ball.

Someone started scooping up the dirt around the tee ground and making a mound on which to place the ball.  It then evolved into golfers carrying a canvas bag of sand to use in making the mound.  The Scots called the mound a “teaz.”  Thus, the origin of the term “tee.”

As the practice of using sand to build a teeing mound grew, some golf courses supplied a tray of sand to use for the tee.  They even went so far as to supply water to make the sand more easily molded into a mound.

Dissatisfaction set in with some golfers who found the procedure of creating a mound tee a nuisance and time-consuming as well.  Consequently, a few enterprising souls started creating portable golf tees.  Some golfers felt that this took away from the game.  But progress could not be denied.

After the invention of several types of mechanical devices, some of which were permanently stationed on each tee box, the development of the golf tee we know today was slow in coming.  Golfers became disenchanted with having to mold their tee mounds.  Plus, their chapped hands became an annoyance.

Thus, a dentist from Orange, New Jersey, Dr. William Lowell, frustrated with his rough hands, noticed a small American flag in his office.  The idea hit him that he could whittle the stick into a device that he could stick in the ground to hold a golf ball.  He spent the rest of the day whittling away.  Thus, the advent of the golf tee we know today.  Portable.  Easily inserted into the ground.

Why is it that the golf tee is used only on the initial drive on each hole?  Tradition.  Why not use a tee at other places on the golf course?

No reason, really.  Except that the rules of golf as established by the United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Scotland (R&A) prohibit the use of tees anywhere except the teeing ground.

However, the creation of a new golf game called TeeGolf, launched in early 2006, has as part of its rules the use of tees anywhere on the golf course except the green.  That means that you can use tees on the fairway, the rough, even the sand traps.

That makes the game of golf easier, you say.  Yes, and that’s the purpose of TeeGolf.  To make golf easier for the recreational and casual golfer.

Good luck with your golf or your TeeGolf game.

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