The teeing area (also # tee or tee box, teeing ground ) is the area where play begins in a hole of golf.
The teeing area is a rectangle two golf club lengths deep. Its front edge is defined by invisible line between the forward-most points of two tee markers. Golf courses often provide several sets of tee markers.
Terminology The R&A (spun off from The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in 2004) and the United States Golf Association (USGA) both call it a Teeing Area.
The 1888 rules of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews referred to the starting place as the "teeing-ground".
History
Eighteenth century The earliest surviving written rules of golf date to 1744. The thirteen articles adopted by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers included rules governing the teeing of the ball. One rule required the ball to be teed within a club's length of the hole. Another stated that the tee had to be upon the ground. The early rules therefore described a starting point near the previous hole rather than the rectangular teeing area used today.
Early golfers used a small teeing area around the previous hole, about one club-length across. The term was associated with the Scottish word ''tigh'', meaning "home" and is pronounced tee. By 1875, teeing had expanded between 8 and 12 club lengths from the hole, and the 1888 rules described to what it is today.
Nineteenth century By the 1890s, some American courses had constructed teeing that were level boxes made of wood, stone, or cement, and filled with sand, soil, dirt, bitumen, or cement, and sometimes covered with coconut matting.Grass teeing areas were also used and later became common on championship and private courses.
Layout and boundaries The teeing area is the starting area for a hole. Under Rule 6 of the R&A, a player begins a hole by playing a ball from the teeing area designated for the given hole.
The ball may be placed on a golf tee or directly on the ground. A player may stand outside the teeing area when making a stroke, as long as the ball is within it. Playing the ball from outside the teeing area results in a penalty; the type of penalty depends on the format of play.
Tee box markers Tee markers are often distinguished by color, but the colors are not standardized. White and blue have traditionally been used with tees farther from the hole, while red has commonly indicated forward tees. Yellow or gold and sometimes green has also been used for intermediate tees. ColorCommon or traditional associationBlueLonger or back teesWhiteLonger or back teesYellow or goldIntermediate teesRedForward teesGreenVaries by course
Forward tees were historically sometimes called ladies' tees. This terminology has increasingly been replaced by terms based on distance or tee position. Chmpionship/Back/Tip Tees and "Tiger" tees are sometimes used for furthest tees on the course.
Construction and maintenance The different types of tee boxes could be turf mats, grass, dirt, among others. When hitting the ball, damage often occurs on the teeing area, known as divots. Divots can be repaired using sand, soil, seed, or fertilizer, often found in a box by the tee markers or on the side of a golf cart.
Tee markers are also moved periodically by course-maintenance staff. Thus, the length of each hole can vary from day to day. Course ratings and handicaps The choice of tee box is generally left to the player or determined by the course. Different sets of tees may have separate Course Rating and Slope Rating values. These values are used in the World Handicap System.
The Course Rating represents the expected score of a scratch golfer. The Slope Rating is the relative difficulty of the course for a bogey golfer compared with a scratch golfer. Because different tee locations produce different effective playing lengths, each set of tees can have its own Course Rating and Slope Rating.
Golf tee
A golf tee is a small peg used to raise the golf ball above the ground for the first stroke of a hole. Under the Rules of Golf, a ball can only be teed at the start of a hole. A standard golf tee is long, although tees of various lengths are available. They are commonly made of wood or plastic.
According to the R&A and USGA rules of golf, for a tee to be legal, "It must not be longer than 4 inches (101.6 mm) and it must not be designed or manufactured in such a way that it could indicate the line of play or influence the movement of the ball."R&A Rules of Golf: Appendix IV, Rule 11. Retrieved on 2012-08-14
History Before the modern tee, golfers placed the ball on small heaps of sand that were provided in boxes. Early manufactured tees appeared in the late 19th century. William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas patented a tee in 1889, followed by Percy Ellis's "Perfectum" in 1892.Valenta, Irwin R. The Singular History of the Golf Tee, Greensboro, North Carolina, 1995. Summary at In 1899, George Franklin Grant patented another design. Harvard University has documented Grant's 1899 patent and identified him as the inventor of the patented wooden golf tee.
Manufactured tees became widely used in the 1920s, particularly following the introduction of William Lowell, Sr.'s "Reddy Tee". Lowell would hirer professional golfers Walter Hagen and Joe Kirkwood, Sr. to promote the product. The increasing use of manufactured tees eventually made sand tees uncommon in ordinary play.
References
sv:Lista över golftermer#Tee