RED, WHITE and BLUE Strategy

On July 4th, we play a tournament called the RED, WHITE and BLUE. Sometimes I think it should be called the Black and Blue tournament based on how I feel after having slashed and burned shots from every every color of tee box but I digress.

The 2017 is a little different than in other years. This year, each player gets to pick which holes will be played from the RED tees (actually they are Gold), which holes are played from the WHITE tees and which holes are played from the BLUE tees. The player's total score will be handicapped based on the WHITE TEE slope (130). That tells you how many strokes you get. Use the order of handicap strokes on the scorecard to determine where you are getting strokes. Remember, that for MEN, the Gold tee handicaps are NOT printed on the regular scorecard. The scorecard below shows the correct order of handicap strokes to use.

So now the question is "which holes to play from which tees?" There is obviously a variable that will not be known until the tournament starts. That is "where are the tee markers actually placed?" Imagine a hole that you thought would be a good candidate for playing the WHITE tees. You arrive at the box and find the BLUE marker is in the same spot as the WHITE tee marker. If you change your mind and play BLUE, the good news is that you now have another opportunity to play from the WHITE tees but be careful. The same thing could happen in reverse. One of your WHITE tee selections ends up with the tee box placed where the blue or Black tees normally are.

We'll all be playing it by ear but it would appear that playing the longest holes from the shortest tee box optimizes distance. Since distance is about 90% of the difficulty rating on a golf course (and therefore each hole) the Distance Minimization strategy seems to have merit.

I guess we'll see what everyone does, right?