Three numbers and thirty seconds. We will tell you the course length you should actually be playing, how far back you have wandered, and roughly what your ego is costing you every single round. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Multiply your driver carry by 28 — that is the course yardage you have earned, and this free tee calculator shows what playing further back costs.
The Tee Box Reality Check is a free online golf tee selection calculator built on the widely used driver-carry × 28 rule. Enter three honest numbers and it returns the course length that matches your actual distance, how far back your ego has wandered, and the shots per round it is costing you. If you want to find the right tees for your game now, this takes about thirty seconds. If you are understanding golf course yardage and approach distances more generally, it also shows the average par four approach you are leaving yourself and the club that implies.
The number you would admit to under oath, not the one you tell the lads in the car park.
Your realistic average, including the holes you would rather forget.
Total scorecard yardage of the tees you tee off from.
The simplest rule in golf: multiply your driver carry by 28. Carry it 220 and you belong on roughly a 6,160-yard course. Carry it 250 and you have earned 7,000 yards. Most amateurs are playing a course built for someone who hits it 40 yards past them.
Tee boxes exist so that different players face the same second shot. A par 4 is designed to be a drive and a mid-iron. If you are standing over 190 yards on every par 4 while the course architect intended a 9-iron, you are not playing the hole as designed — you are playing a much harder hole that nobody built.
It is the single cheapest improvement available to you. No lesson, no new driver, no range sessions. Just teeing off 500 yards further forward and suddenly hitting wedges into greens. Your handicap does not care which coloured post you started from.
About 1.5 shots for every 200 yards you play beyond your ideal length. Play 800 yards too far back and you are handing away six shots before you hit a ball. That is more than most golfers gain from a winter of lessons.
Multiply your driver carry distance by 28 to get your ideal course yardage. A player who carries their driver 220 yards should be playing a course of roughly 6,160 yards.
Roughly 1.5 shots for every 200 yards you play beyond your ideal course yardage. Playing 800 yards too far back costs about six shots a round.
No. Tee boxes are designed so that players of different distances face the same approach shots. Playing tees that are too long means hitting long irons into greens built for wedges.