Tee the Ball Lower for Par-3 Success, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Tee the Ball Lower for Par-3 Success, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

So most golfers that have played for awhile, most experienced golfers, will know that majority of their iron shots that they ever hit, they actually hit from the floor. That's where you practice most of your stuff. That's where you practice most of the time actually on the golf course, hitting the ball from the deck. But when you come to a par three, you maybe got the opportunity to tee up your iron shot. So the debate really is do you take that opportunity to tee it up? Some people feel they hit the ball better from a tee. Some people actually feel that it makes their strike a little bit worse.

I think the important thing to notice here is that an iron is designed to be used on the bottom six or seven grooves. On the top six or seven grooves, you'll generally have very little weighting behind them; therefore, resulting in shots that don't have much power. So when you tee the ball up on a par three--and I would encourage you to tee the ball up. I think given the opportunity to do so, I would like you to use that opportunity. I think those make the strike easier. But don't tee it up very high because teeing the ball up really high, for example, on a wood tee peg like I've got here, the ball would clearly sit way too high up on the club face, giving me some very dead results. Because like I said, this club is designed to be used from the bottom six or seven grooves. That's where the weighting is. There's not much weights around the perimeter too much. So tee it nice and low.

Now, if you got your normal-sized tee peg, then just push it all the way into the floor until the little flat cup on the top of the tee, just resting the ground, balance the ball on that. When you look down on it now, it should just look like it was--like it was a good lie almost, like it was just sitting nicely on a tuft of grass, just a little quarter inch underneath the ball. So it gives you a little bit of help. It should encourage you to not hit the ball too fat. But I don't think it's going to give you that opportunity to go right scooping onto the golf ball either. So a little quarter-inch tee peg, straight down, still try and take a small divot. And I think that could be a nice, successful way to tee the ball up on par threes.

 2012-05-31

So most golfers that have played for awhile, most experienced golfers, will know that majority of their iron shots that they ever hit, they actually hit from the floor. That's where you practice most of your stuff. That's where you practice most of the time actually on the golf course, hitting the ball from the deck. But when you come to a par three, you maybe got the opportunity to tee up your iron shot. So the debate really is do you take that opportunity to tee it up? Some people feel they hit the ball better from a tee. Some people actually feel that it makes their strike a little bit worse.

I think the important thing to notice here is that an iron is designed to be used on the bottom six or seven grooves. On the top six or seven grooves, you'll generally have very little weighting behind them; therefore, resulting in shots that don't have much power. So when you tee the ball up on a par three–and I would encourage you to tee the ball up. I think given the opportunity to do so, I would like you to use that opportunity. I think those make the strike easier. But don't tee it up very high because teeing the ball up really high, for example, on a wood tee peg like I've got here, the ball would clearly sit way too high up on the club face, giving me some very dead results. Because like I said, this club is designed to be used from the bottom six or seven grooves. That's where the weighting is. There's not much weights around the perimeter too much. So tee it nice and low.

Now, if you got your normal-sized tee peg, then just push it all the way into the floor until the little flat cup on the top of the tee, just resting the ground, balance the ball on that. When you look down on it now, it should just look like it was–like it was a good lie almost, like it was just sitting nicely on a tuft of grass, just a little quarter inch underneath the ball. So it gives you a little bit of help. It should encourage you to not hit the ball too fat. But I don't think it's going to give you that opportunity to go right scooping onto the golf ball either. So a little quarter-inch tee peg, straight down, still try and take a small divot. And I think that could be a nice, successful way to tee the ball up on par threes.