![Golf Club at Wescott Plantation (9321187216)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Golf_Club_at_Wescott_Plantation_%289321187216%29.jpg)
A tee is a stand used in sport to support and elevate a stationary
ball
A ball is a round object (usually spherical, but can sometimes be ovoid) with several uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used f ...
prior to striking with a foot, club or bat. Tees are used extensively in
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
,
tee-ball
Tee-ball (also teeball, tee ball or T-ball) is a team sport based on a simplified form of baseball or softball. It is intended as an introduction for children aged 4 to 6 to develop ball-game skills and have fun.
Description
Tee-ball association ...
,
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
,
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
, and
rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
.
Etymology
The word tee is derived from the
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, GÃ idhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
word ''
taigh'' meaning house and is related to the 'house' (the coloured circles) in
curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...
. This would make sense, as the first golf tees were within a ''circle'' of one
golf club
A golf club is a club used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a club head. Wood (golf), Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; iron (golf), irons, the most versatile class ...
length round the hole. Nowadays, modern courses have separate, designated tee boxes for each hole. For example, the ninth hole of a course is played from the ninth tee to the ninth
green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...
, and similarly for the other holes.
Golf tee
![Novelty human tooth golf tee](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Novelty_human_tooth_golf_tee.jpg)
In golf, a tee is normally used for the first stroke of each hole. The area from which this first stroke is hit is in the rules known as the teeing ground. Normally, teeing the ball is allowed only on the first shot of a hole, called the tee shot, and is illegal for any other shot; however, local or seasonal rules may allow or require teeing for other shots as well, ''e.g.'', under "winter rules" to protect the turf when it is unusually vulnerable. Teeing gives a considerable advantage for drive shots, so it is normally done whenever allowed. However, players may elect to play their tee shots without a tee. This typically gives the shot a lower trajectory.
A standard golf tee is 2.125" (two and one eighth inches = 5.4 cm) long, but both longer and shorter tees are permitted. Ordinary tees can be made from wood or from durable plastic. There are also many biodegradable and recyclable golf tees that diminish the number of trees cut down to manufacture the tees and allow golf courses to lower costs by not having to deal with the broken wooden tees on their courses.
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."''
History
The development of the tee was the last major change to the
rules of golf
The rules of golf consist of a standard set of regulations and procedures by which the sport of golf should be played. They are jointly written and administered by The R&A (spun off from The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in 2004) and th ...
. Before this,
golf ball
A golf ball is a special ball designed to be used in the game of golf.
Under the rules of golf, a golf ball has a mass no more than , has a diameter not less than , and performs within specified velocity, distance, and symmetry limits. Like g ...
s were teed up on little heaps of sand that were provided in boxes. This explains the historical name ''tee boxes'' for what is today known as ''teeing ground''.
The earliest golf tees rested flat on the ground and had a raised portion to prop up the ball. The first
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
for this kind of tee is dated 1889, and was issued to Scotsmen William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas.
[Valenta, Irwin R. ''The Singular History of the Golf Tee'', Greensboro, North Carolina, 1995. Summary a]
/ref> The first known tee to pierce the ground was a rubber-topped peg sold commercially as the "Perfectum." This was patented in 1892 by Percy Ellis of England.[ In 1899, an African-American dentist, Dr. ]George Franklin Grant
George Franklin Grant (September 15, 1846 – August 21, 1910) was the first African-American professor at Harvard. He was also a Boston dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.
Biography
Grant was born on September 15, 1846, in Oswego ...
, obtained a patent for an "improved golf tee". This tee consisted of a wood cone with a rubber sleeve to support the ball, but it is not known to have ever been marketed.
Tee patent.png, British patent #12941 of 1889.
Golf tee Ellis 1892.png, British patent #36 of 1892.
Uspatent570821.png, U.S. Paten
#570,821
"Combined Golf Tee and Score Card," 1896.
Golf tee Kirkwood 1896.png, British paten
#253 of 1896
Golf tee Matthew 1897.png, British paten
#14292 of 1897
Grantpatent.gif, U.S. Paten
#638,920
Dr. George Franklin Grant
George Franklin Grant (September 15, 1846 – August 21, 1910) was the first African-American professor at Harvard. He was also a Boston dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.
Biography
Grant was born on September 15, 1846, in Oswego ...
, 1899.
1670627.gif, U.S. Patent 1,670,267, William Lowell, Sr.
William Lowell Sr. (1863 – June 24, 1954) was a dentist and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.
Biography
William Lowell was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and lived in Maplewood, New Jersey, and had a son, William Lowell Jr. (1897–1976). He ...
in 1925
These and other variations failed to catch on, as most golfers—whether because of tradition, habit, or concerns about the rules—continued using heaps of sand. It took a strong marketing effort by Dr. William Lowell, Sr.
William Lowell Sr. (1863 – June 24, 1954) was a dentist and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.
Biography
William Lowell was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and lived in Maplewood, New Jersey, and had a son, William Lowell Jr. (1897–1976). He ...
in the 1920s to bring manufactured tees into widespread use. Sales of his "Reddy Tee," a simple wooden peg with a flared top, took off after Lowell hired professional golfers Walter Hagen
Walter Charles Hagen (December 21, 1892 – October 6, 1969) was an American professional golfer and a major figure in golf in the first half of the 20th century. His tally of 11 professional majors is third behind Jack Nicklaus (18) and Tiger ...
and Joe Kirkwood, Sr.
Joseph Henry Kirkwood Sr. (3 April 1897 – 29 October 1970) was a professional golfer who is acknowledged as having put Australian golf on the world map.
Born in Sydney, Australia, Kirkwood left home at age ten to work on a sheep station i ...
to promote the product during exhibition matches. It was copied around the world, and remains the most common type of golf tee.
Tee-ball tee
Tee-ball
Tee-ball (also teeball, tee ball or T-ball) is a team sport based on a simplified form of baseball or softball. It is intended as an introduction for children aged 4 to 6 to develop ball-game skills and have fun.
Description
Tee-ball association ...
is based on baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
, with the main difference being the use of a tee in the place of a pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...
. Much larger than a golf tee, the tee-ball tee is a durable rubber stand attached to the home plate
A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers ...
which supports the baseball at a suitable height for the batter
Batter or batters may refer to:
Common meanings
* Batter (cooking), thin dough that can be easily poured into a pan
* Batter (baseball), person whose turn it is to face the pitcher
* Batter (cricket), a player who is currently batting
* Batter ...
to hit. It is adjustable to allow for variations in batter height.
Baseball tee
While a tee for baseball is very similar to a tee in tee-ball, the uses for the tee may differ. In baseball, a tee is used as a training device. This allows the hitter to simulate a pitch that will be thrown in many different locations. Using a tee, the hitter can set up a pitch that may be thrown inside, down the middle, and outside as well as high and low. Unlike tee-ball, where the ball is sitting on the tee, in baseball the pitch is being thrown by another player, resulting in the ball crossing the plate in several different areas. As a batter, using a tee as a training aid will help the hitter perfect his swing no matter where the pitch is thrown. A tee may also be used for batting drills. Drills are used to strengthen the players hitting motion and to get them used to hitting baseballs in different locations.
These tees may also be used in softball as a training device.
Kicking tee
A kicking tee is a rubber or plastic platform, often with prongs and/or a brim around an inner depression.
In American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
and Canadian football
Canadian football () is a team sport, sport played in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposing team's sco ...
, a tee may be used on kickoff
Kickoff or kick-off may refer to
* Kick-off (association football)
* Kickoff (gridiron football)
* ''Kick Off'' (series), a series of computer association football games
* ''Kick Off'' (album), a 1985 album by Onyanko Club
* ''Kick Off'' (magaz ...
s to raise the ball slightly above the playing surface (up to one inch, by NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
and NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
rules). The first use of the tee is attributed to Arda Bowser
Arda "Ard" Crawford Bowser (January 9, 1899 – September 7, 1996) was a professional football player who spent two years of the National Football League with the Canton Bulldogs and the Cleveland Indians. Bowser won an NFL championship with t ...
, a member of the Canton Bulldogs
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and the American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football Leag ...
NFL championship team of 1922. The CFL
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
and some high school leagues also allow the use of another sort of tee on field goal
A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...
and extra point
The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...
kicks, where another player (the holder) places one end of the ball on this "tee" (which is not a tee in the strictest sense of the term, but instead a rubber block; such "tees" come in 1" and 2" types) and holds the opposite end; in college and the NFL, all extra point/field goal attempts can only be made off the ground.
Tees may also be used for place kick
The place kick is a type of kicking play commonly used in American football, association football (soccer), Canadian football, rugby league, and rugby union.
Gridiron football
Place kicks are used in American football and Canadian football for ...
s in rugby league football
Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112â ...
and rugby union football
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
.
Tees are used for kick-outs in Gaelic football
Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...
. In 2006, Shane Curran devised an adjustable tee on which the ball rested on brush hairs to replicate kicking from grass; the design went on to be used by most goalkeepers.
Guinness World Record
The largest golf tee in the world was created by Jim Bolin in Casey, Illinois
Casey (pronounced CAY-see) is a city in Clark and Cumberland counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 2,404 at the 2020 census.
The Cumberland County portion of Casey is part of the Charleston– Mattoon Micropolitan Stat ...
, USA. It measures at 9.37 m (30 ft 9 in) long with a head diameter of 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) and a shaft width of 64 cm (2 ft 1 in).
See also
*Glossary of golf
The following is a glossary of the terminology currently used in the sport of golf. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Old names for clubs can be found at Obsolete golf clubs.
0–9 ...
References
External links
Derivation of ''Golf Tee''
U.S. Patent 638920
t
{{Golf equipment
Golf equipment
Golf terminology
American football equipment