If you've ever teed up a golf ball, it's possible you've been in this group at least once.

Your foursome contains some pretty good players, who are young and fearless and drive it long.

You make a road trip and at least one of the players convinces the others to play the new course from the back tees - because they think they're good enough to, or it's the macho thing to do.

Or maybe, a little of both.

"A lot of people play more yardage than they probably should," said Derrick Thompson, assistant pro at Avondale Golf Club in Hayden Lake. "Some people from out of town will come here, play from the blue tees and shoot 110 and say 'This is the hardest golf course that I've ever played.' Well, you didn't do yourself any favors by playing the hardest tees."

The PGA and the USGA have come up with an idea called "Tee it Forward," which encourages players to tee it up from one tee closer to the hole. The idea is for golfers to play a course at a yardage they're comfortable with. Rather than play from a tee which forces you to hit a driver 270 yards to carry a hazard, move up to the next tee. Or if the tee you play from requires you to hit a fairway wood into a par-4, move up one tee and perhaps you'll only have to hit a 5-iron or 6-iron in.

Granted, Avondale is nearly 6,600 yards from the blue tees. But most other courses in our area aren't all that long to begin with, so playing from the tips shouldn't be an issue for the really good golfers. Still, some say it's an idea that makes sense.

"The people that it would really benefit are women, senior men who don't hit it very far and those just beginning to play the game," said Thompson, who is also the men's and women's golf coach at North Idaho College. "It's going to give them more success, and success will bring them back."

MOST AREA courses have four basic sets of tees - blue (the farthest back), white (where most men play from), gold (where most seniors play from), and red (the shortest tees, used by women).

The women’s tees, on average, are some 30 yards in front of where most of the men hit from, Thompson said.

He said the PGA and USGA suggest that, to get the full benefit of “Tee it Forward,” the ladies’ tees would be moved up 100 yards. So rather than the women playing, say, from 5,300 yards at Avondale, they would play a course measuring 4,200 yards, which seems pretty short — even for here.

For comparison, here are the lengths of some local courses from the second-longest tees (where most men play from) and from the shortest (women’s) tees:

Coeur d’Alene Resort (6,343, 4,448), Circling Raven (6,578, 4,708), Coeur d’Alene Public (6,037, 5,560), Avondale (6,573, 5,357), The Highlands (6,056, 5,149), Prairie Falls 6,004, 5,551), The Links 6,582, 5,631), Twin Lakes Village (5,915, 5,363), and The Idaho Club (6,560, 5,130).

The Links is 7,450 from the back (black) tees. Circling Raven is 7,189 from the tips, and The Idaho Club is 7,089 from the back.

Thompson said one way of getting people to move up would be changing the colors of the tees.

“It gets rid of that stigma that you’ve got to play from the men’s tees because there is no men’s tees,” he said.

Many “destination” courses have six or seven tee boxes, he said.

At one time, Thompson was an assistant at The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, where the back tees are gold, followed by blue, tan, mauve and copper (the shortest tees). At Circling Raven, the tees are gold (longest), blue, white, red and green (shortest).

Rather than ask where the men’s tees were when they played the Resort, golfers asked the caddies which color tees they recommend they play from.

“They shot the best round of their life and couldn’t wait to come back,” Thompson said. “They don’t realize they played from a thousand yards shorter. Golf is tough enough as it is, but to play a course 1,000 or 2,000 yards too long is a detriment.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at mnelke@cdapress.com.