The Humble Golf Tee

I used to watch golf on TV when I was a boy, many years ago. I was fascinated by the way the golfer would press the golf tee into the ground, balance the ball, size up the shot, take practice swings in an almost half-hearted manner, then stand gently rocking, on one foot then the other until he was properly bedded down. Next came the firm, swift and sure swing of the club, then the smacking sound as it hit the ball and with that the TV camera would soar skywards to follow the trajectory of the little white object furiously flying through the air.

It was great fun to watch and I longed for the day when I could do it myself. I made little homemade clubs from sticks of wood and swiped at small rubber balls. It worked to some extent, but it wasn't really the same and was always less than satisfying. However, try as I would, I couldn't for the life of me work out what a golf tee looked like. That remained a mystery for a long time.

Think about it, the golfer invariably steps up to the green. He sticks his hand in his pocket, withdraws something, but on TV you can never quite make out exactly what it is. Then he bends down and shoves the object into the ground, balancing the ball on top of it immediately after. The TV coverage I watched was never able to show what a golf tee actually looked like, and that was extremely frustrating to a young boy with a vivid imagination.

Had it been now, or even 10 or 20 years ago, I would simply have recorded the TV coverage on video and played it back, freezing the video at the critical moment. But when I watched golf as a boy no one had even heard of video players or recorders. I hate to admit it, but even the TV picture was in black and white back then, and if I remember correctly, it only had a fuzzy 405 lines too. Colour and high definition pictures were still a long way into the future.

You may be thinking that I could have simply gone along a sports shop selling golf accessories to see what a golf tee looked like, or at least to see what the picture on the outside of the packet was like. Alas, I couldn't do that. I lived in the country, and while we did go shopping in the nearby town occasionally, I never seemed to find the opportunity to check out a sports shop.

I was nearly fully grown by the time I actually held a golf tee in my hand. I smiled at its simplicity and ordinary appearance; it was just a small plastic object of no real consequence, yet it played an important role in every golf game. Without the golf tee there would be holes, or at least more holes, on all the golf courses in the country where a golfer had swiped the ground in his or her attempt to hit the ball.

That's all the golf tee really does. It keeps the golf ball off the ground and held steady so the golfer can make the shot. I think I preferred it when the golf tee was a mystery though; there's something sad about discovering the reality of any mystery. Yet today, every time I press a golf tee into the ground, I can still recall those grainy black and white TV images and I picture a young boy straining forward to try and see what the golfer had in his hand.

This article was produced by Liz Strawford on behalf of GoKart, makers of the electric golf trolley. GoKart Electric Golf Trolley sells innovatively designed electric golf trolleys, manufactured in the UK. All come with excellent support service from a company that is passionate about golf.