Reduced Yardage Guidelines for Women

Reduced Yardage Guidelines For Women Participating in Events With Men

Set Up Philosophy (75-86% distance)

The PGA of Ontario’s guideline for course length set up for competitions with both men and women is to set the women’s tees at an overall length of between 75-86% of the men’s total yardage. This does not necessarily mean that every hole has to be within these limits but that the overall 18-hole total length should be within these limits.

With the above guidelines, the Tournament Committee will determine the selected tee locations for the men’s and women’s tees and also try to identify enough flexibility to adjust the teeing grounds based on each day’s wind and weather projections.

When considering and determining which tees to use, average hitting distances for both the men and women participating will be identified, and wherever possible, golf course features will be kept in play for tee shots for both men and women (i.e. bunkers, creeks, dog-legs, trees etc).

The following are a list of items that will be considered when setting up the golf course for both men and women: 

• Providing similar width landing areas from both sets of tees.  
• Penalty areas (especially those that cross the hole).
• Approach shot distances and angles (i.e. ensuring players can reach a dogleg for approach shots).
• Fairway bunkering should be in play from both sets of tees.
• Holes should be reachable, with similar clubs, in the same number of shots for both men and women.
• Forced carries should be reachable from both sets of tees.

Other Considerations

Most golf courses architecture/design should allow for any features of the golf course to be brought out and highlighted to provide a mix of more difficult and relatively easy golf holes.

Par 3’s:

On par 3’s we will try and ensure a variety of different clubs are used on each day and a similar club is being used for both men and women. 

Par 5’s

The tees selected should be fair to both men and women and if the majority of men can reach the green in two shots then the majority of women should also be able to reach the green in two shots.

Summary:

The intent when setting up the golf course for both men and women to compete against each other is to try to have the players hit similar type clubs into greens. However, there are some holes where the women will be hitting longer clubs into holes than the men and vice-versa. This will not dictate how each hole should be set-up each day simply to try to have the same club being hit by both men and women. The committee will use its best judgment based on weather and playing conditions to fairly challenge and test our PGA members.

OFFICIAL YARDAGES

When comparing men's and women's length of drives and corresponding distances, the statistics for the very top performing golfers in the World in 2022 show the following:

PGA Tour Average Driving Distance on Driving Distance holes when players hit drivers: 299.7 yards

LPGA Tour Average Driving Distance on Driving Distance holes when players hit drivers: 257.1 yards

Note: These are Tour averages and we should remember that some players hit the ball significantly further than these distances (men and women) while some hit the ball significantly shorter distances (men and women).

Please contact Michael Moniz, Tournament Captain (michael@mapledowns.com) if you have any particular questions or follow up to these guidelines.