THE INTERNET, CA – The PGA Tour likes to complain about how hard it is to set up courses for the modern game. Common refrains such as “The ball is too long”, “Modern clubs are too forgiving” and “Tiger won’t even show up if there isn’t a Hooters within a quarter mile” are heard time and time again.

Boo freaking hoo. They don’t realize how good they’ve got it. Anyone who has ever been to a PGA tournament can tell you how shockingly predictable the pros are. If you sit at a green and watch 20 players come through, you’ll wonder how the hell anyone separates themselves from the field. Even the dude in dead fucking last hits it within a 20-foot circle (and then three putts).

The same is true off the tee. They all hit it more or less the same distance on more or less the same line to more or less the same landing area (except for the freaks like Dustin and Rory). It seems simple to me. 1. Find the average driving distance. 2. Play the tees that bring the fairway bunkers into play. Problem solved.

If the PGA Tour really wants something to bitch about, they should try and pick a fair set of tees for a field whose driving distances range from 180 to 360. A field whose ability to reliably get the ball airborne over even the shortest forced carry is questionable. A field where “good shot” means the ball ended up somewhere within 45 degrees of the spot they were aiming. Not to mention having an entire field that requires a Hooters be within a quarter mile of the course.

I’ll admit it, the past two years at Revere have been rough. I’ve witnessed it for myself and heard about it from a few of you. Most notably was the dude who told me he was going to “go home and calm down and then write me a letter to express his displeasure.” This is a true story. But he obviously didn’t follow through or else you all would have seen this letter on the front page of our site.

The truth is that the tees have been set incorrectly on 9 of the holes for the last two years (hole 10 on Lexington anyone?). Each year I told them which tees I wanted, but was never able to find time to go out and verify they have been correctly set up before the round begins. And since they have 15 different tee boxes on each hole, mistakes were understandably made. This year will be different. I guarantee it.

A few months ago I ended up in Vegas at the same time as Todd “The Most Hated Man In The MGA” Benoit. We played all 36 holes at Revere to have a look at the different tee box options for #THETENTH #MGAWC18.
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We knew the perfect tee boxes were out there, so we headed out to find them.

We took many things into consideration at each hole. The distance to the fairway bunkers, any forced carries, total hole length and even how fun the hole looked off the tee box. At the same time, we made sure not to take all the teeth and variety out of the course, leaving a bunch of identical par 4’s.

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We will still mix the nines as we have in the past, but we now end up with two very closely matched 18-hole courses that will be both fun and challenging. Have a look at the numbers below and keep in mind that each and every hole was evaluated with mediocre players in mind.