Does a higher tee really produce more distance? What our test reveals

Welcome to MythBusters, a Golf Digest+ series where we explore answers to some of golf’s most common questions through a series of tests with real golfers.

Tee it high and let it fly. It's one of golf’s most eye-rolling clichés. The higher you tee the ball up, the farther it will go. Teeing the ball very low, on the other hand, is commonly understood to be a go-to method for getting the ball in play. But does tee height really make a difference with distance and accuracy?

Our test

To determine the effects of tee height, a Golf Digest staffer and +2 handicap, Drew Powell, hit five drives each with three separate tee heights: low, medium and high. We measured ball speed, carry distance and dispersion using Foresight Sports’ GCQuad launch monitor off the first tee at Tamarack Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. We determined the respective tee heights using the lines on the tees.

What we found

Low tee

Avg. ball speed: 175.2 mph
Avg. carry: 308 yards
Avg. dispersion: 17.4 yards off center

Medium tee

Avg. ball speed: 175.6 mph
Avg. carry: 304.6 yards
Avg. dispersion: 25.8 yards off center

High tee

Avg. ball speed: 176 mph
Avg. carry: 319 yards
Avg. dispersion: 26.8 yards off center

What does it mean

After testing three different tee heights, our findings confirm that as tee height increases, so too does the average ball speed. The lowest tee height produced the slowest average ball speed (175.2 mph), while the high tee resulted in the fastest average ball speed (176 mph).

While this small difference in ball speed might suggest only a modest increase in distance as the tee height gets taller, we also observed a substantial increase in carry distance, from averaging 308 yards with the low tee to 319 yards with the high tee. This 11-yard increase is due to a more upward angle-of-attack with the high tee, resulting in a higher ball flight and more carry.

When we look at dispersion, however, we notice that as the tee height increased, the dispersion increased as well, averaging 17.4 yards off center with a low tee, 25.8 yards off center with a medium tee and 26.8 yards off center with a high tee. Looking closer, the high tee produced the biggest miss of all three tees, with one drive traveling more than 50 yards offline.

It is worth noting that we did not take out any outliers from our data, as we believe that the outliers—due to poor swings—make an important point about the tee height. How does a poor swing get punished with a low tee vs. a high tee? We observed that as the tee height got taller, the poor swings were punished more, with balls traveling farther offline. However, the good swings with higher tees had a faster ball speed, farthest carry and finished quite close to the center line.

Which brings us to a subtle nuance worth noting. While our test confirmed that higher tees produce more distance but less accuracy on average, most drives flew just as accurately with a higher tee than a lower tee. It was the poor swings with a high tee that produced very big misses, especially when compared to a low tee.

What it doesn’t mean

While Powell saw greater carry distance with a higher tee and more control with a shorter tee, other golfers may experience different results based on their swing tendencies. For example, if you’re a player who tends to hit too far down on the driver, then a lower tee may exacerbate this problem and cause more inconsistency.

Players who tend to hang back on the trail leg in the downswing, on the other hand, might find that a lower tee helps them get to their front side and cover the ball. That may lead to distance gains with the low tee if the contact is improved.

Our test shows, rather, the broad tendencies that many players will notice with tee height. It’s a starting point for reference, and finding how tee height affects your swing will improve your driving.

Verdict

The cliché holds true. Teeing the ball higher does increase carry distance, but brings a bigger miss into play as well. Meanwhile, a lower tee takes off with a slower ball speed and flies shorter. But a poor swing using a lower tee also flies straighter than one with a higher tee.