Can any set of tees be rated for Ladies or is there still a maximum length?
One of the features of the WHS was to have all tees rated for both genders, so allowing players to play from a set of tees that best suited their playing ability or choice.
In the beginning, to ensure that all 1800 courses in England were rated as quickly as possible before the WHS was introduced, England Golf prioritised rating a club’s existing tees and retained the maximum limit of 6100yds for the length of a course for women.
With this programme now completed, rating teams may have more time to be able to look at requests for other courses to be rated especially now that more clubs are adopting gender-free tees.
England Golf have, therefore, taken a more relaxed view and as part of the ongoing development process, are giving clubs the option to ask for longer tee sets to be rated for women if they can demonstrate a need for it.
It is doubtful if a county would turn down a request for a longer course to be rated if their rating team has the time to carry it out.
There will be a cost to carry this rating out.
In the short term, your club can be issued a provisional rating which is based upon yardage and the obstacle values on one of the other rated sets of courses. That would be for two years, by which time the county would have to find time to come and formally rate. So, there is a quick fix if you feel like it is needed in the short term.
Within those two years, that tee would have to see some usage. If your club was given a provisional rating and then, in two years’ time, there’s only been a dozen rounds of golf played on that course, it’s probably very unlikely your county would see fit to formally rate a course that’s seen so little use and it could also be seen as an unnecessary additional cost to your club.