Under the Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy's survey, golf tees are sold in five common lengths, from 42 mm (1.65 in) to 83 mm (3.27 in), and the 54 mm (2.13 in) tee is the most frequent in the retail listings. The Institute proposes classes G1 to G5 for these lengths. The one real limit, the maximum of 4 inches (101.6 mm) in the Rules of Golf, is cited as published and is not altered.
A golf tee is a small peg of wood or plastic, tapered to a point at one end and cupped at the other, on which the ball is placed for the first stroke of a hole. It is made in hundreds of millions and sold in bags of fifty, one hundred or several hundred. The bag states a count, a colour and sometimes a word such as long or short. It rarely states a length in millimetres, and never a class.
| Common name | Length (mm) | Length (in) | Cup diameter (mm) | Typical use | Institute class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extra short | 42 | 1.65 | 15 | Iron shots, practice mats | G1 |
| Short | 54 | 2.13 | 17 | Iron shots, par threes | G2 |
| Medium | 70 | 2.76 | 19 | Mixed use, club play | G3 |
| Long | 83 | 3.27 | 21 | Driver, large-head clubs | G4 |
| Castle or step tee | 57 | 2.24 | 28 | Fixed-height tee with stepped cup | G2 |
Inch figures are the millimetre value divided by 25.4, rounded to two decimal places. The lengths are the Institute's survey means, taken from the whole peg including the point. The survey found that wooden tees varied by up to 1.5 mm within one bag, and that plastic tees, which are moulded, varied by less than 0.3 mm.
The Institute does not invent where a real rule exists. The Rules of Golf limit the length of a tee to 4 inches (101.6 mm), and a tee must not be designed to indicate the line of play or to influence the movement of the ball. These are the only dimensional rules the Institute has found. All five classes on this page fall under the limit, and the longest common tee, class G4, is about 18 mm short of it.
The rule fixes a maximum and nothing else. It says nothing about the shortest tee, the width of the cup, the taper of the point or the diameter of the shank. Those remain the choice of the maker, and the survey shows that each maker has chosen differently.
The method is to lay the tee on a flat surface, with the cup uppermost and the point against a stop, and to read the overall length with calipers or a rule graduated in half millimetres. The Institute reports the overall length and records the cup diameter separately. A tee that has been pushed into the ground and withdrawn is not measured, since the point is blunted by use and the length falls by 1 mm to 3 mm.
The shank is measured at its midpoint. A wooden tee has a shank of 4 mm to 5 mm, while a plastic tee, which must resist bending, may reach 6 mm. The thin pegs sold for practice are the exception, with a shank of 3 mm.
The common tee is of birch or of bamboo, and the Institute records the wood species wherever the maker states it. A bamboo tee of 70 mm weighs about 1.1 g and a birch tee of the same length about 1.5 g. A plastic tee of 70 mm weighs between 1.8 g and 3.0 g depending on whether it is solid or has a hollow shank. The weight is indicative and varies with the moisture of the wood.
The material changes the length as much as the weight. Wooden tees are cut from a dowel, so their length is an exact multiple of a cutting step, while plastic tees take the length of the mould. The Institute therefore finds more distinct lengths among plastic tees than among wooden ones.
The classes are the Institute's own, introduced on this page. No maker, club or governing body uses them.
A class says how long the peg is. It does not say how high the ball sits above the ground, since that depends on how far the golfer pushes the tee in. The Institute records the height of the ball separately, and does not infer it from the class.
Bags of tees are usually of one length and several colours, and the colours carry no meaning of length. The Institute's survey of retail listings found that fewer than one bag in six gave a length at all, and that when a length was given it was in inches in North American listings and in millimetres in most others. The two never appeared together, which is why the table above gives both.
Bag counts are 30, 50, 100 and 250, and the Institute weighed a bag of one hundred 70 mm bamboo tees at about 115 g, including the bag. A reader can check a bag against a kitchen scale, with an allowance of 5 g.
The tee belongs with the dowel, the toothpick and the craft stick as a small turned or cut peg, and is catalogued in the department of length and fit. Compare dowel sizes, whose diameters the tee shank follows, and the toothpick, whose point is cut in the same way.
The Institute also records the craft stick on the same footing, since both are cut from a billet and sold by count.
The review panel divides on whether the castle tee, with a stepped base that fixes the height, is a golf tee in the same sense as the plain peg. Two members hold that it is a separate object, since its height is set by the maker and not by the golfer. The majority hold that a tee is defined by its function, which is to hold the ball, and that the step is a variant. The table lists it separately for the reader's convenience, and the majority's position is that it takes the class of its length.
The Institute has not measured tees sold for competition at professional level, which are bought by the case and not through retail listings. Nor has it measured the long rubber practice tee used on mats. Both are queued for a later survey, and no figure for them appears on this page.
Under the Brennholt Institute's tables, the most frequent golf tee is 54 mm (2.13 in) long, class G2. Common lengths run from 42 mm (1.65 in) to 83 mm (3.27 in).
The Rules of Golf set a maximum of 4 inches (101.6 mm). The Institute cites this as published; it is the only dimensional rule found.
The Institute's survey associates the long tee, 83 mm (3.27 in), class G4, with large-head drivers. The choice is the golfer's, and no rule requires it.
About 1.1 g for a 70 mm bamboo tee and 1.5 g for a birch tee. A plastic tee of the same length weighs between 1.8 g and 3.0 g.
Apart from the 4 inch maximum in the Rules of Golf, no published standard has been found. The classes G1 to G5 are the Institute's own proposal.