The best golf tees for improved performance from the first hole
If you ever want to experience how willing golfers are to mess with equipment in the hope that some twist or turn here or there might shave a stroke or two off a scorecard, we offer up the world of golf tees. Such a simple accessory seems so basic that it can’t be improved or even subjected to variations in design, but never underestimate a golfer’s desire to tinker.
Golf tees are a pretty simple device. To hit your driver (or hybrid, occasionally), you want to be swinging up on the ball at contact. Therefore, you elevate the ball an inch or two above the turf by pushing a tiny, skinny wooden or plastic platform into the ground to lift the orb into position.
Enter the golfer looking for a boost. Does the tee have to be wood? Can the right tee help you choose the height of your ball? Can a more advanced tee help your swing or ball control? Only you can decide that for your game, and this collection will serve up some options.
Top 10 golf tees
Staff favorite: Pride Performance Professional Tee System
Best budget: WHAMZ33 W Professional Wooden Golf Tees
Best classic: Western Birch Golf Tees
Best for slicers: RecTeeFier Slice/Hook Correction Golf Tee
Best short tees: Zero Friction Tour 3-Prong Golf Tees
Best for durability: Callaway Par-Tee Plastic Golf Tees
Best for beginners: Martini Golf Tees
Best for big hitters: Brush-T Premium Plastic Golf Tees
Best for shorter hitters: 4 Yards More Golf Tees
Best for practice: Fiberbuilt Golf Adjustable Golf Tee
How we chose the best golf tees
If you play the game, you use a tee — unless you stick to your irons on lonely par-3 courses. Playing often, we had a chance to whack away at many of the tees on this list. For those few we haven’t tried (such as the RecTeeFier Slice Correction Golf Tee), we scoured multiple golf sites and customer reviews to seek out the most popular brands for each category.
Staff favorite: Pride Performance Professional Tee System
Staff favorite: Pride Performance Professional Tee System (2 pack)
Benefits
— PGA Tour-approved
— Long-lasting
— Low friction
Drawbacks
— Stiffer plastic breaks like wood on occasion
There are plenty of golf news sites out there that list what a given PGA Tour pro has in their bag each golf season. However, while those listings always include clubs and golf balls, tees are often left out of the news scoop. That said, if you ask most experts and pros what tees are often found on tour, it’s the Pride Performance Professional Tee System.
These plastic tees come in a variety of lengths, and all bear marker stripes to guide how deep you insert them into the ground for your swing. While more durable than wooden tees, the stiff plastic can snap more often than softer tee designs.
Material: Plastic | Length: Varies | Count: 30
Best budget: WHAMZ33 W Professional Wooden Golf Tees
Best budget: WHAMZ33 W Professional Wooden Golf Tees
Benefits
— Affordable
— Quality construction for the price
— Treated for less friction
Drawbacks
— Breakable
— No depth guide markers
You’ll find tees like these all over the golf world from local municipal courses to driving ranges. They’re sold in bunches or handfuls, and they do the job perfectly well if all you need is something to get that golf ball elevated.
What you’re getting here is a piece of unmarked, treated, solid bamboo. No lines or patterns help you set the tee’s depth, though. You’ll just have to eyeball it.
Material: Bamboo | Length: 2.75 in. | Count: 100
Best classic: Western Birch Golf Tees
Best classic: Western Birch Golf Tees
Benefits
— Bamboo or wooden construction
— Strong aesthetics
— Range of sizes
Drawbacks
— Breakable like other wooden tees
Of course, the product name says it all. With birch right there in the name, these classy, old-fashioned tees are made of, er, bamboo. Actually, the Western Birch tees come in both bamboo and hardwood, so the nomenclature still applies. Featuring eye-catching paint schemes and finishes, these are some of the best-looking tees on the market.
The Western Birch Golf Tees come in a variety of color schemes and lengths to fit your needs. Wood and bamboo both break on violent contact, of course, so you’ll go through a bunch of them.
Material: Bamboo or wood | Length: Varies | Count: 50
Best for slicers: RecTeeFier Slice/Hook Correction Golf Tee
Best for slicers: RecTeeFier Slice/Hook Correction Golf Tee
Benefits
— Promises to aid a slice
— Built tough enough for multiple uses
Drawbacks
— Promises only a 35% improvement
For the few uninitiated readers, a slice is a right-handed golfer’s tendency to swing outside to inside — cutting across the face of the ball and sending it to the right. It’s the most common swing problem in golf for amateurs. (Simply reverse all that for left-handed players, but the problem remains.)
The RecTeeFier Slice/Hook Correction Golf Tee claims it’ll alter impact and spin, reducing slice tendency by 35%. If you have a serious slice problem, these are worth a try, but there’s no substitute for practice.
Material: Impact-resistant polymer | Length: 3.25 in. | Count: 2
Best short tees: Zero Friction Tour 3-Prong Golf Tees
Best short tees: Zero Friction Tour 3-Prong Golf Tees
Benefits
— Multiple shorter-size options
— Low friction
— Reusable plastic
Drawbacks
— Slightly more expensive for 40-pack
— 3-prong holder vulnerable to wind
While you’re generally not allowed to use a tee anywhere else on the golf course except the tee box, the driver isn’t the only club in the bag to benefit from a little boost.
Par-3 holes or doglegs might invite the driver to stay in the bag in favor of a first shot with a long iron or hybrid with significantly less elevation. Rather than bury a full-length tee up to its neck just to get the ball a bit off the grass, companies make short tees under 2 inches.
The Zero Friction Tour 3-Prong Golf Tees are a prime option here. Available in multiple sizes and utilizing a simple three-pronged design to hold the ball, the Zero Friction line offers plenty of choices for “stubby” tees.
Material: Plastic | Length: Varies | Count: 20-40
Best for durability: Callaway Par-Tee Plastic Golf Tees
Best for durability: Callaway Par-Tee Plastic Golf Tees
Benefits
— Very durable
— Reliable manufacturer
— Rubberized cub for low-spin launch
Drawbacks
— Not a great low-friction design
These were in the running for Best Overall in this collection since they combine tough materials, a solid design, and some clever science to top off the complete package.
Not only are these wedge-styled Callaway tees built thick and strong for multiple uses, but the rubber cup atop the tee is supposed to reduce spin off the tee (hopefully reducing slice or hook potential).
The Callaway design gets away from the brush, low-friction principle of extra distance tees. Still, good luck breaking one of these chunky Callaway offerings.
Material: Plastic, rubber | Length: 3.25 in. | Count: 10
Best for beginners: Martini Golf Tees
Best for beginners: Martini Golf Tees
Benefits
— Oversize design for beginners
— Strong and durable plastic
— Preset depth marker
Drawbacks
— Not designed to reduce spin
— Wider cup tip doesn’t encourage launch
These bright, big, and friendly plastic tees from Martini have larger top cups to hold the ball, making it easier for less experienced players to tee it up for a drive. Clear depth guides also aid the beginner in adjusting the tee to the proper height for a given swing.
Since Martini Golf Tees use a simpler, chunky design, there’s none of the low spin, brush launch technology used in more refined tees — but beginners don’t need all that.
Material: Plastic | Length: 3.25 in. | Count: 5
Best for big hitters: Brush-T Premium Plastic Golf Tees
Best for big hitters: Brush-T Premium Plastic Golf Tees
Benefits
— Brush design for less resistance
— Built-in height alignment
— Reusable
Drawbacks
— Thinner, weight-saving plastic seems brittle
For those players who hit it long off the tee but feel a little greedy and would like to snag an even bigger launch out of the box, the Brush-T Premium Plastic Golf Tees are waiting for you.
The idea is simple: Set the ball up right at the same height every time with the pellet resting on a lightweight plastic brush. Reduced friction on impact helps to launch the ball. To keep the whole design lightweight, however, some of the materials seem brittle for a tee intended for multiple uses.
Material: Plastic | Length: 2.4 in. | Count: 3
Best for shorter hitters: 4 Yards More Golf Tees
Best for shorter hitters: 4 Yards More Golf Tees
Benefits
— Promises those 4 more yards
— Fully reusable
— Low friction
Drawbacks
— You need some distance of your own
— Not a substitute for practice
The name says it all. These tees promise to give you 4 yards more (give or take) on your drives. The design employs a soft brush at the tee’s tip to cradle the ball to reduce friction instead of the solid cup materials on standard wood and plastic tees.
There’s only so much any tee can do for your game, though. If you want a little more distance, you need some of your own distance to begin with.
Material: Plastic | Length: 1.75 in. | Count: 12 (3 packs of 4)
Best for practice: Fiberbuilt Golf Adjustable Golf Tee
Best for practice: Fiberbuilt Golf Adjustable Golf Tee
Benefits
— Useful for practice on or off the range
— Adjustable for different tee sizes
— Works with or without a golf mat
Drawbacks
— Not for on-course play
— Works best with Fiberbuilt mats
The tees you’ll find at most driving ranges and practice facilities are flexible versions that take thousands of smacks before fraying and breaking — essentially consisting of a rubber tube protruding through an Astroturf-style golf mat.
The Fiberbuilt Golf Adjustable Golf Tee simulates that driving range tee in an adjustable design that you can hit repeatedly. This Fiberbuilt design works best with any golf mat but fits best with its own brand.
Material: Polymer | Length: Adjustable | Count: 2
Tee it up
While professionals spend a great deal of time considering every piece of equipment in their bag (including golf tees), a majority of amateur players will hit the ball much the same off most of their own tees. In fact, it’s a good bet you’ll find a mishmash of pegs collected from all over a player’s golf history in their bag.
Still, the right tee can offer slight improvement to your game if you have a specific need in mind. Only you know what that need might be, but if it’s a need for more distance or correcting a slice off the tee, there’s an implementation here that can add some assistance. However, you need to be realistic and understand there’s only so much a mere golf tee can add or fix in your game. If you have genuine swing problems of any sort, you’ll need to work on them before you can turn to a tee for help.
How to pick the right golf tees for you
There are a few simple factors to consider when choosing your golf tee, including the following:
Price
While few golf tees will dig all that deeply into your wallet, you can save money if all you want is the most basic piece of wood or plastic to get your ball off the ground. There are some basic, more flimsy models out there that’ll cost you less than a dollar. We chose the WHAMZ33 W Professional Wooden Golf Tees as our budget option. They’re not among those dollar-store versions at about $7 a bag, but we think they’re a good blend of quality and price.
Material
If reusability is key for you, go with plastic or rubber. If that’s not an issue and you’d rather have the natural, occasional clean break of a wooden or bamboo tee during a swing, the cost between the two is often negligible.
Specialty
If you evaluate your game and find the need for some form of improvement or refinement, there are tees that work to aid a slice or add distance out of the box. Those gadgets won’t repair major shortcomings in your golf game, but specialty tees such as the RecTeeFier Slice/Hook Correction Golf Tee or the 4 Yards More Golf Tees stand in nicely there.
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