It sounds a bit science fictional, but zero friction golf tees are real and they do make a difference. The tee is what the golf ball rests on prior to the golfer making his or her swing and the shot. It holds the ball off the ground, thereby helping to protect the ground surface, but it also makes the ball easier to hit. techpiled
The part that the ball sits on is a small cupped area. While there isn’t much friction between the ball and the tee, there is some. With a zero friction golf tee there is none, or very nearly none. Does this really make a difference? Yes! It has been shown that with a swing speed of 100 miles per hour, golfers can get the ball to go up to 12 feet farther, and accuracy can be increased by at least 15 feet.
It wasn’t always so, however. Golfers originally made tees from little piles of sand and balanced the balls precariously on top. This meant that they required the provision of water and towels for washing their hands afterwards, which in turn meant that someone had to be there to provide the cleaning service. A far cry from the fancy electric , satellite powered course readers and other hi tech gizmos of today! realisticmag
The tee was not originally the thing that the ball was perched on. It was the area that the golfer stood in to strike the ball. The word comes from the Gaelic word “tigh” meaning house. The house in question is related to the concept of the house in curling, the coloured circles. The original golf tees were within a circle of one club length round the hole.
Today, this has become the name for the little plastic item that is pushed into the ground that the ball is perched on top of. It has evolved into zero friction golf tees that can give top golfer an extra edge. The first portable and reusable golf tee, not counting a movable pile of sand, was one developed by two Scotsmen, W. Bloxsom and A. Douglas in 1889. It was a small slab of rubber that had three vertical prongs where the ball rested. Interestingly, many of today’s zero friction golf tees also have the ball resting on three points. urbanclutch
It took another Scot, one P. Ellis, to devise the first golf tee that pierced the ground. Again it was a rubber device with a spike attached to anchor it to the ground. It took until 1921 before the first one of a design recognisable as being very similar to today’s tee was invented by an American dentist named William Lovell. It certainly wasn’t one of the modern zero friction golf tees, but it brought the technology a huge leap closer. thekayelist
