Gender Free/Neutral Tees | Golf Monthly

Can anyone explain precisely what this means? My club's red tees are rated for both men and women. Our yellow course is only just over 6,000 yards and we are likely to get those tees rated for ladies as well, not sure why we didn’t originally. However, one of our committee members is of the opinion that gender neutrality means that the par and stroke index of each hole must be the same for both sexes. Our red course is Par 71 for men and 73 for women, with different stroke indices, so he is proposing we build new tees to shorten two holes and equalize par, and also that we adopt the same stroke index.

This doesn’t seem right. The fact that there are different Slope and Course ratings off the same set of tees leads to this conclusion. Our red course is 68.3 (Slope 118) for men, 73.3 (Slope 132) for women. Surely, gender neutrality means that every tee should be rated so both men and women can have a competitive game off tees with a length that is suitable for their level of ability and the distance they hit the ball? Par is irrelevant for handicap purposes and where it counts in a competition (e.g Stableford) this is accounted for in the Playing Handicap adjustments, as is the Course Rating and Slope.

Our lady members have been surveyed and are quite happy with the length of the course off the red tees. Hardly any of our men have taken the plunge and reducing the length of the course even further seems like a step in the wrong direction. Any thoughts would be appreciated.