Where do you put your broken tees? If you’re like many golfers, you might haphazardly flicking them off to the side of the tee markers or in the rough. But from a course maintenance and environmental perspective, does it matter where you put your tee stubs? It might seem like a minor issue, but sometimes the smallest things can cause bigger headaches for grounds crews. We put the question to Brandon Coe, the golf course superintendent at Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley, Mass.

Golf Digest: Brandon, where do you think golfers should discard their broken tees?

Coe: I don’t think there’s a perfect answer for it. It’s going to differ from golf course to golf course. In a perfect world, if you have a good maintenance budget and you have proper staff, if you’re going out daily and you’re collecting tees on the tee box, that would be perfect.

But the majority of clubs are probably better off just tossing them into the rough where they can be mulched up by mowers. That’s what I tell members at my club to do. Depending on the rough height, the tees will likely be mulched up by the mower when it goes around. And we use a blade mower in the rough, so it’s going to chop it up pretty good, and it’s not really a concern for the equipment.

MORE: A day for thanking golf course superintendents should also be about understanding what they do

Either that or the tees are going to get worked in through the profile, and it’s just going to end up in the soil where it’s eroded over time, especially the wooden tees.

false Private Orchards Golf Club South Hadley, MA, United States 3.8 21 Panelists For students, college courses should be places of peace and respite. Few are better at diffusing the stresses of tests and campus life than The Orchards at Mount Holyoke in central Massachusetts. The course roams 160 acres of a beautifully secluded site with holes falling across natural grades lined with pines and fescue meadows. Donald Ross designed the first nine in 1922 and added the second in 1927 using little more than the sloping ground, a minimum of bunkering and a creek that crosses several fairways and fronts the 10th and 16th greens, the latter a short par 5 that begs players to try for the green with their second shots. The historically spartan maintenance budget has ensured the course’s architecture hasn’t strayed far from the original design, and restorative projects over the years, including a renovation by Ron Prichard, have primarily concentrated on expanding mowing lines, cleaning up bunkers and refurbishing the turf. Ross designed hundreds of courses in his career, sometimes drafting plans off topographical maps for properties he never personally visited. The Orchards wasn’t one of them: Ross had good reason to visit the course repeatedly in the years after its completion because his daughter Lillian was a student at Mount Holyoke, graduating in 1932. Explore our full review

Is there a downside to leaving the stubs on the tee box?

Coe: Yes. I prefer that they get tossed into the rough and mulched up because the worst thing for us as a maintenance staff is having them on the box where mowers are going to catch them. It can do a pretty good number on a reel mower, which is what we use on tee boxes.

They’re better off in the rough because we take a typical rotary mower that you use at home, just with a big blade, and it chops the tees up well. It’s not going to be any concern for the mower.

Whereas, if they’re left on the tee box and not getting picked up on daily, if they get clipped by a mower, it’s a different kind of mower. On the tees we use a reel mower that’s cutting really tight and at a low height. It’s pinching the grass. If you get tees caught up in there frequently, it’s going to damage it. So that’s our concern because it can add up on the machines being on the tee box.

Tees that are left on the tee box are also a problem because it’s an extra hour’s worth of collecting the tees so we’re not mowing over them. It’s an extra strain on the staff. And if you accidentally run over a tee with a mower on the tee box, it can not only damage the mower but it can alter the cut of the grass.

What about on par 3s. Some golfers forget to take out the stubs from the ground after hitting an iron shot. Is that bad?

Coe: Any tees that are even slightly poking up are the worst, especially for the equipment. If you catch that at the right angle, that can do some damage. I prefer they don’t get pushed into the ground because they’re just going to sit there and if you end up doing any sod work or anything, it’s just a pain. It does make an uneven surface from time to time, too. So, again, I would prefer they end up in the rough and get mulched up.

You mentioned wooden tees earlier. Do you have a preference between wooden or plastic tees? Is one better for the environment?

Coe: Wooden tees are preferable. I encourage any members out there, any golfers to focus on wooden tees because they are biodegradable. Plastic tees are a concern for the property as a whole. Wooden tees are cheap and you can buy them in bulk.

I mentioned you should toss your broken wooden tees in the rough, but plastic tees are a different situation. Try and hold on to those because we don’t want that kind lying around anywhere. I encourage golfers to make sure they carry them around throughout the round or properly dispose of them in the trash because they’re the problem. They’re not biodegradable and then they can really damage the equipment, even in the rough.

More from Golf Digest Golf Digest Logo The best golf courses in Europe

MORE ASK A SUPER:

Should I leave bunker rakes inside or outside the sand?

How courses prep for high-level competition, according to top USGA experts

Why are practice greens slower than greens on the course?

Why’s the grass all brown on our course?

Why are you aerating our greens when they’re in perfect shape?

I repaired my ball mark, but it still doesn’t look right. What did I do wrong?

We all want fast greens, why can’t you just cut them shorter?

Why your superintendent is hoping for lots of snow this winter

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com