Best Kicking Tee for Field Goals: 6 Placement Tees Compared

Quick answer: for field goal practice you want a low placement tee at your legal height — commonly 1 inch for college-bound kickers and 2 inches for high school. It holds the ball nearly upright for a flat, fast trajectory that clears the rush and reaches the target quickly. Note that in college and the NFL, game field goals use a holder, not a tee — so these are primarily for high school games and practice at every level.

Why Field Goal Tees Differ From Kickoff Tees

A field goal and a kickoff ask for opposite trajectories, so the tees are built differently.

Use a kickoff tee for field goals and you get a ball that climbs when you want it flat. For the kickoff side, see our kickoff tee guide.

What Actually Matters

• Legal height first. Commonly 1 inch (college-bound) or 2 inches (high school). Confirm with your coach — see our rules guide.
• Heavy rubber. Grips turf, survives cold, lasts seasons. Avoid hard plastic for regular use.
• Low, stable profile. A low tee has a low centre of gravity and resists wind better.
• Colour you can find. Orange over black, or mark your black one.

The 6 Field Goal Tees

Comparison Table

A Note on Holders

Worth repeating clearly: in college and the NFL, field goals are held by a holder, not placed on a tee. These placement tees are for high school games (where tees are generally permitted) and for practice at every level.

If college is your goal, spend part of your practice working with a holder as well as a tee, because that is what you will face. Our field goal technique guide covers working with a holder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Setting Up a Placement Tee Correctly

Buying the right tee is half the job. Setting it up consistently is the other half, and it is where a surprising number of kickers quietly lose accuracy.

1. Find firm, level ground. A tee sitting in a divot or on a slope tilts the ball, and a tilted ball leaves on the wrong line before you have moved. Take five seconds to check.
2. Press it into the surface. Push down firmly so the base seats into the turf rather than perching on top. A seated tee will not shift when you plant beside it.
3. Seat the ball with laces forward. The laces are hard and uneven — striking them produces unpredictable flight. This is the single most common cause of unexplained misses.
4. Keep the ball near-upright. Unlike a kickoff tee, a placement tee wants only a very slight backward lean. Excess tilt makes the ball climb when you want it travelling.
5. Check it before every rep. One glance: laces forward, ball stable, tee seated. It costs a second and saves wasted kicks.

Practising With a Tee vs a Holder

If you are heading beyond high school, you need both in your practice week, and they serve different purposes.

A sensible split for a college-bound kicker is two tee sessions and one full-operation session per week. The tee builds the motion; the holder work makes sure it survives real conditions.

How Your Tee Choice Shapes Your Development

This is the part most buying guides skip. The tee you spend a season on quietly shapes the kicker you become.

• A forgiving tee builds confidence but hides faults. A 2-inch placement tee turns slightly low contact into a decent kick, which is great for a beginner and unhelpful for someone trying to diagnose a problem.
• A demanding tee builds technique but costs morale. A 1-inch tee punishes every imperfect strike, which produces better mechanics and a lot more frustration.
• Practising on the wrong height miscalibrates you. Your contact point adapts to whatever height you use most. Train on one and compete on the other and your timing is subtly wrong at the only moment that counts.

Common Placement Tee Mistakes

Making a Placement Tee Last

Placement tees generally outlast kickoff tees because they take less violent contact, but the same care applies.

• Rinse mud from the ridges after wet sessions — caked mud stops the ball seating properly.
• Avoid leaving it in hot cars. Sustained heat warps rubber, and a warped base does not sit flat.
• Store it flat, not crushed under heavier equipment.
• Check for cracks each pre-season and confirm the base still sits level on a hard surface.
• Mark it with your initials. In a shared equipment room, unmarked tees become communal property fast.

What to Buy Alongside It

A placement tee on its own is enough to start, but three cheap additions transform your practice.

1. A spare tee at the same height. Tees get lost constantly. A spare means a missing tee never costs you a session or forces you to kick a game on unfamiliar equipment.
2. Cones. Essential for the plant-foot drill and the angle ladder, which between them address the largest single cause of missed field goals. They cost almost nothing.
3. A net. Not an accuracy tool directly, but it roughly triples your reps per hour by removing ball retrieval. More quality reps is how accuracy is actually built.

Our equipment guide covers the full kit list in priority order.

Choosing Between the Six: A Decision Path

If the six options above still feel like too much choice, work through these questions in order and you will land on one.

1. Is your legal height 1 inch or 2 inches? Confirm with your coach. This immediately halves the list.
2. Are you buying for yourself or a squad? Individual buyers should optimise for the right height and durability. Coaches should optimise for bulk value and visibility, since shared tees disappear.
3. Do you train through winter? If yes, prioritise rubber explicitly rated for all conditions, because cold makes lesser materials brittle.
4. Are you working toward college? Then buy your legal height for games and a 1-inch for weekly diagnostic work. The pair costs little and removes the hardest transition in kicking.
5. Is this a first tee for a child? Go adjustable or youth. Extra lift produces more successful kicks, and successful kicks are what keep young players interested.

Five questions, one answer. If two options still tie, pick the one in a colour you can find in long grass — genuinely the best tie-breaker available.

Frequently Overlooked Details

• Base diameter matters on soft ground. A wider base distributes weight and sinks less on wet grass. On firm turf it makes little difference, but if you train on a soft winter pitch it is worth noticing.
• Ridge depth affects ball security. Deeper ridges hold the ball more firmly, which matters more in wind than most people expect. Shallow ridges wear smooth faster too.
• Weight is a genuine trade-off. Heavier tees stay put better and are more annoying to carry. If you walk to a field, that matters; if you drive, it does not.
• Rubber hardness changes with temperature. A tee that grips well in summer can feel noticeably different in January. This is one reason all-weather-rated rubber is worth the small premium for year-round kickers.

Building Your Field Goal Practice Around the Tee

Once you have the right tee, here is how to actually use it well.

1. Warm up fully before any full-power kick. Ten build-up kicks from 30% to 70%. Never go straight from stretching to a full strike.
2. Start at 20 yards. Make several in a row before backing up. Groove the motion before you test it.
3. Set the tee identically every rep. Same spot, laces forward, pressed in. The tee’s entire value is consistency.
4. Vary distance and angle within the session. Games are rarely from the centre at your favourite range.
5. Finish with one pressure kick. A single attempt with a scenario attached, make or fail.
6. Log attempts, makes and miss direction. Patterns surface within two or three weeks.

The Drill Generator will build a session around whichever element you most need, and our technique guide covers the mechanics themselves.

Get the height right, buy rubber, match the type to your job, and the rest genuinely is detail you can safely ignore.

Keep Going

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