Certainly I my club (9 hole muni course), there is an etiquette question here. The whites are placed at the back of the teeing box - the course isn't that long in the first place!
The reds are at the front, the yellows are anywhere in between. The red's don't take that much of a pounding because of the number of lady golfers.
The whites, though, would if people were allowed to play off them all the time. So men are encouraged to play off the yellows because there's much more flexibility in moving them due to wear and tear. At my club, whites should only be used for competition play out of courtesy for those golfers playing comps when the day rolls round...