Fun Golf Games for the Course

[Philo]

I will be leaving for a buddy's trip Friday.   There will be 8 of us playing seven rounds.  Four mid (10-18) handicappers and four higher (19-36) handicappers. We will play the usual bingo bango bongo, Two-man best ball, probably a four-man best ball, etc.  One guy suggested a four-man worst ball.  It might be kind of interesting since the high handicappers don't usually have much impact on a best ball. Does anyone have any suggestions for good games for the course? 

[NM Golf]

Within your groups you can play robins. It's best ball, but you have each person in your foursome as a partner for 6 holes. My group plays it all the time, it's a lot of fun. We play for $5 a robin with automatic two down presses. We also play skins and greenies (CtP) in both our foursomes and as a large group. In the foursomes we play $1 skins, in the group we all kick in $20.

[imsys0042]

Have you ever played Wolf?   There’s other names for it,  yet that’s when everyone tees off in order 1-2-3-4.  Whoever tees off first has the option of playing alone or choosing one of the other three as their partner.   You get to choose after each player hits their shot.   If you choose no one, you are by yourself.   Low net score wins.   If you are the wolf and choose someone else and you win the hole, that’s one dot for each of you,  if you are alone and win the hole, you get two dots.

assign a monetary value to a dot and then pay out at the end.   The strategy is to try and best decide when/who to choose or go alone.

[Philo]

11 hours ago, NM Golf said:

Within your groups you can play robins. It's best ball, but you have each person in your foursome as a partner for 6 holes. My group plays it all the time, it's a lot of fun. We play for $5 a robin with automatic two down presses. We also play skins and greenies (CtP) in both our foursomes and as a large group. In the foursomes we play $1 skins, in the group we all kick in $20.

 

11 hours ago, imsys0042 said:

Have you ever played Wolf?   There’s other names for it,  yet that’s when everyone tees off in order 1-2-3-4.  Whoever tees off first has the option of playing alone or choosing one of the other three as their partner.   You get to choose after each player hits their shot.   If you choose no one, you are by yourself.   Low net score wins.   If you are the wolf and choose someone else and you win the hole, that’s one dot for each of you,  if you are alone and win the hole, you get two dots.

assign a monetary value to a dot and then pay out at the end.   The strategy is to try and best decide when/who to choose or go alone.

Thanks!  I'll give those a try.

[pganapathy]

Consider best net and gross player of the day and of the whole trip.  Everybody puts in a few dollars for a pot and one or more people win.  Net allows for the high handicappers to have a fair chance of winning

[klineka]

22 hours ago, imsys0042 said:

Have you ever played Wolf?   There’s other names for it,  yet that’s when everyone tees off in order 1-2-3-4.  Whoever tees off first has the option of playing alone or choosing one of the other three as their partner.   You get to choose after each player hits their shot.   If you choose no one, you are by yourself.   Low net score wins.   If you are the wolf and choose someone else and you win the hole, that’s one dot for each of you,  if you are alone and win the hole, you get two dots.

assign a monetary value to a dot and then pay out at the end.   The strategy is to try and best decide when/who to choose or go alone.

Wolf is a lot of fun IMO. We play that fairly regularly. I like it because it allows each player to play their own ball still, so my rounds can count for handicap purposes.

22 hours ago, imsys0042 said:

Have you ever played Wolf?   There’s other names for it,  yet that’s when everyone tees off in order 1-2-3-4.  Whoever tees off first has the option of playing alone or choosing one of the other three as their partner.   You get to choose after each player hits their shot.   If you choose no one, you are by yourself.   Low net score wins.   If you are the wolf and choose someone else and you win the hole, that’s one dot for each of you,  if you are alone and win the hole, you get two dots.

We play a slightly different way. Does your way give any points to the non-wolf team if they win? Seems like in your way there's almost no reason not to go alone as long as you are in play off the tee because the only way you can earn points is when you are the wolf and you can't lose any by going alone.

We play that the Wolf tees off first. After their tee shot but before anyone else hits, they can declare themselves the blind wolf which is 4 points if they win and 2 to each of the other 3 guys if the wolf loses.

If the Wolf teams up with tee shot 2,3, or 4, then whichever team wins gets 2 points each.

If the Wolf goes alone after seeing all 3 tee shots, then it's 3 points to the wolf if they win or 2 points to the other 3 guys if the wolf loses. 

IMO it makes it much more fun and interesting to award some sort of points when the 2 or 3 guys that aren't the wolf win the hole.

[p1n9183]

For a painfull/fun experience on the practice green (while drinking a beer), play a stroke play tournament around 9 holes. Every hole is a par 3 but.. after every putt you don't hole out you have to move your ball 3 feet away from the hole in a straight line. 

So.. let say you tee up on hole 1 and left it short 1 feet, you pick it up and place it 4 feet short of the hole and put from there. Now you miss right and leave it 2 feet from the hole, you pick the ball and putt from 5 feet right of the hole... same procedure until you hole out. 

It's an amazing practice drill for short putts, and is pretty fun to play with friends. You are going to really know how hard is to hole those 4..5 footers in every hole. 

Played it a couple of weeks ago with another 3 scratch players. One of them tilted after a couple of holes shooting in the 4..5..6 range. It was a lot of fun (except for him haha). 

[NM Golf]

On 3/2/2022 at 9:32 AM, imsys0042 said:

Have you ever played Wolf?   There’s other names for it,  yet that’s when everyone tees off in order 1-2-3-4.  Whoever tees off first has the option of playing alone or choosing one of the other three as their partner.   You get to choose after each player hits their shot.   If you choose no one, you are by yourself.   Low net score wins.   If you are the wolf and choose someone else and you win the hole, that’s one dot for each of you,  if you are alone and win the hole, you get two dots.

assign a monetary value to a dot and then pay out at the end.   The strategy is to try and best decide when/who to choose or go alone.

Perhaps I've been playing wolf wrong for the last 30 years (I don't think so), but if you take a partner and win, you each get 1 dot, if you go at it alone you get 3 dots, one for each person you beat. Its risk/reward if you go alone you can win 3 times your bet but if you lose you have to pay all three. 

[imsys0042]

4 hours ago, klineka said:

Wolf is a lot of fun IMO. We play that fairly regularly. I like it because it allows each player to play their own ball still, so my rounds can count for handicap purposes.

We play a slightly different way. Does your way give any points to the non-wolf team if they win? Seems like in your way there's almost no reason not to go alone as long as you are in play off the tee because the only way you can earn points is when you are the wolf and you can't lose any by going alone.

We play that the Wolf tees off first. After their tee shot but before anyone else hits, they can declare themselves the blind wolf which is 4 points if they win and 2 to each of the other 3 guys if the wolf loses.

If the Wolf teams up with tee shot 2,3, or 4, then whichever team wins gets 2 points each.

If the Wolf goes alone after seeing all 3 tee shots, then it's 3 points to the wolf if they win or 2 points to the other 3 guys if the wolf loses. 

IMO it makes it much more fun and interesting to award some sort of points when the 2 or 3 guys that aren't the wolf win the hole.

 

2 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

Perhaps I've been playing wolf wrong for the last 30 years (I don't think so), but if you take a partner and win, you each get 1 dot, if you go at it alone you get 3 dots, one for each person you beat. Its risk/reward if you go alone you can win 3 times your bet but if you lose you have to pay all three. 

Actually yes, the non-wolf team can win points as well.  However I've played it where you can not choose anyone by not choosing the last person.   I've not played 3 points if you are the lone wolf.   It's either 2 points if you are the lone wolf, 1 point each if you are the wolf team of 2 players.   Assuming the wolf team wins.  Otherwise I've played variations where if you go lone wolf and lose, then all three other people get a point.

Basically couple of different ways for the scenarios where either you are rewarded for winning as the lone wolf, or really penalized because you give 3 dots away.

[klineka]

29 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

Perhaps I've been playing wolf wrong for the last 30 years (I don't think so), but if you take a partner and win, you each get 1 dot, if you go at it alone you get 3 dots, one for each person you beat. Its risk/reward if you go alone you can win 3 times your bet but if you lose you have to pay all three. 

I don't really think there is a "wrong" way as long as you and your playing partners agree upon and stick to a specific scoring system for that round.

Different ways you earn points can vary the risk you take on when choosing whether or not and when to become the wolf.

I like the extra element of an additional point for calling wolf right after your tee shot before anyone else hits. Because that usually means you've hit one really well off the tee or really close on a par 3 so it puts a bit of pressure on your 3 opponents for their tee shots on that hole.

IMO it is the most fun when the others can earn quite a bit when you are the wolf and you lose. Something that makes you think about just how confident you are in your abilities on that day/that hole.

[NM Golf]

8 minutes ago, klineka said:

I don't really think there is a "wrong" way as long as you and your playing partners agree upon and stick to a specific scoring system for that round.

Different ways you earn points can vary the risk you take on when choosing whether or not and when to become the wolf.

I like the extra element of an additional point for calling wolf right after your tee shot before anyone else hits. Because that usually means you've hit one really well off the tee or really close on a par 3 so it puts a bit of pressure on your 3 opponents for their tee shots on that hole.

IMO it is the most fun when the others can earn quite a bit when you are the wolf and you lose. Something that makes you think about just how confident you are in your abilities on that day/that hole.

We play that way too, it doubles the bet if you do it, so you win 6 or lose 6. You have to call it while your ball is in the air though.