Scramble Cheaters

[Elmer]

I played in one last weekend where we had the string you could buy to save strokes and mulligans you could buy. The winning team came in with a 50. Luckily the prizes were just small trophies since you could buy your way to the win. On one par 5, if every teammate donated $20 you got to take your tee shot from 100 yards out.

I played in one Scrambler about 15 years ago.  Never again!  It was just a drunk fest, guys screwing around on the course playing what clearly was not what the game of golf is all about.  I actually have no problem with others participating in them, but to me "it does not represent what the true game of golf is.

Yeah I know, all the younger guys on here are thinking, "man this old dude is a stick in the mud, lighten up OLD MAN".

Just how I was taught many years ago, and still play the game.

I play in about 3 scrambles a year and they are all for charity. Scrambles bring in the hackers and once a year golfers.

In the scrambles I play the good golfers usually win, but there is usually someone getting a score because they gave themselves some score they did not shoot.

Just this weekend we watched the 4some infront of us get on and off a green in less than 2 mins. They hit their first putt and then usually gave themselves the 2nd.

But they only has a -2, so they were probably picking up a par or bogie, which is not going to win it anyway.

I have also played in scrambles that sell "rescue packs" for $20 you get lengths of string to save strokes. You could also throw, kick and foot wedge each once. you could also hit from the ladies tee, once.

I have no problem with this.

Mostly because you are playing a scramble that is raising money for a charity or scholarship fund.

You dont want to play with drunkards, or the cheaters or feel a scramble is "not what the game of golf is all about." DONT PLAY A SCRAMBLE.

I myself, enjoy being with buddies for the day in a team atmosphere raising some money, and having fun!

[ghalfaire]

I play in 3 to 8 scrambles a year, depending.  I think it is almost impossible to intentionally cheat without all player in the foursome being in on it and I would like to believe that isn't the case.  I do think misunderstanding of the rules sometimes causes lower scores than are real.  But the latter cause (rule ignorance) can't amount to more than a stroke or two of error.

[oudrees]

If the foursome are all friends and drinking, I think colluding on cheating is very easy.  It's easy to say "You almost made that chip, let's just count it"  "That drive sucked, go ahead and hit another"  "None of us hit the green? Hit another"

Scrambles are generally all for fun and for the sake of the charity you are donating for although it is annoying when you feel you are doing well and come in at 7 under and the winning team is 22 under.

[mcanadiens]

Odd that I have a buddy that was pre-emptively grousing about just this subject after our round yesterday. I said to my man "Two words - Charity and Scramble. Expect nothing less." Just don't take the thing seriously. This is the time to breakout that illegal driver and exploding golf balls. Sleep and eat well the day before, clear the schedule the next day and drink a keg or two of beer. Consider it a major success if balls find there way in each of the 18 holes. Make sure someone has a wheel barrow to get your butt back home.

[turtleback]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oudrees

I played in one last weekend where we had the string you could buy to save strokes and mulligans you could buy. The winning team came in with a 50. Luckily the prizes were just small trophies since you could buy your way to the win. On one par 5, if every teammate donated $20 you got to take your tee shot from 100 yards out.

God that is stupid.

Not if you consider that the point of the scramble is to raise money, not provide a meaningful and competitive golfing experience.

[baller7345]

The last scramble I played in was with a group of mid 80s low 90s golfers.  I myself can shoot in the low 80s now on a good day so all in all were a team of equals all things considered.  We ended up shooting a -12 (60) and finishing second by one stroke while stringing 7 birdies in a row on the back nine.

During that stretch it wasn't like we just all got hot, it was the ultimate team effort.  For the last seven holes we pretty much relied on one good shot in four and somehow strung it all together into a slew of birdies.  However, if you were watching us from afar you would have probably wouldn't have thought we were scoring as low as we were.  You'd routinely see 2 or 3 guys play a subpar shot only to be bailed out by the one good shot.  It wasn't pretty looking but it proved to be more effective than the front where I feel we all struck the ball pretty well.

Sometimes 4 average/poor golfers combined can make a pretty decent golfer...

[Spitfisher]

Since most scrambles are charity events, sometimes they sell muligans- this to me is asking people to cheat. I avoid scrambles period.

Those of you wanting to sell something more, sell the opportunity for one player, one chance on any hole they choose to tee it up one tee box closer ( maximum of 4 players each get one chance)

We sold them for 25 bucks per chance and it actually sped things up a bit. Many of the foursomes plunked down the $100 extra

[Dave2512]

Exactly and -10 is nothing in a scramble. I've seen people turn in scores in -22 range when string and mulligans are sold. They that buy the most help win. I just go to drink and eat. Last one we played we turned in a 56 and placed 3rd.

[Fourputt]

Since most scrambles are charity events, sometimes they sell muligans- this to me is asking people to cheat. I avoid scrambles period.

Those of you wanting to sell something more, sell the opportunity for one player, one chance on any hole they choose to tee it up one tee box closer ( maximum of 4 players each get one chance)

We sold them for 25 bucks per chance and it actually sped things up a bit. Many of the foursomes plunked down the $100 extra

That's only meaningful if there is a significant spread between the boxes.  Many courses I wouldn't even consider paying $25 for the dubious chance to move up 10 yards.

[Dave2512]

Most are pretty far up anyway in an attempt to get people off the course asap. I've seen some 6 hour scrambles and typically the course is hacked to bits when it is over. All the scrambles at the course I play most have mandatory tees, usually whites for men and they move the tees up from the usual marks.

[Jeremie Boop]

In a good scramble, one that actually has people monitoring things like long drive, closest to the pin, longest putt, etc I focus on these things and less on the score. This year I'll probably be skipping our year end league scramble because it truly does end up being a waste of time. Last year I got fed up with one of my own team mates because after putting he'd go up and get his ball then step down on the hole, basically trying to compress the ground around it so balls would filter into it... I couldn't say anything because I was the only one who had a problem with it. So what I did was try to be the first one to putt. In the end it didn't really help our score, but it was more the principle that someone would think it was OK to do something like that. I also had the long drive taken from me once or twice in the past when I knew for a fact the people after me did not have the length to beat me. I didn't get upset about it because the prize for it was like $10 or $15, but it was a bit annoying.

[Sticker]

I play in about 3 scrambles a year and they are all for charity. Scrambles bring in the hackers and once a year golfers.

In the scrambles I play the good golfers usually win, but there is usually someone getting a score because they gave themselves some score they did not shoot.

Just this weekend we watched the 4some infront of us get on and off a green in less than 2 mins. They hit their first putt and then usually gave themselves the 2nd.

But they only has a -2, so they were probably picking up a par or bogie, which is not going to win it anyway.

I have also played in scrambles that sell "rescue packs" for $20 you get lengths of string to save strokes. You could also throw, kick and foot wedge each once. you could also hit from the ladies tee, once.

I have no problem with this.

Mostly because you are playing a scramble that is raising money for a charity or scholarship fund.

You dont want to play with drunkards, or the cheaters or feel a scramble is "not what the game of golf is all about." DONT PLAY A SCRAMBLE.

I myself, enjoy being with buddies for the day in a team atmosphere raising some money, and having fun!

And that is precisely why I don't.

[kpaulhus]

During the summer my country club has men's night out one thursday a month. I look forward to this as they pair our groups in ABCD order based on handicap. If you cant make a par, pick up (because with 9-13 groups every hole gets par/birdied) Its $25 to enter each month and that covers your pizza and beer afterwords, though I usually drink a lot of whiskey during men's night out. The winning team usually gets an eagle on one of the par 5's, or they roll the pot over to the next month. We had a pot that was $6K this summer and someone holed out from 150 on a par 5. Our club was worried about amatuer status so each guy got like $500 and they paid out the two lowest teams as well. (I won $80 for my groups -9) Everyone knows everyone so its fun and fair.

Charity scrambles full of hackers (not high handicap players, but pure hackers) really bother me. Ill play in them for fun and never expect to win. Ive won 1 with my buddies and we were 13 under. Next closest team was -2. Im sure everyone else thought we cheated. Then again, there were times where we shot 14-15 under and lost by 5. Left the course fuming. Dont care anymore. Whatever Im here for the beer and raffle prizes.

[Duff McGee]

If the foursome are all friends and drinking, I think colluding on cheating is very easy.  It's easy to say "You almost made that chip, let's just count it"  "That drive sucked, go ahead and hit another"  "None of us hit the green? Hit another" Scrambles are generally all for fun and for the sake of the charity you are donating for although it is annoying when you feel you are doing well and come in at 7 under and the winning team is 22 under.

Ok this makes sense, although it is messed up. But this the the best explanation I've seen based on group psychology. I'm sure that's what happens.

[gregsandiego]

I have probably played in 40 or 50 scrambles and have not seen the cheating people claim goes on. I have heard people complain that people were cheating yet I sat and watched the groups make shot after shot. A group where the best handicap is a 15'ish is not a great group and -3 is a very poor showing for such a group IMO. I played in a group where it was myself (about a 11 or 12 handicap at the time) and 2 guys who could not break 110 with the last guy never having really played golf. We shot a -1 which I was pretty happy about. I have played in other groups where we have shot -10 to -12 without a single digit handicapper. It's all about making approach shots and putting.

I played a scramble last month and with me as a single digit handicapper and 3 guys over 20 handicappers we managed only -5. A lot of strokes were left on the course and we could have easily shot -8 or lower but didn't make putts or some easy approach shots. We happened to be behind a team that shot -16 and we watched them the whole way. There was plenty of grumbling from other teams afterwards but we watched them all day. No cheating. If you want to see how easy it is to get to double digits under par then actually put together a decent group.

Personally I think the grumbling is a bunch of sour grapes.

My experience is basically the same. The last one I played consisted of 4 pretty mediocre golfers. We shot pretty much bogey golf. Which is a lot better than any individual would normally play. Having 4 shots brings the score way up.

[No Mulligans]

I played in a scramble with 3 of us ranging around 18 to 30 HI and the other being a 4 HI and we were only -1 on the day.

I played another were 3 of us ranged from 18 to 25 and the other was 40+ and we were -8 for the day (and no cheating).  Weird... On that day for almost every shot we'd have 3 bad shots and 1 decent shot.  An average group can score low without cheating, I've seen it happen.

Either way it didn't matter.  The winners for each of those scrambles were -14 for one and -16 for the other.  There always seems to be a foursome or two were the whole group has single digit HI.  Pretty much impossible for a group of high handicappers to win even when they are really lucky like we were in that second scramble.

[Grumpter]

An average group can score low without cheating, I've seen it happen.

I think a lot of the people here don't want to believe that so they won't.

[Fourputt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Mulligans

An average group can score low without cheating, I've seen it happen.

I think a lot of the people here don't want to believe that so they won't.

I don't have an issue with scoring low, it's the teams who return scores beyond 18 under that I really have a hard time buying.  Playing in 5 man teams once a year for 22 years and never seeing a score better than 15 under makes me suspicious of any 4 man team team not composed entirely of single digits and better, and I'll even look askance at that team.  It is extremely difficult to do the equivalent of birdieing every hole, and exceeding that is just going to confirm the average player's conviction that they could only do it by cheating.  If it's an unusually easy course, or if it plays short, then maybe, but a course that presents strong challenges is going to bite even a good team occasionally.