UNusual competition formats?

[graham57]

Our committee called a meeting yesterday evening to collect new ideas for the club competition schedule next season. One idea which was enthusiastically adopted was to have at least 1 9-hole competition with an unusual, "fun" format. For example, I heard about a format where, before each shot, the club to be used was drawn from a bag containing scraps of paper with the names of each club, meaning that sometimes the players were teeing off with a putter or trying to play a bunker shot with a driver! Does anyone have any ideas/experience for this kind on non-serious competition format? I'd love to hear them!

[turtleback]

39 minutes ago, graham57 said:

Our committee called a meeting yesterday evening to collect new ideas for the club competition schedule next season. One idea which was enthusiastically adopted was to have at least 1 9-hole competition with an unusual, "fun" format. For example, I heard about a format where, before each shot, the club to be used was drawn from a bag containing scraps of paper with the names of each club, meaning that sometimes the players were teeing off with a putter or trying to play a bunker shot with a driver! Does anyone have any ideas/experience for this kind on non-serious competition format? I'd love to hear them!

How about poker match play.

I saw this on a feature drop-in on the World Series f Poker. A lot of the poker pros play golf and they did a little feature on two of them playing this.

Roughly speaking it goes something like this:

Ante on the tee.  After the tee shots you bet.  If you fold your opponent wins the hand.  If there is a bet and call you move on to the next shot.  And just continue betting on the result of the hole after each shot, but again with the proviso that if you fold to your opponent you lose the hole.

So you would want to start each player with some set amount of betting chips.  If someone wins all the chips (i.e., an "all-in" gets called and loses) the match is over.  Otherwise it is who has more chips at the end.

Presumably you would use match play rules except for the distinctives of the poker aspect.

[Fourputt]

Back in the 80's my home course had a tournament that they called the Frostbite Open.  It was held on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and due to weather restrictions, only went about 1 year in 3.  They set the course up with some sort of a challenge on each hole.  I don't remember all of the gimmicks, but here's a list of a few of them:

• Tee off with a  baseball bat from a T-ball tee
• Putt with a tennis ball after you reach the green with your regular ball
• Putt with a custom putter that used a steel ball bearing the size of a golf ball for the putter head
• Hit your tee shot blindfolded
• Hit your tee shot with a driver with about a 7 foot shaft
• Place a dozen or so rocks on the green distributed around the hole out to about 15 feet that the player is required to putt around them if they are in his line
• Embed four plastic Solo type beer cups full of water in the green in a 2 foot square surrounding the hole that are treated as water hazards if you putt your ball into one.
• Play a tee shot on a 130 yard par 3 with a 2 foot long 7I

These are what I remember, but they had a different one for each of the 18 holes.

[ghalfaire]

I know this is an old post but here is a format I heard of today for the first time.  It is a four man team format.  One the first how the #1 player hit the drive, the # 2 player hits the next shot and of course the # 3 player the third.  But the fourth player has to finish the hole however many strokes that takes.  I would assume that the assignments would rotate every hole.  Anyway I had never heard of this before and thought I would share it.

[hiwattage]

Here in Winnipeg , MB , we have a  4 man scramble that we call Step Aside . It plays like a regular scramble but whoever's shot that you choose to play " steps aside for the next shot " he or she does not play the next shot. Once on the green everybody putts. I was surprised when we finished in 4 hours when a scramble generally takes 5 hours plus.

[boogielicious]

10 hours ago, hiwattage said:

Here in Winnipeg , MB , we have a  4 man scramble that we call Step Aside . It plays like a regular scramble but whoever's shot that you choose to play " steps aside for the next shot " he or she does not play the next shot. Once on the green everybody putts. I was surprised when we finished in 4 hours when a scramble generally takes 5 hours plus.

That sounds like more fun than a scramble. Thanks for posting!

[jsgolfer]

My course does the step-aside scramble for the first tournament of the year.  It's tougher than it sounds, as I believe the total handicaps have to be 50 or above, plus only three people putt, just like all of the other shots.  The only time all four hit is off the tee.  Definitely keeps the scores down a little.

[ghalfaire]

At my club we do the "step aside" sometimes depending upon the handicap demographics of the players in the scramble.  There are times when the handicap spread of the A players is more than just a few strokes.  When that is the case the step aside rule is invoked to help mitigate the fact that your team's A player might have a double digit handicap and the best A player is scratch.  

But here is a format that is not for ABCD but more for charitable events where handicap is not considered in team formation.  All teams begin the round from the members' tees.  As long as they have par they stay on those tee.  But if they birdie (or better) a hole they have to move back one tee and conversely if they bogie (or worse) a hole they get to move up a tee.  This continues for the round for however many tees are available on each hole.   Since all courses seem to have 3 or more tee boxes/hole this format help "smooth" out the variances in team abilities.  Not perfect but helpful for some events.

[jsgolfer]

On 2/2/2016 at 11:37 AM, ghalfaire said:

At my club we do the "step aside" sometimes depending upon the handicap demographics of the players in the scramble.  There are times when the handicap spread of the A players is more than just a few strokes.  When that is the case the step aside rule is invoked to help mitigate the fact that your team's A player might have a double digit handicap and the best A player is scratch.  

But here is a format that is not for ABCD but more for charitable events where handicap is not considered in team formation.  All teams begin the round from the members' tees.  As long as they have par they stay on those tee.  But if they birdie (or better) a hole they have to move back one tee and conversely if they bogie (or worse) a hole they get to move up a tee.  This continues for the round for however many tees are available on each hole.   Since all courses seem to have 3 or more tee boxes/hole this format help "smooth" out the variances in team abilities.  Not perfect but helpful for some events.

I've played in a couple of scrambles that do that as well.  It definitely brings the scores down a little bit.  The last time I played in that kind of format (Point Sebago Golf Club in Maine), we birdied our first two holes and played the rest of the tournament from the tips.  Went from the white tees at 5,650 yards to the black tees at 7,000 yards.  The Par 5 7th hole was a doozy from the tips, 616 Yd par 5.   We still won, but only by a shot instead of the 3 or 4 we won the year before.  This was a utility association tournament and we had 4 single digit handicappers in our company who all played.  But it was definitely fun.

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