I run a small semi private club in the northeast and was wondering what type of tournaments people run in other parts of the country... We have debated many formats outside your normal betterball and team play, was hoping someone would give me examples of fun things to do outside this. We are looking into what we call our blind squirrel format where it would be played in a captain and crew format with 3 holes in each green and no flagsticks. Interested in hearing opinions on hickory tournaments or anything else people have played and liked. I am thinking we a re perfect for hickory if i move our tees up i can play at around 5600. Once again any help is appreciated

We play a few great ones yearly:

1) Annual 1 club (and putter). We play course from 5400 yards. Can choose any club in the bag, most guys play with 7. Out of 18 guys, handicaps from 4 to 25, High 70's usually wins it (belive it or not). Fun day, definitely makes you play different shots etc.

2) 2 man Tourney - Course has 27 holes so we play, 9 hole best ball, 9 hole scramble and 9 hole alternate shot (with both guys teeing off). We have also played a regular 18 hole course with each format as 6, 6 and 6 holes.

Team comp of 5 players. One each has a driver, 5 iron, 8 iron, sand wedge and putter, and they must play in that strict rotation through the round, so if the first hole scores a 4, the putter tees off on number 2. Makes for some tactical play, i.e. the sand wedge might miss a 6 inch putt so the putter can hole out and the driver tee off on the next hole with a carry over water. Allow a penalty drop for lost balls.

Kappel Format:

TWo man teams. Each player tees off. Player A goes to Player B's ball. Player B goes to Player A's ball. They each play a second shot. The two man team then determines which ball is in the best position and plays alternate shot until holing out.

Example. Player A drives. Player B plays Player A's ball onto green. They select this ball. Player A would play third shot, Player B would play fourth shot, etc.....

I played this for the first time this year and it was a lot fun. Everyone felt like they got to contribute and there was a lot strategy involved.

I just played in a 2 man scramble that was pretty fun. We did nine holes in the daylight. Had dinner. And then played nine holes of glow in the dark. Kind of silly, but a very good time.

The obvious thing to do is night golf! We sometimes have texas scrambles at night at our club, they lay out glowsticks down the sides of the fairways and greens and glowring thing in the hole and on the flag. But, no lights/torches allowed!

The Ironman. 4 man teams hitting from the tips with the pins in the worst possible positions. Add alcohol as needed.

Time for this one may have just passed, but I once put on a 'pumpkin' tournament where I set up two pumpkins on alternating holes in random spots in place of the regular tee boxes. Had a lot of fun, made for some creative shot making--always fun to try something out of the ordinary and give your regular crowd a different look at the course they play all the time. Good luck

Im in the North East and we play a tourney every year at a local club in town called the tips and tucks, It is a 2 man scrambel format, and the tees are as far back as the can and pins are in places you would never think they would put them,.

Another one for singles play would be TOMBSTONE, how it works is that you take a mark or make a headstone or tombstone and once you shoot par plus your handicap, EX i am a 5 handicap and my course is a par 70 so on my 75 shot I plant my tombstone, its a lot of fun and to go through to see every ones tombstone is funny most players men and women take the time to make a nice headstone with a little something funny written on it,

I thought it would be fun to have a two man worst ball. Have two man teams and play in groups of 4. each player hit a ball and the other twosome decide which ball to play of the other team. Does that make sense?

The USGA has some ideas at:
http://www.usga.org/rules/competition_guid...-For-Your-Club/

More here: http://www.mngolf.org/games.cfm

Others that have worked well for our club:

4-Man Team

You can do ABCD draw or pick your own team for either of these:

1. On each hole 3 guys Scramble and 1 player plays his own ball. The team decides after the tee shots are hit (but before second shots are hit). The individual player gets his strokes where they fall on the scorecard. He plays the ball down (i.e. under the rules of golf). EACH Player must play at least 3 holes on his own. You have to be smart about picking who is going to play alone on each hole and factor in the handicap strokes for each team member. And because each player has to play at least 3-holes - you better not wait too long to get individual hole scores for each player or the pressure mounts.

Scoring Recap - On each hole you have a 3-man scramble score and an individual net score. We add a stableford points system to this event. (That way if someone makes a big number on a hole it won't take you totally out of it.)

2. Galveston (variable best ball) - many ways to do this.
We use 2 of 4 net on the par 5's, 3 of 4 net on the par 4's, and 4 of 4 net on the par 3's.

2 Man Team

1. Best Ball on the Odd holes and BOTH balls count on the even holes.


A common theme for these is that all team members have to contribute to win. (Which might not be the case in a 4-man straight scramble or 2-man best ball.)

Good Luck

Around here we have Crawfish Scrambles. The whole course is played backwards. Tee off next to 1 green, hit to 18, from 18 to 17 etc. Really strange, sometimes you have to hit across areas you never play from otherwise. (Well almost never!) Special tee areas are set up just for this event. Best of all, after everyone finishes there is a huge boiled crawfish dinner, all you can eat.
Another one I've seen is the Flag Tournament, 4th of July. Same as Tombstone but your last shot is marked with a small American flag. Neat to come up 18 and see all the flags. The winner usually gets as far as 20th hole(no.2). Mine is usually one of the first you run into.

Saw pink ball betterball played the other week.

Each pair is given one pink ball and the players uses it on alternate holes. The pink ball scores double stableford points. The catch being, until you loose it, there is no replacement and both players have to score standard points with regular white balls from then on, so you have to look after that silly pink ball.

String Handicap

Each player given a a foot, yard or metre of string for each shot of their handicap. The string can be used anywhere on the course to move your ball without penalty. You must measure with the string and cut and discard the inches/ yards/ metres used. Can be used on the green as well sink a putt without a shot, get out of hazards etc, nearer the hole is all ok

Roll a dice club selection

to get really silly roll a dice to select clubs, 1= Driver or 3w ,2=3 or 4i, 3=5 or6i, 4=7 or 8 iron, 5=9 or pw and 6=SW Putter.
You play what ever you rolled until the green and putt out with a putter. Can play individiually or as a pair alternate shot is probably better to speed it up and get to the beer quicker as that would be about the only reason to play this format. putter off the tee can give even the old McGregor Response a new lease on life.

Chicago

This is a golf game based on golfers beginning their rounds with negative points. It is individual, and each player starts with a negative amount of points, based on handicaps, then adding positive points during the round. The idea is to get from the negative to the positive.

Negative points begin at -39 for scratch golfers. A 1 handicapper starts with -38, a 2 handicapper with -37, and so on up to a 36 handicapper who starts with -3 points.

*Double bogeys are worth 1 point
*Bogeys are worth 2 points
* Pars are worth 4 points
* Birdies are worth 6 points
* Eagles are worth 8 points

I was going to suggest the pink ball, but Ive seen it played differently. It'd be a 4 man team, alternate shot, but you can ONLY play the pink ball and if you lose the ball, you are dq'd.

Do not do this. We did this on ONE hole in an 18 hole scramble and that hole backed up as each team scored a "million" on that hole.

You could run a modified "net" Stableford tournament. We have done this and it is great fun. Players are awarded points base on their net score on each hole as follows:

Double Bogie = 0 points
Bogie = 1 point
Par = 2 points
Birdie = 4 points
Eagle = 8 points
Double Eagle = 12 points

Triple Bogie = -3 points

IMPORTANT: All points are based on "NET" scores. Players receive 90% of their course handicap.

The format is great fun because of the big swings that can occur. Birdies and eagles are hugely rewarded and triple bogies move you backwards. Because the points are awarded for a player's "net" scores, it is fair for everyone and does not favor either lower or higher handicap players.

I played in 4 man scramble once that had a "throw rule" It was your basic scramble/captains choice with one exception. Each team was allowed 1 throw during the round from anywhere on the course. During most scrambles you're not going to be in to much trouble, but if you end up in the woods or a green side bunker it might come in handy.

We ended up using ours on a par 5 where our 2nd shot was about green high but in some high gorse type grass. So 3 of us tried to hack it out of there to no avail, but the 4th person was able to throw it up onto the green within 10 feet or so of the flag.

it was pretty fun to know we had it in the bag at some point to use and deciding when to use it.

this is excellent please keep the ideas coming im putting the tombstone in play for sure and the pink ball is great we already do alot of the other formats

The Impossible possible open....


1st tee - make the pin placement as hard as possible
2nd tee- make the pin placement as easy as possible...

and so on and so on...

another one...


The "MOTHER BALL" tourny.. played on mother's day.. 4 man scramble format.. each hole 3 players on the team play regular 3 man scramble fomat and take a score.. the 4th person plays the "Mother ball" (its a ball that the course owners design one looked like a soccer ball, one a basketball, another planet earth, one all black etc..as long as its a funky design) and the person playing the mother ball on that hole plays regular stroke play.. if the ball is lost on a hole, they can not take a score on that hole or the rest of the round, and then all 4 players then play regular 4 man scramble rules...

so the key is to have the lowest scramble score along with a full 18 holes scored with the mother ball....

how you wanna score it is optional, I think ours was the scramble was woth 2/3rds of the score and the mother ball was 1/3..

Not a full tournament, but some quirks thrown into a 4-man scramble.
lefty-righty: On a short par4, a LH 5-wood was left on the tee for all righties to use. A lefty in your group would have a borrow a right-handed club from someone in the group. After the tee shot, it was regular scramble format.
8-iron only: On a 505yd par 5, all shots (tee, fairway, and even putting) had to be done with an 8-iron.

And a variation on the best-ball/worst-ball:
Everyone tees off. The best shot is chosen, and everyone then plays out the hole from the chosen tee shot, with each player playing their own ball until everyone holes out. On odd holes, the best score is kept. On even holes, the WORST score is used. I think we had an eagle on a par5 followed by a snowman on a par3 due to a lost ball. Very odd looking scorecard by the end of the round.

One event that I played in that was fun was a "flag" tournament where you take a player's handicap and add that to par. The player then can take that many strokes and he puts a flag in the ground where he used his last shot. For example, a 10 handicap on a par 72 course gets 82 shots. Wherever he plays his 82nd shot he would put a flag in the ground. Whoever gets the furthest wins.

The flag comp is good because the guy who carries the greatest number of shots to the 1st again does not necessarily win. I remember one comp where several guys finished 18 with 4 or 5 shots left over and messed up the par-5 1st, but a guy who only had 3 shots spare eagled and won.

We do this for our golf league, its how we play each month. Its fun. We also hold a 22 to 30 two man best ball tournament once a year using this scoring system (minus the -3 for triple). We want people to pick up after missing bogey putts helps keep the pace of play up.

Hi BGA,
We use a more traditional Stableford system for our daily, week in and week out group. Instead of handicaps, we all play against a Stableford quota that we track ourselves on a spreadsheet that gets adjusted each Monday. Each player receives 1 point for bogie, 2 for par, 3 for birdie and 5 for eagle. Double bogies are worth 0 and no negative points for worse.

The cool thing is that we establish your quota by averaging the top 5 of your most recent 10 scores plus we have an anti-sandbagging provision; any player posting less than 80% of his quota gets the score adjusted and entered at 80%. This prevents a guy from bagging (throwing in the towel for the day) expecting to bring his quota down. We also have individual matches so it would cost you to bag.

We throw $40 in each time we play, $20 for the Stableford competition (we pay places based on the number of participants each time out) and $20 for scats. At the end of the season we publish the year's stats including % in the money, number of 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, scat winnings, return on investment, etc. We have over 30 guys who participate in "the group" at our club and really have it down to a science.

The modified Stableford I recommended in my original post is just a once in a while thing for a fun tournament . The -3 is important and keeps it exciting. A player in the lead could take a triple and lose 3 points, while someone else could make a birdie on a stroke hole for a net eagle and pick up 8...an 11 point swing!!

I like to read about these as well. Thanks guys for posting what works at your club.

dpb:

Is your stableford tournament a Club event?

In other words, open to all handicap ranges?
(I see the 90% allowance.)

If so, how many points to win does it typically take and have players from all handicap ranges placed "in the money" in this event? (I assume so, but would like to hear more.)

The reason I ask is because I could see a player with a tournament handicap of over 20 making multiple net eagles (gross par on holes where he gets 2 strokes). He could make some huge points if he stayed away from net triple. We have a few at my club that could execute that feat no problemo!

Thanks in advance.

The modified "Net" Stableford works for a field of players with a wide range of handicaps from scratch to 30+ in my experience. I actually won a 72 hole invitational tournament at Cap Cana (Punta Espada) in the Dominican Republic where the entire tourney was played in this format. For reference, I played as a 5 hc, the second place winner was a 9, 3rd was a 14 and 4th was a 28. I think I benefitted from the fact that Punta Espada is extremely difficult and the final round was played from the tips with strong winds at well over 7000 yards. (HC's were adjusted for the rating difference)

It was exciting...I started the final round with a 7 point lead but the guy in second caught me after the first 2 holes. He started par-birdie, to my bogie-par, and both were stroke holes for him and just the second for me. He picked up 12 points to my 5. I ended up one down at the turn, but then birdied #12 (second handicap hole) to his net triple...an 11 point swing! I hung on to win but it was really exciting to the end.

We have used this format for a weekend event at our club with "the group" (handicap range 0-18) with good results also. Once again however, my home course is difficult and big numbers (-3s) are easy to make if you don't strike it well. The distribution seemed equitable and did not favor any one particular handicap.

I could see an egregious "bagger" exploiting the format, but those guys get you in just about any "net" event.

Well, I've recently found a format I'm going to attempt to get our pro to try out for a fun tournament (or at least I think it'd be fun). You play 9 of the 18 holes, but the trick is, you don't tee off and play the holes as they're normally played. I've heard it called a Turkey Shoot at some places. Pretty much, you change the layout of the course and design it so that there are totally different holes than normal. Say for example you tee off on the tee box for #1 and you play to the green on #3, or you tee off from #10 tee box and play to #12 green. You'd find holes where you could play from a tee box to a green that's fairly reasonable. I've seen some that have 700 yard par 6 holes, and some that had 75 yard par 3's. Just depends on how you lay it out. Players have to find the best angles on their own as the course is never played in that manner. Sounds like a lot of fun from the descriptions I've heard and people I've talked to that have played it.

We also do an annual Ryder Cup event that's a lot of fun. You pay a set entry fee which includes golf plus $20 toward the pot. Saturday you play 9 holes alternate shot and 9 holes low ball. Sunday is for match play. The winner and runner up of the club championship at our course are the captains that select the teams. They restrict it to 40 golfers. The winning team gets $40 each for winning (so they actually win $20 over their initial investment of $20 in the pot).

Another one we've played is a red, white, blue event for the 4th of July. You play each hole in it's normal fashion. The catch is, you change tees every hole, playing red on the first, white on the second, blue on the third, back to red, white, blue, and so on. Makes for an interesting round and scorecard.

dpb: Well said!

It is difficult to find a format that works for all hdcp levels.

We played the format I mentioned earlier in this thread last month.
Points:
net bogey or worse = -1
net par = 0
net birdie = 2
net eagle = 5
net double eagle = 8

Recall that 2 scores are recorded on each hole = an individual net score points + scramble score points

Past winners usually average over 40 points.

My team (Hdcps = +2, +2, 5, & 5) = 41 points = 3rd place

Winners were mid and high hdcpers = 51 points. They lit it up big time on the individual net score points. I think they were 4 or 5 under on the scramble.

I thought we did pretty good - but we got smoked! At least we had a good time.
Our gross score in the scramble = 59 (13 birdies) = 26 points
Individual hole scores = 15 points

One of my friends - 5 hdcp - birdied 2 stroke holes, those were both net eagles (5 pointers) which really helped our score.

Choosing who is to play alone on each hole makes it fun.
For instance, take a par 3.
Let's say no one on your team gets a stroke on the hole.
You have 2 balls on the green. One 7 feet and one 15 feet.
Which guy plays the hole on his own? (The other 3 would scramble from the other ball.)
Keep in mind that tour pro's average about 50% from 7 feet.
And based on the past, the team needs to average at least 2 points per hole to keep pace.
Do you get greedy or not?

It is fun one to do once a year.