Golf Weekend Competition Formats

Bottle

I am going to La Cala, Spain with a few lads end of March. Would you have any recommendations for competition formats just to keep it interesting. There will be 8 of us in total i.e. 2 x fourballs and will be playing 3 rounds of golf. Cheers.

Mantis Toboggan

Why not try a little mini Ryder cup. Two teams of 4. First 6 holes foursomes, next 6 four balls, last 6 singles.

Honestly, you can't beat a scramble format when there's a gang of you having beers etc. out on the course. Keeps the interest high, even if some are having a crap day or whatever. Great for giving each other stick, standing watching the other team putting/driving etc.

We've done it the last couple of years and it is hands down the best craic.

Benicetomonty

Stay away from singles strokes anyway. Place is v tight from what I remember.

Bottle

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Honestly, you can't beat a scramble format when there's a gang of you having beers etc. out on the course. Keeps the interest high, even if some are having a crap day or whatever. Great for giving each other stick, standing watching the other team putting/driving etc.

We've done it the last couple of years and it is hands down the best craic.

How did ye work the scramble, 2 against 2 or 4 against 4?

thewobbler

Best format I can recommend for spreading things around, ensuring that everyone gets to play with everyone else, and for getting friendly rivalries going:

- Everyone gets a teammate for the weekend.
- Each team plays each other once.
- The main competition format is better ball stableford.

- The winning team is that which has won the most matches.
- But crucially, the delimiter is total betterball points over the weekend. Which means at least two teams should still be in the hunt on day 3.
- Handicap adjustments at the end of each day are not measured against CSS, but against the average score for the field. So if someone shoots their lights out, they get scissored that evening.

——

The nice advantage of this format (no match play, no stroke play) is that it’s a doddle to simultaneously run individual prizes daily or overall (really, it boils down to how many prizes you wish to invest in), and as mentioned above, bandits can be clipped quickly. While the team dynamic tends to help keep people focused when going through the trauma of 3 days in the beer.

Plus as it’s stableford, there’s a reason to play all 18 in every match.

—-

One last thing. In this format I would strongly recommend you enforce gimmes within a range (ie metal of the putter) and deny them fully outside the range. People can’t help asking for and awarding gimmes in friendly pairs competitions, but this approach can play havoc with stableford scoring unless consistently applied.

thewobbler

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Honestly, you can't beat a scramble format when there's a gang of you having beers etc. out on the course. Keeps the interest high, even if some are having a crap day or whatever. Great for giving each other stick, standing watching the other team putting/driving etc.

We've done it the last couple of years and it is hands down the best craic.

From my experience, scrambles work when everyone is playing a familiar course and are not overly bothered by testing themselves directly against it.

But scramble on a new course that you’ve paid a lot of cash to play? That just doesn’t work.

thewobbler

thewobbler wrote: »

From my experience, scrambles work when everyone is playing a familiar course and are not overly bothered by testing themselves directly against it.

But scramble on a new course that you’ve paid a lot of cash to play? That just doesn’t work.

Meh, we go more for the craic than for "testing" anything. Don't know how you can really judge your course management skills etc after 3 days of being on the batter. Good banter between the teams, few beers, sun on your face, slagging your teammates for poor shots.......its not the Masters, lads, lighten up.

To answer previous question, we had two teams of 4 and each team played as a fourball. Best drive/shot was chosen and each member played their subsequent shot from within 6 inches of the spot the previous one finished. Had to use 3 tee shots minimum for each member over the round. No handicaps, which was good as two lads were there who could play but weren't members anywhere, so no GUI.

Really keeps everyone in a positive mood and focused on shot selection etc.

swededmonkey

We were in Portugal recently. Everyone played singles the first day to determine pairings for the weekend. 1st with 8th, 2nd with 7th and so on. We then played fourball better ball on the Saturday and the top pair were matched with the last pair to form a scramble team for the Sunday. Worked out great as you got to play with most people at least once over the weekend and there was never more than a shot or 2 between the groups

newindublin

Wolf can be fun for groups, plenty of ****e to talk and win a few euro for the 19th hole

http://www.thegamesofgolf.com/games/wolf/

RoadRunner

newindublin wrote: »

Wolf can be fun for groups, plenty of ****e to talk and win a few euro for the 19th hole

http://www.thegamesofgolf.com/games/wolf/

That looks fun!

Bottle

Thanks lads, some good recommendations in there, especially like http://www.thegamesofgolf.com/