Death to the Traditional Scramble

Its that time of year, Course pros are scheduling their annual events, corporations and charities are calling to book courses and men’s league emails are starting to fly. What is the big ticket format they are all going request for their big day? A scramble. I’m here to say enough, its time to kill off the traditional 4 person scramble in golf for good.

Look on paper a scramble is a perfect game for a course-wide event. 120 people would only mean 30 teams and 60 carts. It’s accessible for everyone regardless of skill level or tees played and it keeps up pace of play since there isn’t anyone dead set on hunting down a lost ball or sweating over a putt. Here’s the inherit problem with a scramble though, people suck. We’ve all seen the viral videos of 4 guys who haven’t seen their own toes since the early 90s coming in with a 52. We’ve all probably participated in a scramble where the “winning team” is beyond plastered and everyone just quietly accepts it because its super awkward, and pointless to accuse them of cheating. Especially if it’s a co-worker or charity event.  The scramble is dead and broken due to rampant cheating, and all for the glittering prize of pro shop credit or an Applebee’s gift card.

So what’s a course to do? I have a couple ideas to save the integrity of the casual golf tournament.

1)      2 person teams: want to stop suspect gimmes and lie improvement, let the players police their competitors. The negative is this will slow down pace of play and probably lead to fights. But hey, it won’t be boring.

2)      Random assignment scramble: you can’t choose your teammates, your name is thrown into a hat and you play with who you play with. Might work for corporate events where everyone works together. I don’t think everyone would be comfortable cheating in front of 3 people they just met, but maybe I’m giving people too much credit.

3)      Let’s use technology! Instead of a paper scorecard covered in ketchup and Fireball being turned in at the end of the round how about a table greenside at every hole with an Ipad and someone entering scores? It can even be sponsored and have swag like all the tee box booths if staffing is an issue. It’s really hard to claim an 8 foot gimme or a birdie after 3 tee shots in the water when you have to report the score to a person, who just saw you, immediately after doing it.  

4)      Alternate games: wolf, vegas, team games, skins, alt shot, one club, red tee challenge are all fun games that can equal the playing field between skill levels all without the drawback of an unobserved foursome getting fast and loose with the standards.

5)      Secret scorecard ballot box: seems like the later groups to finish a scramble win an awful lot, seems like they also casually ask “what’s the low score?” at the turn or on their way into the dining hall. A locked ballot box behind 18th green would be interesting. Everyone totals them up, drops the card in the box then goes inside for lunch. They find out the other scores when everyone else does, host pros included. It would heighten the anticipation of the winning announcement too.  

So there, those are some seat of the pants ideas to make our events this summer more fun. Nothing’s worse than leaving the course after taking a day off feeling cheated, it wont get casual players back and it won’t help future participation. Until next time I’ll be here, saving you from yourselves.

-          The Starter