best way to play a four man scramble?

[sleepy_augusto]

always struggle, looking for advice

good evening everyone-

tomorrow i'm participating in a charity tournament with three co-workers. we'll be playing a best ball/scramble format. of the four, i'm second best. two players rarely play and really don't have a game to speak of. the last member of our group played collegiate golf. while never having played with him (both of us are family men and live about 100 miles apart), it's probably safe to say he's going to be better than i.

i often find myself in the "B" player position, and usually try to play safe shots in a third position, right before the "A" player gets to go. i always thought it best to do that to free them up to fire away. it's always worst to best playing order and usually it's a democratic process on which ball to play.

only once have i been on the winning team in a scramble, and i find myself not enjoying them much.

maybe it's the way my group plays.
maybe it's just the way it is.

anyone have a different way to play a scramble?

thanks for any advice
take care

[drew123]

Well I'm only 17 but I play scrambles all the time with my dad and his friend and a long driver who was once ranked 27th by the LDA. We win almost everything we sign up for and it is awesome in my opinion to play scrambles just for the causes not to mentin the prizes. anyway,

 

Our approach is pretty simple (keep in mind we are all better than 5 handicaps): pick a lineup and have everyone's goal to be fire dead at the flag. The reason is chances are one in four should get it close and even is we all miss the green what are the chances that one of us will not get it close and even then not one of us making a 10-12 footer.

 

 

Fire at the flag because chances are you will get more birdies and not make nearly as many bogeys as you think.

 

good luck

[larrybud]

good evening everyone-

 

tomorrow i'm participating in a charity tournament with three co-workers. we'll be playing a best ball/scramble format. of the four, i'm second best. two players rarely play and really don't have a game to speak of. the last member of our group played collegiate golf. while never having played with him (both of us are family men and live about 100 miles apart), it's probably safe to say he's going to be better than i.

 

i often find myself in the "B" player position, and usually try to play safe shots in a third position, right before the "A" player gets to go. i always thought it best to do that to free them up to fire away. it's always worst to best playing order and usually it's a democratic process on which ball to play.

 

only once have i been on the winning team in a scramble, and i find myself not enjoying them much.

 

maybe it's the way my group plays.

maybe it's just the way it is.

 

anyone have a different way to play a scramble?

 

How often do you expect to win? I mean, if there's 50 teams....

 

The way you do it is most common and really the only way to do it. The only time we've changed things up is when the bomber of the group couldn't chip or putt worth a s***.

 

If the other two don't play much, I'd make suggestions on how they should play a shot (whether to lay up or not).

[thatswhatshesaid]

If the order you start with isn't working by the 4th or 5th hole, change it up. I think the most important order is the putting order. If you can't putt in 4-man tournaments, you're not going to win, no matter how good of players you have. So the best guy to putt last is the guy who is used to the pressure, so for your group it's probably going to be the guy who plays collegiate golf. You have to also learn the break from the first one or two guys. So if the first two putters don't have a clue what they're doing, you're going to be in for a long day. Obviously being close to the hole helps, but you can still win these types of tournaments if you are putting from 15 -25 feet all day if you have good putters in your group.

If you always play in a group with poor putters, find another group!

[sleepy_augusto]

good point on changing the order if it's not working. great point on the putting. it's always nice to have good putters showing the line to others.

 

recruiting 5 and lower handicaps might help too!

[banistr]

First of all..there is more cheating in a golf scramble than baseball..so dont sweat it. I think you should let the two best players hit their shots and if the other two know they cannot hit it as far, they should conserve their energy and stay in the cart. Let them use all the energy putting.

[chop180]

I also find myself being the "B" player often, and typically the group I play scrambles with play the worst to best format off the tee and elsewhere. However, the last couple of outings, we have changed it up and I have moved to No. 1 position for everything except putting. We found that by having the "B" player find the fairway it takes a ton of pressure off of the "C" and "D" player and allows for them to have more fun and actually have a few shots that are played. Works for us, might give it a try.

[zojo]

uhmm, have fun?