Anyone else not keen on Texas Scrambles ?

I always play 2 - 3 rounds Texas scramble when we go away on tour, it works with the group as most of them are higher higher handicappers. They feel more involved and much prefer this format to stableford. The other rounds are also a mixture of better ball and also we play a couple of games using the traffic light system.
 
We play one or two a year (Texas or Florida) on one of the Captains' Day Socials. Teams are drawn randomly. Always a good turn out and enjoyed by all. Few very low cappers attend the socials though.
 
Wasn’t intending to but ended up playing in one today. Par 70, a 4 man team with a combined calculated handicap of 19 won, net 50 (20 under par). A total waste of a competition. They had won it before they even tee’d off.
Don't know why clubs continue to allow this to happen, I saw on another thread that a club limited the team h'cap, we entered one where the maximum h'cap allowed was 6 so all the teams had a fairly reasonable chance
 
Don't know why clubs continue to allow this to happen, I saw on another thread that a club limited the team h'cap, we entered one where the maximum h'cap allowed was 6 so all the teams had a fairly reasonable chance
Except the undesirable mid and higher handicappers of course (even a team of 4 10 hcps is losing some of their stroke entitlement with a limit of 6!).
 
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Wasn’t intending to but ended up playing in one today. Par 70, a 4 man team with a combined calculated handicap of 19 won, net 50 (20 under par). A total waste of a competition. They had won it before they even tee’d off.
Plainly not true, as demonstrated by similarly handicapped teams commonly appearing down the bottom end of leaderboards. A team of average near-28 handicappers would need to score well for their ability, even with 19 strokes; even moreso if there were restrictions on tee shots.
 
They are just about ok once a year, but my god they are slow. Particularly if you get stuck behind a team that is taking it far too seriously and wants to over analyse every shot.

It should be illegal to hold a scramble on a weekend.
 
I think scrambles work best with a shotgun start.
Only annoying bit at my club is if you get the 11th tee. Probably 1.5 miles from the clubhouse.
 
Wasn’t intending to but ended up playing in one today. Par 70, a 4 man team with a combined calculated handicap of 19 won, net 50 (20 under par). A total waste of a competition. They had won it before they even tee’d off.
And that’s why our scrambles are reducing in size

Anyone with a low HC ( 5 and below ) isn’t bothering with them

They have been ruined
 
And that’s why our scrambles are reducing in size

Anyone with a low HC ( 5 and below ) isn’t bothering with them

They have been ruined
Losing <5-10% of the field to their egos and entitlement isn't going to adversely affect field size.
Unless that group had such a huge advantage previously so they were virtually guaranteed a high finish, even when playing badly, that almost no-one else bothered entering.
 
We have 2 a year

Normally they are full , plenty of spots now
The loss of a few <5 handicappers isn't going to create the described decimation of the start sheet unless they made up a large proportion of the field.
Perhaps appealing to the 90% who didn't enter previously because they justifiably felt they had no chance would help fill the start sheet back up again.
 
My last 4-man scramble was some years ago.
I remember that we enjoyed the challenge, balancing out the 4 tee-shots minimum each with one that must be a par 3.
We made 12 birdies and 6 pars. Some tap-in birdies, but also some very well played longer putts.
Felt some satisfaction for a game well played as we walked off 18 with another birdie.
The mid-table finish felt odd. We could not get ourselves to believe that we could have been 5 shots better somehow.

Not felt the desire to play in one again. But never say never.
I would get more enjoyment from playing 18 holes on my own with 50 year old clubs. That is a very interesting challenge as well.

I have spotted this in our club diary for August. I'll make my mind up nearer the day. Might be interesting.
Should I be looking for a HI 20 or higher partner though?

2-man scramble.jpg
 
The loss of a few <5 handicappers isn't going to create the described decimation of the start sheet unless they made up a large proportion of the field.
Perhaps appealing to the 90% who didn't enter previously because they justifiably felt they had no chance would help fill the start sheet back up again.
It’s not just “a few 5 HCs” - it’s their regular partners as well


People didn’t use to not enter because under the old system everyone had a good chance and the winners were spread across all handicaps

The tee sheet before was full before until 3/4 now it doesn’t get to 12

Not sure why you keep need to question peoples actual experiences of both scrambles since the Allowance change and WHS as a whole
 
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I think scrambles work best with a shotgun start.
Only annoying bit at my club is if you get the 11th tee. Probably 1.5 miles from the clubhouse.
I played one Ken starting at 14 (long dog leg par 4 for those who don't know it) into an absolute gale of a west wind, we eventually holed about an 8 footer bogey, not the greatest of starts 🙄
 
Except the undesirable mid and higher handicappers of course (even a team of 4 10 hcps is losing some of their stroke entitlement with a limit of 6!).
Nobody's stopping them from playing, change the team around so that they come within the h'cap limit set by the organisers, can't see any issues with that, a few clubs seem to feel that the have to do something given the quite frankly ridiculous winning scores now, maybe they've got it wrong, who knows 🤔
 
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