I am playing my first game of texas scramble at our golf club sunday morning,can anyone tell me how its played and any tricks of the trade and any hints would be greatly appreciated thanks
You usually have a team of four players. You take the best tee-shot of the four and the person who played it has to put down a marker adjacent to the ball but not in a position where it will be moved by his/her shot. That person then plays the shot and the other members of the team play from the same position. Once again you choose the best shot of the four, and the procedure starts again. The same applies when you are on the green, but don't forget, it is the first ball in the hole that counts, so if you putt up close to the hole, don't be tempted to knock it in if other members of the team can still iprove upon the score.
Of course each person is only allowed so many drives during the course of the round to be the one used as the the best drive, usually six drives maximum.
So its usually a good idea to try & get the higher handicap drives count as the best drive early on when they make a half decent drive in order to be able to be using the better players drives coming down the final stretch of the round, otherwise you might have a 28 handicap player & say a 20 handicap for example who must be the players who's drives need to be used down 15, 16, 17 & 18. On the course I was a member of last year, they were some of the hardest holes on the course.
Good points Cernunnos. It's best to have the lowsest handicapper to take charge of the team and make all the decisions. It depends upon the Committee but sometimes it is only 3 drives each that are mandatory.
This game is won by birdies and eagles,lots of them.
Keep calm and get the birdies in the bank early,dont worry too much about getting tee shots out of the way.
When you get a chance at a birdie/eagle make sure the first putter doesnt blast away and leave the rest of the group looking to save par,get a good lag in first and give them a real go at the putt.
Above all it is a really fun format so just go out and have some fun!
It might sound a bit grim....but I've seen many a game achieve a poor result in T Scramble. What can happen is that everyone tries to bosh a "drive of the round" down every hole and no-one actually gets a solid drive away. Being a short-ish but straight-ish hitter, I always persuaded my teams to let me drive first. I'd always be the shortest but a drive 220-230 sat on the centre cut is a good starting place before 3 guys hit it 300 off the fairway! I'm sure you will get my gist.
As much as I like Texas Scramble, my one critisism of it, is that it takes so long to play the damn thing. Going & finding your drives, deciding who's you're going to use, then going to that point & playing all balls, then going & finding balls again, deciding on best results, walking over to that spot, & all once more all hitting from that spot. I usually get tee'd off with the whole thing, by half way up the 16th.
Many things are important & knowing who should be trying for the net birdies & who is going to play safe is very important. And this sort of Chess like tactics is what can make it fun or tedium depending on your state of mind.
Get the best putter of the group to read the putt, and when you hit yours, explain to the group what the line is that you are taking. Then, if you miss, the others will learn from it. If you all putt independantly, rather than as a team, you won't hole as many.
ehcoing realgolferuk's point, I would always get the longest hitter in the group to play LAST from the tee, if one of the others hits a straight one down the middle it allows the long hitter to open their shoulders and go for it, if it comes off your in, if not you are still in good position. We had a texas scramble about a month ago, winning score was gross 58 (13 under) nett 51.5 !!
It's a great format, if time consuming as pointed out. Very social way of playing and popular for new members days (just played in one at my new golf club myself) as it gets everyone involved and everyone talking. Good fun.
I played Texas Scramble for the first time a few months ago, and was surprised to find it was so enjoyable. I'm quite a conservative player, but as soon as someone had put a safe shot in, I was able to go for shots I wouldn't usually attempt. Surprisingly, many of them came off.
Great format for a bit of fun, but probably best with players of similar abilities (it's not much fun playing each shot, knowing someone else's will count).
we played in a 4 ball format the other wk par is 69 and our team shot a 56 on our back 9 we had two 4's and all the rest were 3's or better we won by 2 clear shots not that we would of had much trouble on count back tho!!