Team formats

I'm organising a get together for our group in September. Last year we had a 4 club challenge , with prizes for the top 3 individual Stableford scores - there were a dozen of us. This year our group has grown considerably, and it looks like we'll have around 25-30 players involved. Once again its a 4-club format, however thought it would be good to have a team event. Any suggestions or stories of formats used - however obscure - would be interesting to hear.

You could play a two, three or four man scramble, each with a different selection of which four clubs to choose.

I would advise using a format where you can still award individual prizes (so everyone completes a round) just so almost everyone has something to play for.

How many holes are you playing?

I used to be involved in a one day 36 hole interclub tournament with a total of 10 clubs, 12 players per club. all at scratch. Each Club would divided their 12 man roster into two-man teams

We would shot gun start and the each nine holes would be a different format.

1. Scramble
2. Better Ball
3. Chapman (Both players tee off, then hit each other tee shot, and then alternate shot)
4. Alternate Shot (I was an advocate to use Greensomes)

With 120 players on the course, it was an all day affair. Tee off at 7:30 and finish about dark.

If you are only playing 18 holes, then you can divide it up into 3 6-hole formats.

If you are handicapping the players, it makes it a little more difficult.

kwini - we did a 2-man scramble in january - turned out to be a good format, despite some fairly wild handicap differences in teams. definitely something to consider.

it will just be an afternoon18 holes gpb. will definitely be off handicap as talent ranges from 2-24 handicap range - interesting mix of format suggestions there.

a format which would be fairly transferrable between 2 / 3 / 4 man teams would be useful as not sure how many we will get on the day. hopefully be able to determine beforehand, but theres usually one or two withdrawals on the day for this sort of thing - different if we were playing a pre-paid outing.

inclinded to agree with you mac, individual prize(s) would be good. had thought about doing a straight forward individual stableford, with the team game being each team members score, multiplied together... with team members in different groups to one another - and would therefore have no idea how the other guys are doing on each hole. could lead to some interesting zero pointers ( zero multiplied by anything is a no-score, gutting if the other two have 3pointers), and inversly, some big scores for example 3x3x3 = 27pts. the problem i guess is that the 'best' golf doesnt necessarily win, however, playing off handicaps i guess this doesn't always happen anyway!

If you can get to groups of four we recently did(stableford)2 count on first 6 ,3 on second six and all on last 6.Lets the guys who dont play much get into it without to much pressure.Individual prizes as well

You can have a golden ball for the team comp. For instance if you have teams of 4 they have one yellow (golden) ball per team. Lowest handicapper plays first hole with it, 2nd lowest the 2nd hole and so on rotating round. The team score is only scored with the yellow ball. So if you lose the ball, that is your team score. Lose the ball early and you could come in with a few points which is always funny. You can still score normal singles at the same time.

Or if you are in three balls you can rotate it round and the score is doubled with the coloured ball.

twoeightnine

I love that idea and have always thought "survival golf" could be a lot of fun. ie, you loose the ball and you are finished.

Mac

There is something quite scary standing over the tee shot with OOB down one side knowing that you are responsible for the team's score.

Would be interesting to do it in a singles event where only your first ball counts. Probably find that I wouldn't be much worse off if I just chipped a 7 iron down the course and kept it in play that trying to remove the cover from the ball and reloading.

well - we had our 4 club comp yesterday. ended up with only 15 guys on the day despite having 26 entries at one point. still, that was a good number to have in the end as we had 5 teams of 3. just played a straightforward Stableford with the best two scores on each hole counting and a prize for the best individual score. 37 won individual and team results were 83, 82, 80, 79 & 69 - so pretty evenly matched on the whole. shot 32 myself and was in the team on 80, everyone had a great time.