EmmDee's Texas Scramble Rules Question

See as Hobo has done a "Sandy" and taken his ball and gone home I thought I'd post this again as it had me intrigued as to what other people thought. Apologies to EmmDee for stealing your stuff.

EmmDee57 wrote: Rules Question

Playing a 3 man Texas Scramble, needing 4 drives from each player in the team. On the 18th tee, one member has only taken 3 of his 4 drives so he has to tee off. Ball is sliced into heavy rough, ball is lost. Is the next step for all 3 of us to hit from the tee under penalty thus making it 3 off the tee? Our playing partners were adamant that it should have been the same guy to tee off again and only him. I argued it wasn't and we took my shot from the tee and made a bogey. The other team continued to say we'd broke the rules.



I thought they were fine as they had in effect taken the drive by playing three off the tee but there was already some conjecture. I've got to go out right now but will look forward to checking in later tonight to see what the consensus is.

Just to repeat what I said on the other thread - I would have thought the same guy should tee off again - but I can see the idea behind your thinking too

You'd have to be a quartet of fools to get into that situation. With a bit of common sense you should be able to get all of your drives away long before you get to even the 16th let alone the 18th tee.

Exactly this happened to me once, the guy topped his tee shot into the poo so we all played 3 off the tee. Seemed pretty logical to all of us and nobody complained, not that our score threatened the leaderboard in any way!!

I agree, you should never end up in that situation, but the answer to your question is, the two who didnt hit, play 3 off the tee

In order to win such events you have to get your drives out of the way ASAP, if you have to leave it until after 15 you are never going to do well.

JDandfries wrote:I agree, you should never end up in that situation, but the answer to your question is, the two who didnt hit, play 3 off the tee

If it's 3 off the tee, surely the 4th player can hit another as well?

Well, in the texas scrambles I play in the general rule is that the person who drive you chose, doesnt play the second shot, so hence he wouldnt play from the tee again.

This may not be the case always though.

Doesn't play the second shot? In most clubs, everyone plays the second shot.
Never heard of the person who hits the tee shot to be ineligible for the second.

It must be a thing up North!

We don't like playing 5 hour rounds.

So it goes like that until you get to the green, then everyone putts!

Good tactics are always important in Scrambles. The last one I played in had 4 in a team and we each had to have 4 tee shots (leaving us two "free" holes)

I was quite worried about getting my tee shots in as I was the high handicapper in our group, but the guys were very supportive and in fact I got 3 of my 4 out of the way early! I then went through a small crisis period and by the 16th I was the only one left needing a tee shot. The 17th is a very difficult tee shot so I wasn't confident of having to take that one, but 18th doesn't have a massive amount of trouble on it.

At the 16th though the rest of them were determined that mine was going to count, pretty much whatever happened and as I got it a decent distance, even though it ended in a fairway bunker, they didn't even bother hitting their own shots! I said I thought they should just in case the ball was right under the lip or something, and I told them that I was happy to take the pressure of the shot on 18 if I couldn't pull a miracle out on 17 - but they wouldn't listen!

As it happened, the ball in the bunker on 16 was sat well away from the lip and it was a fairly small face to the bunker anyway so they were all able to take a pretty decent shot from there.

Played a scramble that precise way yesterday. 3 hours 40 mins.

It was a 3 man team.

Also, it was a fun day out and one of the team hadn't played for 2 years. We'd hoped to get his final drive on 16 or 17 but on 16 it was behind a tree and on 17 it was an air shot so we were left with no alternative but to leave it til the last hole.

In hindsight, another air shot would've worked out better for us as we'd have been playing 2nd shots from the tee.

It's not a Rules question - as in Rules of Golf. It's something that the committee organising the competition should decide.

If they said that every player had to take 4 drives, then I'd say it was just that guy who had to hit again. It's open to debate though, only the committee can make the final decision.

I think I would have sent the other team members up towards the green to act as ball spotters if there was any possibility the ball could be lost though.

Scrambles are supposed to be fun, if there is ever a competition when you can use common sense rather than have to bow to rule bullies then this is it.

Exactly SR, I didn't mention anything to them when they placed their ball in a bunker or in the semi-rough despite the rules sheet issued at the start saying to drop unless on the fairway. Like you say, Scrambles are meant to be fun, and even more so when it was a charity day.

JDandfries wrote:I agree, you should never end up in that situation, but the answer to your question is, the two who didnt hit, play 3 off the tee

I disagree - the rule is that you must take a set number of drives from each person... so, that means no-one else can tee of the 18th. Only the person who has to have his drive used tees off.

super_realist wrote:You'd have to be a quartet of fools to get into that situation. With a bit of common sense you should be able to get all of your drives away long before you get to even the 16th let alone the 18th tee.

A quartet of fools in a three man team. Was Lowry part of the team? Or is one of you a baseball pitcher/linebacker?

I agree not a rules dispute in the truest sense of the word but I've been involved in far more disputes in so called "friendlies" than ever in "serious" competition.

I originally stated I thought the guy should be the one to take the 3 off the tee. Now I think about it more I've changed my mind.

I do agree that Scrambles should be "fun" events, but I still expect a certain amount of respect for the rules even in a "fun" event. There are sill (presumably) small prizes and more importantly bragging rights involved even with fun competitions

I wouldn't be happy if I heard of an opposing team placing in a bunker or rough when the rules clearly stated that it should be dropped.

I love "fun" events but I would still expect them to be treated with a certain amount of respect for the rules. We often hear of people saying they aren't interested in rules infringements in social games. I'd respond by (probably mis-)quoting whoever it was that said "It's a nice game, but it's not golf"