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What are some good "course" games?

What are some good "course" games?

  • Yes... competition sweetens the game

    Votes: 39 65.0%

  • Occasional charity/corporate scrambles

    Votes: 11 18.3%

  • Not at all interested

    Votes: 5 8.3%

  • Never have but it sounds like fun

    Votes: 5 8.3%
  • Total voters
    60
CB_fierce

CB_fierce

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There are several types of games or matches to play in golf. I havent personally seen a thread like this yet, so I figured I would start one off to see what most people play out there.

Ill start off:

My main group consists of 3 people: my dad, my long time buddy and myself.
We play a handicapped Stableford format (point system). This has been the most consistent and competitive formats we have tried. Everytime we play there is always a chance for anyone to win or lose in the last 2 holes, and it usually comes down to the final hole. However, winning is not even the big concern in this match. The big priority we have is not finishing last, because who ever the last place person is, has to carry a big, very bright, hot pink towel on their bag until they can hand it off to the next person the following week (assuming they arent last again).

This has become a very popular game around our club, and people that we do not even know have been asking us who has the towel this week. The last time we played, coming up to the 18th green, we discovered there were 14 people there waiting, from club pro to cart assistants, waiting for us to finish out just so they could see who had the towel that week.


Anyone else have any fun games they play?
 
My group is normally a threesome and we play two games quite a bit.

9's: Three ways the points can be dispersed.

Based on total strokes the:

1. winner of the hole gets 1 pt, second gets 3 pts and third gets 5 pts.
2. if 2 tie for lowest score they both get 2 and third place gets 5 pts.
3. if everyone ties each gets 3 points
4. winner of the hole gets 1 pt, and two tie for second place they each get 4 points.

Winner is the player with least amount of points. Each point total will equal 9 and that makes it easy to remember.

Skins:

We play skins a lot and have rollovers for holes and greenies and we also pay double for birdies and triple for eagles.

Match play

We also usually play a three-way match play. Player A plays B, A plays C and B plays C.

We usually need an accountant by the time we are done playing as we usually have two or three games going on and we have scoreboard checks to see where we stand periodically throughout the match.

I like your pink towel game, I think we might have to implement something like that for the loser.
 
Our regular group usually plays $5 nassaus. Sometimes we also incorporate our own "skins" game in our matches. Last but not least is that high score for the round buys at the 19th. All of these with our handicaps, and other caveats being used. The only problem is our group usually consists of 7 guys, and a lady golfer. Sometimes more. Just keeping track of 8+ peoples' games during a match takes a little doing. We get together once a month sometimes twice a month for these matches.

We also have (sort of) a golf game we play out at a local dry lake bed we call "Guts Golf" which is a pretty involved get together. Many more people, and their families are involved in that shin dig. Most of the golf carts are ATVs, and 4WDs. :clapp:
 
We have a bunch of games in our group. Our group can be anywhere from 4 to 8 depending on how many guys are there. We will decide teams by drawing cards. It is the high against the low. This bet is a 5-10-5. The back nine is pressed. Stroke play all strokes count with full handicap.

Second bet is what we call "the junk". Individually you can get one mark for a variety of stuff, birdies, sandies, Closest to the pin, low putts on the front and back and skins. Two marks are available for low gross and 2 for low net. The high net has to subtract 2 marks. Each mark is worth a dollar.

On a really really bad day you could lose 70 dollars and on a good day you could win 100 or so. Not too bad. Mostly at the end of the year everyone is pretty close to even or maybe a couple of guys are up and a couple down, but not very much.

It is great fun.
 
Our men's club collects $10 each per week and they normally pay closest to the pin on par 3's and a couple of places for low flighted net, normally 2 or 3 flights. Occasionally, they will play skins instead with the pot being divided by the # of skins won and paid out that way. Since the skins are also handicapped, I almost never win. Low handicappers have a distinct disadvantage in that format. We have petitioned for only using half the handicap on skins, but it has fallen on deaf ears so far.
 
We play a variety of games depending on who is in the group. But one of my favorites takes into account handicaps with out even really trying. It is golf-poker. Everyone in the 4-some gets a starter card for paying some bucks into the pot. Then, on every hole, the cards are dished out as follows: (a) a card for being on the green in the least amount of strokes (can be given to more than one player); (b) closest to the pin whenever you land on the green; and (c) a card for one-putting (can be given to more than one player). 3-putts requires the player to put more money into the pot. Lastly, the best score of the 9-holes gets another card. At the turn, we compare poker hands and the best hand wins the money. This game seems to level out the playing field. The better players are often getting cards for being first on, while the not-so-good players are often getting cards for being closest to the pin because they are often chipping from right off the green. And, it always helps to have a little luck, because a portion of the game requires you got get "good" cards.
 
We play a variety of formats in my personal foursome, but I really like this pink towel idea. I am going to see how it sits with the others and going to look for the most outrageous, gayish looking towel on the net for us to use.
 
There are a couple of foursome games I have played in the past. I won't even mention the names, since anytime I describe them everyone seems to have a different name for them.

For the first one, on the first tee an order of play off the tee is established. You keep the same order for the round rotating each hole. A,B,C,D on the first hole, then B,C,D,A on the second hole, etc. The first player that tees off gets to choose a partner if he sees another tee shots that he likes. (The shot must be chosen before anyone else tees off. The first player can also choose to go on his own. If it is declared to go alone before teeing off, the hole is worth double.) Those two players play a four ball (best score of the two) against the other two players. If you win, you get a mark on the scorecard, if the hole is tied, it gets carried over to the next hole. Count up the marks at the end of round and figure out who gets paid. The 'marks' can be for quarters, dollars, dimes, whatever you want to play for. Usually the top and bottom are the only ones who have to pay or get paid, everything else cancels out pretty close to even.

The second is similar, but played a little differently. One the first hole, the long drive in the fairway is 'captain'. After all tee shots are played, the captain chooses a partner for the hole. Those two play against the other two in total score for the hole between teams. If you win a hole, you get a '+' on the card, if you lose you get a '-'. If the captain wins or ties the hole, he remains captain. If he loses the lowest score of the winning team is captain starting on the next hole. The captain is the best spot to be in since you get to choose your partner after all tee shots have been hit which should give you the best chance to win (although on par 3's, the partner must be selected before teeing off) and you can decide to carry over a tie or start new. If it is declared before the hole to go alone, it is a best ball against the other players for that hole and it is worth double. If you go alone after all tee shots have been played, it is best ball also, but not worth as much. At the end of the round the '+' and '-' should be equal, and obviously the '-'s pay the '+'s.
 
The trick to enjoying most games is to keep them simple, don't want or need a Cray super computer to calculate scores.

We play" Lefty-righty", in our foursome. All 4 tee off, two drives that land furthest to the left play against the 2 drives furthest to the right, even OB drives count. Team with the lowest one ball score wins a point for each member. Fun part is you will change members fairly often, design flaw is that sometimes the winner is decided by the 15th-16th hole.
 
We just play $1 skin's with carry overs. Very simple and easy for a quick round.
 
On Saturdays I play in a gaggle of anywhere from 8-20 players, generally 12-16 players, with handicaps from scratch to about 20. Everyone antes $11, which gets divided into three games. $5 goes to the skins pot - skins are w/o handicap, so the lower handicappers are favored. $5 goes to blind draw two man teams - each player has to pull points and teams with most points win (when a player first plays in the game, his points are determined by subtracting his handicap from 36, then each week the player's points are adjusted 1 point for each 2 strokes he or she exceeds or falls short of his/her points, with a maximum adjustment of 2 and max. points to pull of 36 - points are 4 for eagle, 3 for birdie, 2 for par, 1 for bogey, 0 for worse). This game generally favors the higher handicappers, as their scores are more erratic and can exceed their points to pull by larger margins. $1 goes to close-ups on the 4 par 3 holes. I have played in theis game for 8 years, 241 times - I tracked it from the beginning - and I am $552 ahead, which may seem like a lot but is just a little better than $2 a week. My handicap ranged from 0 to 4 in this time. Since I am among the lower handicappers, my guess would be that the higher handicappers over time average losing $2 a week - a small price to pay for the camaraderie and good time and regular access to games with good golfers.

Within the foursome I play, we generally split up 2 on 2, with the players needing to pull the most and least points paired against the two in the middle, in a 50 cent Nassau with 25 cent close-ups on the par 3s. Hard to win or lose more than a few bucks! My group is all 2-6 handicappers. If some aren't there and we split with other groups, the games are frequently point games, with points for skins, birdies, closeups, "poleys" (any shot holed from farther away than flagstick length for par or better - must be first putt if on the green), "murphys" (when off the green in regulation, one can call a murphy - if he gets up and in for par or better, he gets a point from each of the other players; if he calls murphy and fails he cedes a point to each other player), and sandies (par or better when in any sand trap on a hole). Usually these points are a quarter each.

For years I also played my best friend heads up a 50 cent Nassau, but he moved away earlier this year. The new guy in our group is very close in handicap to me, and I am gonna suggest to him that we play heads up when we play from now on.

On a really bad Saturday I could be out $18, but on a really good one I think my max win was over $60.
 
Me and Dent after playing a round will go and play another 9 or 18 of battle golf for kicks! Turns out to be a blast
 
it depends who I'm playing with. if I'm playing with my dad I give him a stroke a hole and whoever loses has to pay for the next round. if I'm playing against my competitive friends we play $1 hole $4 birdies $8 eagles $1 for anything worse than a bogey and $1 for every stroke the loser loses by. my saturday home course game everyone is given a number and u try to reach that number and every stroke over that number is worth money. (i.e. my number is 38 a bogey is worth 1 pt. par 2 pts. birdie 4 pts. eagle 8 pts. everything over my number is worth pot money. under my number your money goes to the pot). within that same game we have a birdie pool where if u birdie a hole and are the only person throughout the entire game to birdie that hole there's birdie pot money.
 
Competition

Competition

Some comments from another thread got me wondering. How many here play in some form of competition? It doesn't have to be an organized tournament setting, just a friendly wager among your companions. What games do you play regularly in your wagering group?

Competition with something on the line just adds spice to the round. And I'm not talking about breaking the bank either. I've played for dime skins and $.25 greenies.... you might lose $2.20 if you really have a bad day. The amount isn't as important as just being able to collect from your buddies. My father-in-law's group plays Bingo - Bango - Bongo for nickels. For them a bad day sees $1 change hands.

I enjoy playing for what I can afford. One of my Wednesday groups plays $.25 skins, $.25 greenies in the par 3's (doubled if you make the birdie), and usually a round robin match within the foursome for $2 (total possible loss there is $6). You could lose about $15 if you lose every possible bet, but I've never seen it happen. More common is losing $5 to $10 on a really horrible round. And all of the money goes into the pot for food and drinks afterward anyway.

I also play in the Men's Club at my public home course. We have some 15 play days a year, all on weekends for the guys who work. We also run match play brackets that start in April and finish in October where you and your opponent set up the play date between you, then return the results of the match to the committee.

How about the rest of you?
 
We play games in both my Wednesday and Saturday group. It changes each week but normally we take the best 3 out of 4 scores in a foursome at full handicap. Each player puts in their money in the pot and they award winners for front back and overall.
 
One of my buddies and I always play for lunch, he's a better golfer than I am so we usually play the first nine to see how many strokes he'll be giving up for the second nine. Most of the time it ends up a push because I'll win one but before I can collect he'll win. He still owes me a lunch from the last time we played,lol.
 
Yes, Charity tournaments, high school tournaments, some normal stroke play tournies, battle golf for money, skins, match play etc.

The last 3 are usually with just friends.
 
Dent said:
Yes, Charity tournaments, high school tournaments, some normal stroke play tournies, battle golf for money, skins, match play etc.

The last 3 are usually with just friends.
Click to expand...

What is battle golf?
 
MO_Hacker said:
What is battle golf?
Click to expand...

The person with the lowest score on the hole gets to remove a club from the opponents bag, he cannot use it for the rest of the round UNLESS he wins a hole and has the option to take back his club, or remove one from his opponents bag.
 
"Stableford" method. Accumultate points: 1 point boggie, 2 points for par, 3 points for birdie and so on. Handicaps are used and most points after 18 wins. Last couple of tournaments 39/41 points won. All competitors throw in $10 each or whatever. We have had 21 players first time and 29 players last time out so pot was decent. :banana:
 
with my "hacker" friends we are talking smack and betting maybe $1 or $2 per round ( yea I know high stakes) just for fun. When I play with my friends who are btter than I am I try to get a skins game going where I get one stroke a hole but one guy is reluctant to do so ( cheap!!! ) I explain to him my handicap would be around 30 his would be arund 10 so it is fair but he has issue with gving me a stroke a hole. I will keep trying :banghead:
 
Dent said:
The person with the lowest score on the hole gets to remove a club from the opponents bag, he cannot use it for the rest of the round UNLESS he wins a hole and has the option to take back his club, or remove one from his opponents bag.
Click to expand...
Gotcha, I knew I'd heard the rules before just couldn't remember.:good:

White Rhino said:
with my "hacker" friends we are talking smack and betting maybe $1 or $2 per round ( yea I know high stakes) just for fun. When I play with my friends who are btter than I am I try to get a skins game going where I get one stroke a hole but one guy is reluctant to do so ( cheap!!! ) I explain to him my handicap would be around 30 his would be arund 10 so it is fair but he has issue with gving me a stroke a hole. I will keep trying :banghead:
Click to expand...

The negotiations are part of the fun.:D
 
Our 8 some of friends meet once a month, and we all do the charity/corporate thing when they come up. We even run our little charity thing during July 4th week end, which is a family, and friends deal that has grown into something a little bigger. Competitive value in all these events is not as high on our lists as just having plain old fun. I am a member of couple of golf leagues in town, but rarely play in them any more. Too many sand baggers, and other cheaters are also involved in these leagues. Guys who I knew for sure who are pretty close to scratch players, but playing in 15 hndcp flights just to be playing make it kind of annoying. The Vegas Golf Association league is pretty bad for that.
 
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