How To Play Tournament Golf

Tournament Golf

Many of the people who have taken up the game of golf have done so because of all the media hype about the top golfers on the PGA Tour. Tiger Woods helped to bring the game of golf into the 21 Century as the “IN” sport.

People began to watch golf on TV like never before. Each Week a new venue and new names on the leader board. Young children watch their favorites on all the tours. They see individuals plying their skills one on one.

Is that what tournament golf is? I remember asking some golfers why they don’t play in tournaments and they said “because I am not good enough”. So what happened to the individual player tournaments, they became old hat. Today you would be hard pressed to find more than a hand full of individual player tournaments.

There are two good reasons for this; one is that players want help if they play in a tournament, and the second is the money. The most popular format for tournament golf today is the four man scramble. It is easy to see why, four times the money in entry fees and more people needed to fill the team. Two man scrambles run a close second for the same reasons. The up and coming tournament format is the one man scramble.

Lets break this down to see why. There are several ways to play a scramble; best ball, alternate shot, low score net, low score handicap, low score per hole are just a few. The same applies to all the numbers of players.

Playing as a team gives the players a sense of security, if one player has a bad hole the other player(s) can pick up the slack. If one player is good at chipping , another at putting, and another as a long driver the combination's should lead to a low score.

And of course the other thing about tournament golf is how it is flighted to give each player a fair chance at winning. But that is another chapter.

If you don’t or haven’t played in a tournament take the plunge. The first tournament I played in I shot 125 and won an umbrella, the other three guys shot in the low 80’s and high 70″s and won nothing. Enjoy