Golf has a seemingly endless list of fun formats designed to bring the wide range of abilities we all possess closer together, add some enjoyment to our rounds and spice up the monotony of 18-hole stroke play. But there’s one format I just can’t stand any more.
Back in my youth I was partial to the occasional Texas Scramble, but now, I’m done with it – I never want to play in one again and if an invite comes my way, it’ll likely get declined, even if the golf course appeals or the company top tier.
Why the negativity towards a scramble, I hear you ask? Well it’s just not golf, is it? Not proper golf anyway. Call me a traditionalist, but I like to play my ball where it lies. If I hit my longest ever drive, I want to reap the rewards of that and if I hit a bad drive, I want the opportunity to make amends with an exquisite recovery shot. But in a scramble, this luxury is often taken away from you.
Most Texas Scrambles require a team of four to use at least four drives from each player, which I completely understand as a mechanism for equalisation – you can’t have a team with a particularly competent driver taking 14 tee shots from one player.
But there’s not many worse feelings in golf than bombing a 290 yard drive down the center of the fairway, only to be told we’re taking Ken’s 180-yard effort instead as we’re not going to fulfil his quota. It often leads to good drivers not hitting a tee shot at all towards the end of a round, which again, just isn’t golf.
Joel has an issue with having to take bad drives due to player quotas
(Image credit: Howard Boylan)
Just not realistic
The scoring in a Texas Scramble is often ridiculously low and hardly realistic to the competencies of amateur players. If you’re not birdieing every hole, you’re usually falling behind, which places an inordinate amount of pressure on everyone involved and if you make some pars or even a bogey early on, your day is ruined almost before it began.
As well as getting four attempts at every shot, another reason the scoring is so low in a scramble is because you get a look at the exact line and pace of every putt you’ll face as a team (assuming you don’t go first, of course). Again, this takes away the skill and judgement required when trying to hole a critical putt, a challenge I really enjoy and one where I feel I have a competitive advantage.
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