We were again discussing tonight things we could do to spice up the same old, same old. The backwards course layout was a success and we will do it again. Here are some other suggestions that I've been cooking up...
Per Card Skins
Skins is a format played only against the members of your card. Your entry fee is then pooled and then divided by the number of holes you play. Say four players put in $5 each for a total pool of $20. Take 18 of those dollars (we'll discuss the other $2 later), and make each hole $1 each.
If at the end of the hole one player has the best score outright, they win a skin (and hence $1). If two or more players have the best score on that hole, the skin carries over and the next hole is worth two skins. Even players who did not have the best score for that hole are back in and can still win that pot. This process can repeat each hole until you have a single winner.
Here's a simulation of how this would work using one of the league cards from tonight. We will assume that the round started on Hole 1 (which it may actually have). The SD holes at the end are sudden death holes to play out any skins that are unresolved by Hole 18 (all I did here was re-copy scores from holes 1 &2). Only people who push on the last hole will play sudden death.
GREEN shading means pay out. YELLOW shading means carry over.
So as you see there, even though Brady only won this card by one stroke, because the skins kept on accumulating over the first seven holes, he would have ended up dominating for taking that seven skin pot, and the four skin pot on holes 12-15. It is very possible for a player (and not necessarily the best shooting player in the group) to end up taking a large majority of the skins, if not all of them.
Perhaps to equalize things we could propose a two player split rule. If there are multiple skins up for grabs, and exactly two players get the best score for a hole, they can opt to each take out a skin (perhaps two or more skins each if the pot is big enough), and any remaining skins would carry over.
Both players would have to be in agreement to the split. If they can't agree, the pot carries over.
If three or more players have the best score for a hole, there will be a full carry over as usual. Here's how the same card, with the same players shooting the same scores would look with such a rule.
GREEN shading means pay out. YELLOW shading means carry over. PINK shading means agreed split pay out.
Now, as for that additional $2, well, I would allow that to be used in whatever fashion the group thought was fair. You could do any of the following.
1. Award the player with the most skins the $2 as a bonus (recommended).
2. Have a $2 CTP hole that the card members agree upon.
3. Play two additional holes, or one additional double skin hole (perhaps use safari holes in either case).
4. Award two holes along the course as double skin holes.
And note, the entire group would not have to play this format. I wouldn't mind trying out a test group of four people (or multiple of four people) next week. Whether you play skins, singles or doubles, you're going to have a single tee shot, so everyone can still be in the same ace pot. However, if we have some folks playing skins and some people playing singles, we need to have two separate payout pools and two separate pools for distributing tags.
Buhler
We've been discussing substituting Buhler in place of Carey to change things up. Because its a much shorter course, I would recommend some changes to the standard format.
Singles
In addition to standard stroke play, we could perhaps add an additional "birdie bonanza" pot of $1-2. Players who opt in for this pot would throw a second birdie only drive. You will play your original drive out as normal as record a score as normal. For your birdie only drive if you are not in the basket in two throws simply pick your disc up. Each birdie would be worth one point. You would get an additional point for a birdie from both lies. An ace would be an additional four points. We might also opt to play three rounds (27 holes), so you would conceivably have up to 54 birdie opportunities. You would only play against your division, perhaps only against your card, person with the most points in the division/card takes all. Regular $3 payout on stroke scores would pay out as usual.
Speaking of the ace pot. An ace here is a LOT more likely than it is at either Carey or Konen, so I'd suggest we keep a separate Buhler ace pot, or only allow a limited amount of the carry over from the regular ace pot (say $50 or 25% of the fund). I would also suggest with the above format we only pay out on a first shot ace, or pay a 'birdie only' shot ace less.
Doubles
Perhaps in lieu of the usual best shot format, we could do a switch format where you play from your partner's drive. Other ideas here would be recommended.
We could also do skins in Buhler.
3 player team singles/doubles format
We could do this if we had attendance that was exactly a multiple of 6 people, say 6, 12 or 18 (and we could conceivably do it with 9 or 15, but that would require use of ninesome card that would take forever). We would divide into three player teams, hopefully with one Pro and two Ams on each (as that is about our attendance proportions). One player on each team would be designated as team captain. This person would be responsible for reporting their team score to the scorekeeper, keeping track of their teams 'drive card' (more on that later), and responsible for deciding what the official team decision is going to be on playing lies (they of course can be democratic or autocratic on this as they want to be).
All three players on each team would drive from the tee pad. Then the team captain will assess the three lies and decide which of the two lies it would be best to play from. A doubles team will be sent to one lie (that the third player threw) to play best shot, and the third player will play from the better of the two remaining lies as a single. At the end of each hole, the captain will report both a singles score and a doubles score to the scorekeeper. At the end of the round, both the teams singles score and their double score will be added up just like a normal scorecard. The team's final score is the average between these two numbers. So if a team's singles score was a 53, and their doubles score was a 48, their final team score would be 50½.
Now here's where the 'drive card' comes into play. All three players must have their drive taken as the team's doubles drive on
at least five holes, and no player can have their drive taken as the team's doubles drive on
any more than seven holes. The captain's drive card will help him keep track of this so that he can budget this. Should a team not meet the minimum or maximum limits on their drive card,
a two stroke penalty will be added to their final score for EACH overage/underage.
Additional rule: For the two players who play the doubles lie on each hole, the player whose drive was not taken
at all,
must go first. Should the other player go first, there is no penalty, but that shot
will not count and they need to putt or upshot from that lie again if necessary.
Poker Run
We would add an additional $1-2 buy in for this. Each card would be given a deck of playing cards and a plastic baggie for each player to protect their cards. They would keep this baggie in their bag. At the start of the round, all players draw one card from the deck. High card gets top of the box. (Black>red, spades>clubs, diamonds>hearts).
At the end of each hole, the deck will be shuffled...
- All players who got the
best score for the hole get to draw a card.
- If there is a star birdie,
everybody will draw.
- If there is a star par, star bogey or worse,
nobody will draw.
- If a player won the hole outright, they get to draw
two cards.
A player may not hold any more than seven cards at any one time. If you have the option to draw but have seven in your baggie, you must discard from your baggie and reshuffle the deck.
All of the above situations are earned draws, and up to five times during the round a play may opt to pass on these draws to not break up a good hand. Once these five passes are used up, earned draws become mandatory and you must discard then draw.
Also at the end of the fourth, eighth, 12th and 16th hole played by your card (not necessarily holes 4, 8, 12 and 16), there will be an additional one card mandatory draw for everybody. This will ensure that all players have at least five cards at the end of the round.
At the end of the round, the player with the best poker hand is the winner. We could have two separate pots. One against just your card, and one against the entire group.
