I hate scrambles

[RumpleForeskin]

I play about a half dozen scrambles a year and usually run into this one team who wins the tourney, the long drive contest, and the closest to the pin. This team consists of a D.A., a judge, a sheriff, and a couple of other sand baggers whom I'm sure are in the legal business.

The judge is the guy who always finds a way to win the long drive contest. Not once have I won that contest when his team has played in the scrambles I've played in. I've written my name on the little stake about 15 times over the course of 8 years only to have learned later that I was duped by the judge. I've seen this guy walk away with new golf bags, drivers, gift cards, trophies, etc. It pissed me off ever time we'd sit there during the post-round lunch and watch this guy and his team sweep the awards ceremony.

I remember one time we had a good team. A great formula to win. We had two As, a B, and two Ds as our team. Both Ds were the max handicap players and both As were former Hooters tour guys. I was the B. We shoot a 55 and lose by 2 to the judge's team. What. The. Fuck. Pure bullshit. Ah, but I was hopeful about the long drive. It was early in the day when we played the long drive hole. This hole ran along a lake and the wind is in your face on that hole 99% of the time. No wind because it was only 8:15 in the a.m.. I smoked one off the tee box and played the drive over some left fairway bunkers and cleared the bunkers on the downslope and received a good kick forward. We measured the drive to be 349 yards. Even the two pros on our team said nobody was going to beat that. Sure enough, the judge won the long drive competition. He fucking won a brand new TaylorMade R7 driver. Fuck him.

Saturday, we're playing in another scramble. It's me, a C and 3 Ds. I had no expectations of winning although we shot a respectable 64. We get to the long drive hole. Uphill par 5 with wind in our face. I see the stake way the fuck up there and I was thinking there was no way I can get it there. The stake was at the 200 yard mark which that meant someone had hit a 310 yard drive uphill into the wind. No fucking way. I knew it was the Judge's name on that marker. The golf gods must have knew I was screwed over by this guy 'cus all of the sudden, the wind changed direction for just a breif moment while I was teeing up. I give my lower body and extra kick and even went pass parallel for that extra torque. I hit my best drive for the day. I'm watching it as it is headed right down the center of the fairway and watch it land. Bounce....bounce...bounce....roll....stop. It's good, its damn good. It;s close to the stake, but I can tell. We drive up to the stake and as we get close, I can see that I have beaten the judge for the first time ever by an unimpressive 4 yards. Fuck yes.

I won a $250 gift card to Academy. Don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do with it yet, but I will take it.

The integrity of these scrambles is shit. I wonder how many times the judge has really won those long drive competitions. And I wonder how many times the judge and his team has really won those tournaments. Its a bunch of bullshit, but I keep playing in them. I must be stupid.

[MuchoBulls]

I played in a scramble last week and pretty much had the same thing happen. I had the long drive on a Par 5 and there were only about 4 groups left who hadn't played that hole, so I was suspicious as to the guy who won it. Our group did have the closest to the pin on 1 hole, so we all won a couple of tailgate chairs, which was nice.

[Goober McTuber]

I must be stupid.

No argument here, boss.

[The Seer]

The scramble format is fun. Play with your buds, compete for best number of shots, minimal pressure, etc. etc. etc.

Most participants play for the fun and the cause (most are fund-raisers), and if the prizes were ordinary most would show up anyway. Save the good prizes for raffles, etc. This way the "winners" (cheating bastards) would get trinkets and the derision of the rest of the group....

[Dinsdale]

I'm subbing in my buddies' geriatric league (it's a geriatric codger league, yet the oldest guy on our team tomorrow will be 44 going on 25).

I'm pretty sure many of them old fucks hit a mean foot-wedge, which doesn't end up on the card.

The other trick the old guys pull, they pretend to be legally blind when they hit it in the rough, and start stomping the long rough grass down all around their ball as they "look" for it. Then, they take their Lift Clean Place, and put it on the grass they stomped down (the old dudes always play winter rules, year 'round... not sure why).

I'm gunning for some old codger ass tomorrow, baby! Hopefully, it's another shit-talking old fuck, like last time.

Nothing like tearing some 79 year old's heart out, then informing them "You were a badass, old man... now, it's MY TIME... bitch."


Did I mention I'm a real hoot to golf with? Not sure they'll let me slide by with the 26 handicap this time out, though... that was a sweet gig while it lasted... once.

[Qbert]

i won't take time to quote you Rumps.....

whomever Tees off LAST will WIN Longest Drive and Closest to the Pin; etc.........

Sin,

them that has the MOST GREASE out FRONT.....should've told'ya......

[Dinsdale]

UPDATE:


My day of removing what little pride some never-was might have had left can be summarized quite well in a word:


Suck.


Not just a little suck, mind you...

Whoooooooooole buncha.

Played Stone Creek in Oregon City, fairly new course, one of Peter Jacobsen's babies. Never been before. Liked it alright. But damn, for a public course, I'm not sure of their thought process -- you don't have to travel more than a few feet off the fairway until it's in the schtuff. Fortunately, it's not blackberries like a lot of courses, but it's grass... like 2+ feet high grass, very difficult to hit out of, which only happens after overcoming the difficulty of finding your ball. But then, they wonder why it takes people 5 hours to play the thing.

Hello?

Due to an unbelievably poor decision to not drop, that grass blew me the hell up after one of my not-sliced, but 30-degrees-off-target-right MONSTER drives. But it was in some already trampled down stuff (not that I didn't try and use the codgers' trick of feigning ignorance and stomping the hell out of the rough under the guise of looking for the ball, since my buddies keyed me in on the codgers' trick), so I thought my 60* "Trouble Wedge" would get me back into the fairway...


BWAHAHAHAHA! You funny, Billy Badass.

The league caps you at double-par on a hole. Picked that one up. There may have been some profanity involved.


That was on #9. After the turn, it was a different story...

Wait. No it wasn't. I had so much fun on 9, I pushed the drive right on 10 as a follow-up. People bitching about pace of play ("OK, I'll just hit into them then, dumbass."), long grass... penalty time. But at least my recovery was close to the green after the drop... because the meteor-crater posing as a bunker was "close to the green." The crew was actually redoing the bunkers while we were out there, so they were very firm. So firm, that I'm not sure I've ever put that much club on a bunker shot. Wayyyyyy over.... into some of that sweet grass. Better just pick that one up for another +4.


IIRC, the next hole was a par 5, none of which are long out there, at least not from the Ken Tees, where the Codgers play from. Now I'm thinking it's time to right the ship and put the wheels back on the cart. I may not be any too good, but distance isn't my problem. It's that pesky "accuracy" and "control" thing that kills me. Give me an extra shot to get there, and I'll get mine out of the deal. I usually make bank on par 5s. And I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I did the impossible...

The +4 hat-trick.


RACK me!

There wasn't a green I couldn't 3-putt. Except the two where I actually just lawn-darted a regulation approach... I only 2-putted those from 6 feet...


RACK me!


Schooled by an old codger... and by my game, of course.



I'll have my revenge...

[RumpleForeskin]

So basically you paid a green fee + cart to have a golf course kick you in the junk for 5 hours. Nice. I've had those days.

[Dinsdale]

Carts are for fat people, old folks, and Casey Martin(Quack Quack).


I always walk.

Contributes to my sveltitude.


Nah. Just got my full $45 worth out of the course. Maybe they should charge $46 and mow the rough once a year.

[RumpleForeskin]

Carts are for fat people, old folks, and Casey Martin(Quack Quack).

I'd agree with you if my home course wasn't 100 yards between green to teebox. Oh yeah, the 95+ temperatures with 100% humidity makes it a little tough too.

Other than that, I'm game for walking anytime.

[Dinsdale]

Atmosperic conditions?

P'shaw.

Grow a pair.


Sin,
Places With Topography

[indyfrisco]

The scramble format is fun. Play with your buds, compete for best number of shots, minimal pressure, etc. etc. etc.

Most participants play for the fun and the cause (most are fund-raisers), and if the prizes were ordinary most would show up anyway. Save the good prizes for raffles, etc. This way the "winners" (cheating bastards) would get trinkets and the derision of the rest of the group....

Bingo. I played in the Indiana Manufacturers Association scramble yesterday. We shoot a 12 under 59 at Hickory Stick in Greenwood, IN. Wind was mostly in our face all day at 20-30 MPH the way the course set up. Seemed the only holes we had a tail wind were the par 3s and a couple measly par 4s. Anyhow, we're sure as shit we placed, but out of 30 teams, a 59 got 5th place. Only top 3 places had trophies. All the good prizes were in the raffle. I ended up with a dozen pro v1x balls and a rolling ice chest. They weren't the grand prizes but not bad for a $10 raffle ticket.

The guy who put our team together said the team that won wins pretty much every year at this thing. He thinks they cheat. When I was 18, I played as a sub in a local golf tourney back home. I was playing as an amateur as I still had dreams of college golf and could not take prize money. We did well and shot 16 under but somehow our scorecard was turned in at 18 under. That won the big money ($1500). Second place was -17. Fuck cheaters. I didn't blow the whistle on them because one of the guys was my dad's friend, but I lost all respect for him that day. He wins all kind of tournaments to this day, and I know many he probably cheats in.

[indyfrisco]

whomever Tees off LAST will WIN Longest Drive and Closest to the Pin; etc.........

Sin,

them that has the MOST GREASE out FRONT.....should've told'ya......

Another funny from the tourney yesterday. Guess the guy who won the closest to pin knows this "rule" as the guy who won it started off the day on the closest to pin hole. He got a hole-in-one.

We were 10 under on the last hole. My bud drives it 300 downwind on a short par 4. We were 60 yards out. It had a nice funnel down to the hole and the fairway was immaculate. I took a 7 iron and bump and runned that sucker in the hole for a 2. I couldn't hit shit off the tee yesterday, but my irons and short game were nails. Completely the opposite of what I normally do.

Oh, and went to the CLub for lunch today and my Titelist 585H with dynamic gold S300 steel shaft was delivered. Can't wait to break that out on the links.

[Dinsdale]

Oh, and went to the CLub for lunch today and my Titelist 585H with dynamic gold S300 steel shaft was delivered. Can't wait to break that out on the links.

I gave away the last of my pile-o 24* Nikes. Every last recipient (including me) very quickly became a hybrid convert, and now pull them out frequently.


From my disaster round -- while I sucked huge ass, there was a bright spot... sort of.

There were two KP holes, which are marked with a spiked thingy that has a sheet of paper for the name of who hit the shot (probably the same way everyone else does it, or so I've seen). And on both of the KP par 3's, I planted the marker and claimed my KP. On such a dismal day, this was my lone bright spot. After moving the second KP marker, I even commented to the group about it, beaming with what little pride I could muster...


Right up until the Old Codgers informed me "Son, we're only the second group. The whole league is behind you."


One of them was pretty tight, though... might have held. As mentioned, I of course missed that putt. Not one freaking bird on the day... OUCH!

[Felix]

Oh, and went to the CLub for lunch today and my Titelist 585H with dynamic gold S300 steel shaft was delivered. Can't wait to break that out on the links.

:jealous:
one of my bud's has a 19 degree and 21 degree and I've hit them both a couple of times....schweet club

Every last recipient (including me) very quickly became a hybrid convert, and now pull them out frequently.

I'm not one to tell you I told you so, but dammit

I TOLD YOU SO

hybrids are money

[indyfrisco]

:jealous:
one of my bud's has a 19 degree and 21 degree and I've hit them both a couple of times....schweet club

I got the 17 degree. Needed something between my 3 wood (275 yards) and my 3 iron (220 yards). My Nickent 20 degree went about 235-240 when I hit it well, but I pretty much duck-hooked it every time due to the hook offset.

Took a month to get the club in. Our pro said the 585H is one of the hottest clubs on the market and Titelist was backordered big time on special orders. Whatthefuckever. I have it now.

[RumpleForeskin]

my Titelist 585H with dynamic gold S300 steel shaft

God that's hot.