Playing in scrambles - help or hurt your game?

[esad]

I'm a really good natural putter of the ball. Because of this I always putt last, but putting last actually messes me up sometimes more then it helps.

I'm one of those feel putters that always just "sees" the line and when I'm just playing by myself I putt excellently. The problem with scrambles is that you play with people who aren't very good putters. So you get to watch putts that are too hard or soft and they don't play enough break or they line up wrong or they hit the ball with some side spin, etc... Invariably watching their putts makes me start to doubt the line I see and I putt worse then I normally do. Sometimes, I'll actually not watch their putts or just train myself to ignore what they did.

Any other part of scrambles I just play normally, but putting starts to drive me nuts. Especially when I miss putts that I know I should make.

[KotOD]

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I'm a really good natural putter of the ball. Because of this I always putt last, but putting last actually messes me up sometimes more then it helps.

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Your scramble strategy is backwards. The strongest putter should be going first. The read will be the strongest and the stroke is going consistent and true every time. The weak putters are able to glean more from the situation and mimick the stronger putter.

[tuq]

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The worst golf experiences for me are scrambles where I carry crappy teams. I put way too much pressure on myself (often I am invited as the ringer, and that doesn't help), and it results in frayed nerves and trying to hit every shot perfect.

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Handle pressure better.

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OK, as long as you promise to work on making fewer worthless posts.

[KotOD]

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The worst golf experiences for me are scrambles where I carry crappy teams. I put way too much pressure on myself (often I am invited as the ringer, and that doesn't help), and it results in frayed nerves and trying to hit every shot perfect.

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Handle pressure better.

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OK, as long as you promise to work on making fewer worthless posts.

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Take the criticism like a big boy. It's a scramble -- if you can't handle the "pressure" of a scramble, good luck with any real tournament.

[TripleH68]

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The worst golf experiences for me are scrambles where I carry crappy teams. I put way too much pressure on myself (often I am invited as the ringer, and that doesn't help), and it results in frayed nerves and trying to hit every shot perfect.

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Handle pressure better.

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OK, as long as you promise to work on making fewer worthless posts.

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Take the criticism like a big boy. It's a scramble -- if you can't handle the "pressure" of a scramble, good luck with any real tournament.

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I am not trying to fight someone else's battle here, but I think there is a difference between playing for yourself and playing for a team.

On a much grander scale - just ask the Ryder Cup players.

[Sluss]

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The worst golf experiences for me are scrambles where I carry crappy teams. I put way too much pressure on myself (often I am invited as the ringer, and that doesn't help), and it results in frayed nerves and trying to hit every shot perfect.

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Handle pressure better.

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OK, as long as you promise to work on making fewer worthless posts.

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Take the criticism like a big boy. It's a scramble -- if you can't handle the "pressure" of a scramble, good luck with any real tournament.

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No offense tuq, but you do have some serious mental issues on the golf course. I think your pretty aware of this though.

I always go last simply to keep the pressure off of my worse golf partners. I've found that the whole mood of the group drops if I hit one in the rough or find the fairway bunker. Also the approach shot can change by where everybody else is placed. If somebody has left it in a good spot when everybody has missed the green I can look for the pin. Where if everybody is in a tough spot I'll shoot for the fat part of the green.

I can see the point about the putting. I've had some problems when I'm playing with bad putters for the first time. The one guy who we play with slices his putts. I always warn people playing with us for the first time to not even watch it. I can now read it, but if you saw him putt your head would explode.

[fatshaft]

I'm with sluss here, good players go last as you may if you're really unlucky have to play safe if your team-mates are real diddies. Also gives them a chance to put one in play, nothing worse than following a really good player who you know you can't match, and your drive is really pointless, or worse, the good player OBs one or something and the pressure is now on the diddies.

Not sure about putting, we've always made the best putter go last if it's not his ball in play, I can understand esad's point though.

[KotOD]

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The worst golf experiences for me are scrambles where I carry crappy teams. I put way too much pressure on myself (often I am invited as the ringer, and that doesn't help), and it results in frayed nerves and trying to hit every shot perfect.

[/ QUOTE ]

Handle pressure better.

[/ QUOTE ]
OK, as long as you promise to work on making fewer worthless posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Take the criticism like a big boy. It's a scramble -- if you can't handle the "pressure" of a scramble, good luck with any real tournament.

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I am not trying to fight someone else's battle here, but I think there is a difference between playing for yourself and playing for a team.

On a much grander scale - just ask the Ryder Cup players.

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Scale indeed. You're really comparing the most valued team trophy in golf with one of 137 billion Sunday scrambles? That's like comparing the Super Bowl with 3rd street school's flag football championship.

I may have been a bit brusk, but the point was that there is no pressure in a scramble and any pressure that you are under during the event is imagined.

[tuq]

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No offense tuq, but you do have some serious mental issues on the golf course. I think your pretty aware of this though.

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LOL, fair enough. I don't know why KotOD picked that spot to troll me, but you're right.

That said, most of the scrambles feature terrible players - the types that ONLY play in scrambles, that's it, a bag of schwag that usually features a sleeve of rock balls and a bunch of logoed knick-knacks, and a 5 1/2 hour round. So definitely not srs bsns, but often I'm brought in as a ringer to play with some chops, and they are in semi-awe of my ability to hit it long, fairly straight, and otherwise do things they can't do with regularity.

So yeah, I do tend to put a little pressure on myself in what is usually a goofy tournament that most participants don't care about, but it's partly because I'm expected to help the team win. Oddly enough I tend to play better in scrambles despite this, because I put the bar so high that even if I don't reach it I've still done awfully well.

[Butcho22]

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Oddly enough I tend to play better in scrambles despite this, because I put the bar so high that even if I don't reach it I've still done awfully well.

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Next time I'm out I'm just going to try and shoot 53..I'm bound to end up in the low 60's amirite? j/k j/k

Also,

I know what you mean Tug about added pressure from being the best player. Drinking the night before with your buddies it's all, "blah blah, you'll make every putt and stick a ton of irons. All we need to do is hit a couple good shots each, blah blah."

It's not really even the same thing as tournament pressure so let's not start comparing apples to oranges.