Alright, so I got roped into a company golf thing the other week, and they called it a “shamble”. Had a few folks asking me what the heck that even means, so here’s the rundown based on how we actually played it.
First off, everyone on our team, all four of us, we all teed off. Just like any regular start. We all hit our drives, some good, some… well, not so good. Mine found the rough, naturally.
Then, we all rode or walked out and looked at where all four drives ended up. The rule was, we pick the best drive out of the four. Usually the longest one in the fairway, right? So we picked Dave’s drive, which was perfect, sitting pretty in the middle.
Here’s where it gets different
Now, this is the key part. Unlike a scramble where everyone hits the next shot from that best spot, in this shamble, we all took our own ball and played the second shot from where Dave’s drive landed. So, I picked up my ball from the rough, walked over to Dave’s spot, placed my ball within a club length (or whatever the local rule was), and then I played my ball all the way into the hole. Same for the other three guys. From that best drive spot onwards, it was basically like playing your own individual game of golf.
- Everyone tees off.
- Pick the one best drive.
- Everyone plays their own ball from that spot for the rest of the hole.
So, you get the benefit of a good tee shot, which helps speed things up and maybe makes it a bit less frustrating if you slice one badly off the tee like I sometimes do. But after that, you’re playing your own game, hitting your own irons, chipping your own ball, and putting out.
For scoring, on each hole, we just took the lowest single score from our team of four. So if I made a 5, Dave made a 4, Sue made a 6, and John made a 5, our team score for that hole was 4. Some shambles might take the best two scores, depends on the tournament rules, but ours was just the one best score.
It’s definitely not a scramble. Remember that. Scramble means best shot every time, team effort all the way. Shamble is just help off the tee, then it’s mostly on you. Felt like a decent middle ground, honestly. Less pressure than playing your own ball entirely, but more individual play than a scramble. That was my experience with it anyway.
