PGA professional and former PGA Tour player John Abendroth co-hosts Hooked on Golf at KNBR radio San Francisco, www.hookedongolf.com. He's also an advisor to the Alternative Golf Association. Here are a few of his ideas on future Flogton format; if they get your imagination going, add a few of your own.
Formats for fun
Have you ever scrambled, shambled, engaged in a cha-cha-cha or bingo-bango-bongo? Played wolves and pigs? Arrived at the 10th green in a golf event and found five flagsticks or a hole triple the usual size? These visions may make you think you are dizzy, but they offer more options for having fun on the golf course.
The new Alternative Golf Association (AGA) and their evolving game akin to golf, Flogton, are about having fun and providing an incentive to play a bit more on the golf course.
A group of my friends and I put together an event many years ago with a key adjustment: You were required to throw the ball once each hole. Not allowed, required.
The strategy of when to throw became the central question, and did we have fun. What if you holed out a shot before you made your throw? You would have to take the ball outside the leather of the putter grip and throw from there. So many people wanted to play, our club needed to convert it from an ad hoc event to a regularly scheduled club tournament.
Think of all of the charity events or company events that add fun and include the nongolfer by using an alternative set of rules, be it a scramble or allowing mulligans. These help equalize the game, create fun and entice more golfers onto the course and into those events.
Some formats let the not-so-good player compete alongside the superior player. For instance, in the scramble or shamble format, everyone hits a tee shot then goes to the location of the best drive and plays from there. These formats give new golfers a taste of golf and hopefully tempt them to play a traditional round soon.
What would you think of having to throw the ball once on every hole? What about kick the ball once on every hole? What would this do for your Flogton strategy? Click here to share.