The “no fivesomes” rule is a staple in the golf world. At most courses, under no circumstances are you allowed to go out in a group with more than four people.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I realized that I would be playing in a sixsome as Jody Rhyne and I pulled up to our first hole for the weekly Wednesday night two-man scramble at Lincolnton, NC’s Lincoln Country Club (LCC).
For the non-golf devotees, a two-man scramble is a format where both team members tee off, then they pick the best of those two balls to hit their next shot from. This process repeats until you finish the hole. Each partnership vies for the lowest score among the competing teams, and my partner was Jody, so it was us against the world.
My confusion about our sixsome was quickly abated on the first tee, as I was told that whenever there are an uneven number of teams, they just send three to play together instead of the traditional two so that no team plays alone. It’s a simple, yet practical policy.
As I figured out throughout my time in Lincolnton, practicality is the law on Wednesday nights.
Austin Harris, a local accountant who coordinates each week’s event, told me there used to be a problem with unfair competition.
“People started bringing ringers and would shoot 7 or 8 under par on nine holes,” Austin said, “and it just got to the point where you were giving money away every week.”
To fix that, Austin instituted an extremely practical policy: if you bring a ringer, you aren’t allowed back.
The course conditions compel many practical policies
LCC isn’t exactly known as the Augusta National of North Carolina’s western piedmont. The greens are surprisingly fast, but that’s about all the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America would write home about.
The fairways and rough are shaggy and there are more than a few patches where there’s more red dirt than grass. On Jody’s and my second hole, I hit my ball into an area that was particularly void of grass, right beside part of the cart path that had been dug up in an apparent replacement attempt that has never come to fruition.
I was told by our competitor, Matt (whose playing partner was also named Matt), that my priority in taking relief from this unplayable lie should simply be to “find some grass.”
It was perfectly practical, and a saving grace after my wayward five-iron and Jody’s short approach shot.
The course conditions aren’t relevant, though.
Per Austin’s rule, none of us in the group were “ringers,” so we aren’t at the high point in our games where the course maintenance level matters to us. Pristine fairways or dingy fairways, we’ll still hit the same lousy shots.
That makes the competition one of the main incentives each week. The entry fee is just $6, $5 for the main competition and $1 for a pot distributed to the team with the single-lowest score on a random “money hole.” Win the week and you and your partner go home with enough money to pay for that evening’s dinner and next week’s entry fee.
The extra cash for winning is nice, but these people have jobs. They aren’t reliant on golf to put food on the table and they will be able to play next week regardless of whether they win the extra $45 or so.
The real prize? Bragging rights.
Jody told me multiple times before our round that he was “ultra-competitive” and that I should be prepared. And, despite my status as a complete newcomer, I desperately wanted to perform well and beat the people I had met minutes before on the LCC’s porch.
Many of the individuals played sports in high school, or even college, so the scramble is a great way to stoke the competitive fire amid the daily 9-to-5 grind.
The winners are constantly changing, but there’s something particularly gratifying about being able to lord your performance over your buddies for a week.
Luckily for me, Jody and I were able to lord our performance over his (and my new) buddies
The Wednesday night scramble was my fifth time playing golf this calendar year, and my round at Kenmure Country Club 24 hours before I trekked to LCC had ended with a spectacularly cold putter.
As such, my knees were shaking a little bit as I stepped up to putt Jody’s and my six-footer for par on the first hole. In an attempt to rectify the previous day’s putting woes, I started angling my clubface forward before each stroke. Whether it was the new forward press or the damp greens, I will never know, but I nailed that putt and many more knee-knockers throughout the day.
Jody was integral with his iron shots and short game, consistently placing us in advantageous areas. A birdie on our eighth hole made us confident going into the last.
Things went a little south there. Two wayward drives led to punchouts, and our closest pitch shot ended about eight feet from the hole. Make the putt and we’d save par and likely secure an outright victory.
The result was somewhere between a Shakespearean comedy and a Greek tragedy.
My ensuing putt grazed just below the cup and went about a foot past the hole, and Jody’s finished just slightly short.
While we were disappointed in the outcome of the last hole and the lack of an outright win, we came back to the clubhouse to find out that we had at least tied for first and would be sharing that week’s bragging rights with another team.
The satisfaction I felt for playing decently and not embarrassing Jody was pretty nice, too.
The win was great, but is nowhere close to being everything
As we were riding in the golf cart on the eighth hole, Jody told me that Wednesday night golf is one of the things he looks forward to the most each week.
“I’m a work hard, play hard kind of person,” he said, “and this allows me to break up my week and spend time with these guys.”
The guys in the weekly Wednesday night scramble come from all stages of life. Some, like Austin, are just a few years out of grad school and are building their careers. Others, like Jody, have children close to Austin’s age.
Regardless of where they are in life, they’re tied together by their love for both the game and the time they get to spend with each other.
The same story plays out at most courses, especially those in smaller communities where everyone seems to know everyone. You can reminisce, relive, and rejuvenate among genuinely good people.
My time in Lincolnton reminded me that golf is not about the course’s prestige, it’s not about how well-manicured the fairways are, and it’s certainly not about breaking the course record.
Golf is about the stories you share, the jokes you tell, and the true fellowship the community creates.
It’s all about spending quality time with people who matter.
Lincolnton’s official motto is, “Near the city. Near the mountains. Near perfect.”
It’s safe to say that this Wednesday night scramble group is a damn near perfect embodiment of golf as it’s meant to be.
Questions, comments, ideas, and feedback can be directed to jpatterson@unc.edu. You can find me on Twitter @JakeWPatt or my Instagram @Loopers_Line. If you really want to get to know me, check out my LinkedIn.
Special thanks to Bethany Phillis for serving as my creative project mentor. Additional thanks to Caroline Maness for designing Looper’s Line’s logo.
Last but not least, a massive thank you to the Rhyne family for their gracious hospitality in Lincolnton.