How the 'Mystery Tournament' Format Works

You've signed up to play in a golf tournament next weekend at your club. What's the format? The notice on the clubhouse billboard only says "Mystery Tournament." Hmm, that's odd — Mystery Tournament? What does that mean? It means you won't know the scoring format — or even whether you are competing as an individual or as part of a team — until the tournament is over.

The Mystery Tournament format used to be more common than it is today, way back in the middle of the 20th century. But a golf association, corporate event or charity group might decide to play a Mystery Tournament as a (hopefully) fun change of pace, something to shake things up a bit. Here's how a Mystery Tournament works:

• Tournament organizers choose the scoring format, which can be anything from individual stroke play to 4-person teams playing any format in which all golfers hole out. But they don't tell the players what that format is.
• Golfers are sent off the tee in groups of four and play, well, golf. Stroke play, play your own ball into the hole, keep your score.
• As golfers finish and turn in scorecards, tournament organizers begin applying their chosen scoring format. But they don't reveal that format to the golfers until the tournament actually ends.
• Only when all groups are finished and scorecards turned in do golfers in a Mystery Tournament find out what the scoring format is, and how they did.

As a golfer playing a Mystery Tournament, your job is just to go out and post the best score you can. You can't worry about whether your team is doing well or you are doing well for the team because you don't even know if you're on a team! You might be competing as an individual. Or you might be partnered with one of the other players in the group as a 2-person team. Or the other three golfers in your group might be your teammates in a 4-player-team format (or your opponents if it's an individual format).

And that's the Mystery Tournament: You play golf, enjoy yourself, hopefully play well, and only when the tournament is over do you find out who you were partnered with (or whether you were competing individually), and what scoring format you were playing.

More formats:

• How a Blind Partner tournament works
• The Peoria System handicap explained
• How to play a Ringer Tournament

Sources:
Golfdom. "Revise Events Program to Increase Members' Play," February 1946.