Golf's Ringer Tournament Explained
Note that Ringer Tournaments are also known as Eclectics or Eclectic Tournaments, sometimes as Selected Score, and sometimes the format is just called Ringers.
Extended Ringer Tournament
Ringer Tournaments are most-commonly played by golf associations or golf leagues — groups that are playing a set schedule of tournaments. Maybe your golf association has 10 tournaments scheduled over the course of the summer, for example. Those settings are perfect for Ringer Tournaments because they involve multiple rounds over an extended period.So while all the golfers are playing in each of those 10, individual golf association tournaments that summer, they are also tracking their "ringer score." Your ringer score is the lowest score you make on each hole of the golf course over multiple rounds. So, for example, if you've played three rounds so far and scored 5, 5 and 4 on the first hole, your ringer score for Hole 1 is 4. If you later score 3 on the first hole, your ringer score for that holes drops from 4 to 3.
A golf association that has a Ringer Tournament running concurrently with its regular tournament schedule might post a "ringer board," charting each golfer's progress throughout the period of play.
At the end of the designated period of play — at the end of 10-tournament, golf association summer schedule in our example — the lowest of each golfer's 10 scores on each hole of the golf course are selected. Those 18 low scores are combined into each golfer's "ringer score" or "ringer round," and that low 18-hole total wins the Ringer Tournament.
Buddy Trip Ringer Tournament
Another common setting to play Ringers is on a buddy trip where a group of golfers is playing golf every day (maybe even twice a day) for several days in a row.In that setting, golfers can track their ringer scores and use the total to pay out a bonus bet to the winner of the "Ringer Tournament."
Buddies don't have to travel anywhere to use the Ringer Tournament format as a bonus bet, though. You can play the format even if you are just playing two rounds in the same day, or just playing both days of a weekend.
More formats:
