How to Play the Disaster Golf Game

"Disaster" is the name of a golf game or side wager within a group of golfers, in which the players "earn" points for doing things golfers try to avoid (for example, 3-putting). The goal is to end the round with the fewest "Disaster points" (just like in regular stroke play, in the Disaster game the low score wins).

Disaster also goes by the names Trouble and Bong.

In Disaster, a group of golfers (2, 3, 4, even more if your course allows it) tees off, each golfer playing his or her ball into the cup on every hole. But it's not your stroke play total score that matters in the end for Distaster — it's those Disaster points. Those points you want to avoid earning.

Groups that regularly play Disaster have probably developed their own list of "achievements" and point values, but this is a common way to dole out Disaster points:

• Hit your ball into water — 1 point
• Hit it out of bounds — 1 point
• Hit into a bunker — 1 point
• 3-putt — 1 point
• Fail to get out of a bunker on your first attempt — 1 point
• Hit from one bunker into another — 2 points
• 4-putt — 3 points
• Hit into water or out of bounds a second time on same hole — 3 points
• Whiff (anywhere on course, not just on tee) — 4 points

Each time you commit one of the above sins (or any others your group chooses to add), you get the appropriate points. And at the end of the round, you add up those points.

The losers in the Disaster game can all pay a fixed amount (agreed to before the round) to the winner. Or you can give each point a monetary value and pay out the point differences at the end.

Is there a strategy to playing Disaster? Author Ron Kapriskie, in his book for Golf Digest on betting games (see Sources below), wrote that "Getting saddled with a point here and there is no big deal. The key is to avoid the multiple-point penalties..."

In other words, to win Distater, you need to avoid disasters. Good course management, not just good play, is your friend in the Disaster game.

Related articles:

• How to play the game known as Waltz
• The Umbriago game explained
• How to play an Ambrose scramble

Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Bohn, Michael K. Money Golf: 600 Years of Bettin' on Birdies, 2007, Potomac Books, Inc.
Johnston, Scott. The Complete Book of Golf Games, 1999, Rowman & Littlefield.
Kapriskie, Ron. Golf Digest's Complete Book of Golf Betting Games, 2007, Doubleday.