Practice & Play Area Introduction

Golf is probably the worst practiced sport in the world. No other sport spends so much time on technique and virtually none on preparation for play but scratchgolfer®org is setting out to change that. With respected coach, Trent Wearner and his book Golf Scrimmages, scratchgolfer®.org is truly helping people acquire the SKILLS needed to play better golf.

The PRACTICE AREA is your place to start. This is where you correlate an area of your game that needs improving to a Skills Challenge Game that increases your level of skill in that area. A common phrase these days in the smartphone era is "There's an app for that." Our common phrase at scratchgolfer®.org is "There's a game for that!" This simply means, whatever constant ailment you have going on in your play, you can't just hope it gets better the next time you play a round of golf. You have to tackle that ailment head on and there's no way more effective than practicing in conditions that simulate the golf course! If your practice sessions don't include keeping score and mimicking the on-course pressure, situations, various lies of the golf ball, and distractions that occur during play, then you're simply going to struggle to improve.

Skills Challenges Library and View Rankings

In order to find what area of your game is causing you the most strokes, you have a couple of options within the site. (1) Under My Area you can View My Stats to find weak areas, or (2) you can take a look at your Trophy Area to see what trophies you're missing. Simply match that ailment to one of the Skills Challenges. Utilizing a Skills Challenge in practice AS WELL AS entering your score from playing that game creates an on-course, pressure-packed environment and that's what helps you improve. Your Average Score and Best Score from playing the game will be displayed for you so your practice is now measureable and there is accountability.

Additionally, some of the games are Ranked Games which simply means that your Average Score will be ranked amongst other scratchgolfer®.org members. You can see where you stand on the Leaderboard by clicking Leaderboard. Keep in mind, what is ranked is Your Average Score so as you continue to play the game the average from your last 3 scores is what will be posted and that can obviously change your position on the Leaderboard rather quickly. This makes your practice sessions become more focused and meaningful as you strive to climb up the Leaderboard.

The PLAY AREA is simple to use and yet very intelligently designed. Within this PLAY AREA you can choose to fill out a Pre-Round Questionnaire that will help you prepare better for an upcoming round or tournament. You then Enter Your Stats from each round played. These are 18-hole rounds so if you want to pair two separately played 9-hole rounds together that works perfectly with our system. We believe your mind should be focused on your round of golf. Keeping these few information-gathering-stats is much more beneficial versus a cumbersome quantity of stats which takes your attention away from what it takes to perform well over each shot. There is a Post-Round Questionnaire which you can choose to use. It is a personal review of your round and it helps direct your attention to the positives of your round as well as helps lay out aspects that need improvement. The View My Stats page is a critical tool consisting of concrete information that arranges your fact-based data in an easy-to-read manner. Your inputted stats also provide performance data for My Trophy Area which you can view in My Area. This is your private trophy room where you receive virtual trophies for your performance in these statistical areas based on the average from your last five rounds. You'll receive a trophy for reaching a certain level of, for instance, Fairways in Regulation. When you reach more Fairways in a future round, you'll receive a higher level of trophy, HOWEVER, it is possible to lose a trophy if your performance drops so this process keeps you on your toes and really helps motivate and guide sound improvement. Simply put, it rewards CONSISTENT play and that is what every golfer needs. You can view our guidelines for Trophy Distribution here.