How to play 'Bloodsome': The game where punishing your opponents is part of the strategy
ImagineGolf
Golf Games Explained is exactly what it sounds like. You want to mix it up and try something new for once? Well, someone has to do the thankless work of playing different golf formats and telling you if it's worth it. You can thank me later.
Just when I thought I'd run out of golf betting games to explain, another one hit my desk courtesy of a Golf Twitter/X friend. That place ain't so bad after all.
The game is called "Bloodsome," a fun / downright devilish twist on your standard alternate-shot format. It comes from a book title "Peel and Eat: A Gentleman's Guide to Gambling on Golf," authored by Evan Ratner. The book published in May and features a number of golf betting games with detailed explanations on how to play each one and, perhaps the best feature of all, scorecards you can peel out of the book to make scorekeeping (and the ensuing payout math) as easy as pie.
"Bloodsome" was one of the games we'd yet to cover here at Golf Digest, so let's dive in now. Here's how to play.
Number of players required: Four.
Best for: Groups who are cool with seriously changing up the format. Players who don't mind not playing their own ball. Friends who love screwing with each other. Strategists.
How to play: First off, as is the cae with many four-player games, select your teams. Team A will play their tee shots first on the first hole. Team B watches those tee shots and then chooses the one they'd like Team A to then play pure alternate shot from. The ideal strategy would be to pick the worse location, thus making the rest of the hole as difficult as possible for Team A.
Team B then plays their tee shots, and Team A selects which one they'd like Team B to play pure alternate shot from. Whoever's tee shot each team did NOT select would play the next shot from whichever spot was chosen. From there both teams alternate until the ball is holed. Best team score wins the hole (match play).
As Ratner explains in the book, this creates plenty of team strategy on the tee box. Do you both play aggressive? Does someone play to a safer area? Will your opponent's make you play from a trickier spot that's closer to the hole, or from the safe spot that's much farther away? Do you both play conservative off the tee to consistently set yourselves up optimally for the alternate shot portion of the hole? The potential mind games are endless.
As for what's on the line, that can be determined before the match. And because it's match play, you can do your standard close out (18-hole match) or a Nassau (front, back, overall matches).
Variations: One simple variation to Bloodsome is called "Gruesome," where, no matter what, the worse of the two tee shots for both teams is automatically selected on every hole to be played from. Another shift would be to only allow teams to "choose" on the odd-numbered holes. On the even numbered holes, teams can play from their best drives, lessening the blow.
If you have any golf games or variations of golf games we haven't covered and you'd like to explain, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter/X @Cpowers14.
MORE GOLF GAMES EXPLAINED