Tournament Format
The format is simple on the surface, but only the most seasoned Bropen veterans understand the intricacies and depth of strategy for each round. Every player has a partner resulting in a 12 team tournament. There are 5 total rounds with 5 different formats. The top 3 teams benefit financially but only the first place finishers receive the green and gold jackets while last place has to don the infamous pink hoodies.
Round 1 Format: Pink Ball
Round 1 Location: Deacon's Lodge
Pink ball is a quick start to building Bropen camaraderie and testing mental fortitude. Each team pairs up with another team, and each foursome counts two scores per hole: the pink ball and the lowest net score of the remaining 3 players. As pink ball rookies soon find out...staring down at a pink ball can make the manliest of golfers quiver and induce horrifying triple bogies. Bropens are not won or lost during Pink Ball but this round absolutely sets the tone.
Round 2 Format: Two Man Best Ball
Round 2 Location: Lehman/Dutch Legacy
Assuming you are well versed in the difference between best ball and a scramble, this one is as simple as it sounds. This is where the leaderboard begins to take shape and when certain teams reach a fork in the road where they choose between extra trips to the drink cart and making a run at a top 3 finish in this event (the highest skilled teams choose both).
Oh, and the dinner that follows this round typically features a scientific demonstration (not all Bropen inside jokes are appropriate for the public).
Round 3 Format: Wolf
Round 3 Location: Madden's Classic
Madden's Classic is certainly the most difficult course we play, and coming off the Friday night Zorbiez adventure...let's just say the course record is typically pretty safe. The 5 foursomes are divided up into an A, B, C, D, and E group broke out by handicaps. The prestigious A group often has a wide range of personalities with a broad spectrum of how seriously they take the game of golf. This makes for some classic Bropen entertainment. Wolf is a game where each hole, one player is the "wolf" and gets to choose his partner on that particular hole based on the other players' drives. This format emphasizes wolf specific strategy and at times highly, non-traditional decision making (just ask about the infamous "tap off the tee on 15").
"The sun always shines on the Bropen." - Jim Birrell
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Round 4 Format: Scramble
Round 4 Location: Lehman/Dutch Legacy
"It's the best 5 hours of the year." - anyone who has ever participated in the Bropen.
As the scores are submitted from Wolf, all players constantly refresh the famous live leaderboard spreadsheet as quickly as possible to learn who their teammates will be for the annual Bropen scramble. The first place team gets paired with the last place team. Second place with second to last place team, and so on and so forth. After this round, the city of Brainerd typically enters both a vodka and lemonade draught for the remainder of the summer. And yet, scores tend to get real low as roars are heard round the course when nasty double break putts are sunk and wedges are stuck tight. There is no way to truly describe the magic of the Bropen scramble. It always gets weird and the last 5 holes are set up for fireworks like no other scramble in the United States or for that matter...the world. Everyone deserves to experience a Bropen scramble at least once in your lifetime.
Round 5 Format: Stroke Play
Round 5 Location: The Pines
"The truest test in golf." - anyone who has ever participated in the Bropen.
After two nights with less than a desirable amount of sleep, and two days filled with more excitement than any normal human experiences in a given year, we are presented with the final Bropen hurdle: stroke play. Every shot can mean the difference between a pink hoodie or the honor of winning a green or gold jacket. There are no complicated rules to explain here; count every shot, net out the handicaps, and see where we land. With the most points of any event on the line, there is plenty of opportunity for the leaderboard to shift. Usually, a few teams are still in the running at this point, but only those who can fight through their inner swing demons on that back 9 (holes 82-90 on the weekend) will be champions.
