Pro Am
In a Pro Am competition , a professional usually plays together with one or three amateurs in a team. Before every major professional tournament on the European Tour or US PGA Tour, a Pro Am is scheduled on Wednesday. The best professionals in the current rankings are usually required to take part in these Pro Ams. However, there are also pure Pro Am events worldwide for which a pro can register with his team.
Rules of play at Pro Am
At these Pro Am tournaments there are usually 3 separate classifications. A pure professional classification, a team classification and a separate classification for amateurs. The pro always plays a counting game, the amateurs are usually rated according to Stableford and the team rating is usually an aggregate rating. For example, the score of the pro and the score of the 2 best amateurs on a hole count. However, there are numerous variations here.
Scoring for Pro Am
There are also usually gross and net scores for the team and the amateurs. The Pro Individual classification is always held exclusively in gross. Larger Pro Am competitions usually last several days, so that a team usually spends a whole week with its Pro. Such Pro Ams are often held during the winter months in warmer regions, so that pros and amateurs can experience a mixture of vacation, fun and training. But of course there are also so-called one-day Pro Ams, which are only held over 1-2 days. This is usually the case during the summer months.