Best Scoring System for Team Golf with High & Low Handicappers

O.P.H

So playing paired competition with friends, two per team, and the handicaps are very varied. Some have concerns that playing best ball stableford only the good players will contribute to the score, and on the flipside, other have concerns if we combine the scores that the poor players will drag down the good players. Is there any established scoring system that takes both scores of a pair into account when playing team golf.

TrapperChamonix

On a recent weekend away we had 6 people playing over multiple days. 1st day 2x 3 balls, 2nd day 1x 3ball + 1 x2ball and 3rd day 1x 4ball. Mixed handicaps with a 10, 14, 15 18 and the other 2 without ever having a handicap but probably playing to 24 - 28.

We played scramble every day. Partnered lowest h/c with highest, 2nd lowest with 2nd highest, etc. Each player had to contribute a minimun number of drives per "9 holes". Ie in a 2 man team you had to use a minimum of 3 drives from each team member.

Worked really well. The lower h/c benefited from the fact that you didn't spend half the day in the woods looking for your partners ball and the higher handicaps didn't feel out of the hole if they'd carved their ball into the lake. The team dynamic also meant that the higher h/c had a significant role to play in the game.

Downside is that you didn't get to "test" yourself against the course. But if you are trying to do that then playing with someone who's last game was over a year ago is not a good idea in the 1st place.

mike12

4 ball works best i think, higher handicapers are more likley to come in with 3 points on holes and the lower guy keeps the 2 points ticking over.

PARlance

O.P.H wrote: »

So playing paired competition with friends, two per team, and the handicaps are very varied. Some have concerns that playing best ball stableford only the good players will contribute to the score, and on the flipside, other have concerns if we combine the scores that the poor players will drag down the good players. Is there any established scoring system that takes both scores of a pair into account when playing team golf.

Are the high handicappers regular golfers? If so, then even though they're high, the system should really look after it in the sense that they should be able to play to the high HC.
I think you'll struggle to find an established format that caters for someone that can't play to their HC.

They are probably infrequent golfers that will be given a high HC but still mightn't be able to play to it?
If so, you could make all the lower/regular guys play off 3/4 handicaps to bridge the gap.

Or another suggestion to keep everyone interested would be to adopt a "scramble" like approach with regards scoring rather than driving...i.e The team score needs to include at least 6 scoring holes from the high HC, so instead of using a drive you need to use a score.
This would be more craic if they had to use the scores as they go along rather than keeping track of the scores and picking the best 6 at the end of the round.

Webbs

We play a format of low player goes to scratch and all others play 3/4 of the difference to the low guy. Works well as the shots are given on the low index holes as they should be rather than on the high index holes.

SnowDrifts

Played a great fourball format during the summer. Think it was called "Russian Fourball". Basically normal 3/4 fourball but you multiply your 2 scores together on each hole. So you get a 4 pointer and your team mate scratches the hole... it's 4x0 = 0! It really puts the emphasis on team golf because sometimes all it take in a normal fourball competition is one player to be playing great to do well.

onlyfinewine

http://www.leaderboard.com/GLOSSARY_CALLAWAY

have you tried this system?

It works well when people are not too sure about their handicaps or are not playing enough to have any current form.

jukebox2310

We usually play a 2 man classic with full handicaps and 2 to score on every hole. Tends to keep people who are not playing that well interested for the full round as their score is needed on every hole. With fourball we found that the weaker player was nwver really on the card and gave up