Strokes in a scramble

[larrylegend]

Is there a way to figure out how many strokes should be given in a scramble format.

Team 1 Handicaps: 7, 13, 22, 30
Team 2 : 11, 20, 25, player D older lady who will be no help

Team 1 is all men.
Team 2 has two women.
I'm the 11 on the Team 2. My first thought was about 7 strokes.

[tuq]

Typically it's like 25% of combined handicap or something, isn't it? Something like that.

Handicapping a scramble is SUPER GAY though, because maybe 10% of the field has an actual GHIN and the other 90% calculate it incorrectly in their favor. "Well, I average low 90s so I guess I'm about a 20 handicap." No.

[black knight]

Ya, handicapping is really bad for scrambles...my dad was on a team last weekend where all of them were in the 10-19 range and they shot -8 (and won). But they weren't the lowest handicap team. I think a lot of scramble format has to do with how many forced drives you have take from people, and how well a team putts (and that they generally have at least one approach <20').

If you're a 4man team, taking 3 drives from everyone is much more difficult than just 2...2 is too easy.

[JTrout]

If the ladies play from the ladies' tees, they should be able to contribute some drives.
One equalizer is to back up a set of tees when you birdie, and move up a set of tees if you par (bogey?).

I have no idea how to handicap a scramble, but it should be weighted towards the lowest handicapped players.

Something like:
A (80%)
B (50%)
C (30%)
D (10%)

so that the two teams would be:

Team 1 = 5.6 + 6.5 + 6.6 + 3 = 21.7
Team 2 = 8.8 + 10 + 7.5 + 3 =29.3

7.6 shots difference
These percentages were a ballpark guess, but I think it should be weighted somehow.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
One equalizer is to back up a set of tees when you birdie, and move up a set of tees if you par (bogey?).

[/ QUOTE ]
I instituted this rule for our annual golf outing upstate and it was a huge hit. Birdie moves back, par or worse moves up. We had two twelve-man teams and decided to put the best players with each other and the worst players together too, so the shot contribution would be as close to 25% per man as possible. The group of the worst guys actually regressed all the way up to the ladies tees on a couple of occasions, which led to some ridiculously short holes as I think the course we played has five sets of tees.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and went a long way to offsetting what little handicap disparity existed between them and the group they wear playing heads-up.

[larrylegend]

Thanks guys.
I know handicapping a scramble isn't really a great idea but I'm trying to get some side bets going with this particular group. There's money to be made.

JTrout, I like the weighting system. Probably would have to be altered for teams with similar handicaps but something like the one you layed out would work in this case

[UFGatorGuy]

Hey everyone,

A little off-topic, but can you do a scramble with teams of 2 instead of teams of 4? I know we "could", but is that a commonly accepted thing? How many strokes should you improve by if a team consists of, say, two golfers who average between 98-108? Could we shoot under 90 together in a scramble format? Also, who do you guys think would have an advantage in a 2v2 format, a 15 handicap with a 35 handicap or two 20-25 handicaps?

Wow, that was a lot of questions for one paragraph..

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey everyone,

A little off-topic, but can you do a scramble with teams of 2 instead of teams of 4? I know we "could", but is that a commonly accepted thing? How many strokes should you improve by if a team consists of, say, two golfers who average between 98-108? Could we shoot under 90 together in a scramble format? Also, who do you guys think would have an advantage in a 2v2 format, a 15 handicap with a 35 handicap or two 20-25 handicaps?

Wow, that was a lot of questions for one paragraph..

[/ QUOTE ]
Since you're getting no love from the haters, I'll take a swing at this, no pun intended.

Two-man scrambles are quite common. The difference is that you'll very rarely see it for corporate "hit 'n giggles" that feature a ton of players who only play a couple of times per year. The two-man events are often sanctioned and generally consist of people who play a lot and who usually have established handicaps.

It's kind of a crapshoot to guess how much you'll improve, but one thing is for sure, that the 98-108 golfing tandem's blowup holes will be largely wiped out, bringing that team much closer to par. I'd be surprised if those guys shot higher than 85, and it's even possible they could break 80 IMO. Bear in mind, you're wiping out a ton of bad shots, can play strategy (one guy hit it in the fairway with iron, the next guy hit a wood, etc.) and are able to get a read on the first person's putt.

As for your high/low vs. two golfers of the same ability, that's tough. The two golfers of the same skill may have better chemistry because they'll both be contributing roughly equally, can feed off of each other, and probably have somewhat equivalent games regarding club distances, etc. Actually, the more I think about it, given your example they should be a large favorite over the 15/35 handicappers because a 35 handicapper is REALLY bad and the 15 will be carrying him around on his back the entire round. Good luck getting a drive, a sand shot, or a long approach out of the 35. Maybe a putt or two.

[black knight]

I play in a 2-man scramble each year. As a +2 at my course, my partner is a 18, we shoot in the range of -6 to -10. The real crunch comes from the requirement to take a minimum of 6 drives from each person. Last time, we were on 18 absolutely needing his drive...and there's OB right and trees everywhere...stressful! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

2-man scrambles are a lot of fun and it's great because we're usually in the top 2, and generally beating a 'stacked' team with two people who are about 4 handicaps.

[esad]

FWIW I talked to the people who run my men's league today and asked about this since we did a scramble last week. They take an average of all the players in the group to determine the handicap of the group for the net scores.

Now, keep in mind these are all players with established handicaps who play by the rules. So if there were 4 players who were 5, 5, 10 and 15 then they would have a handicap of 8.75.

In your case you'd want to establish some handicap for the little old lady.