Any way (official or semi-official) to play a single against a pair in better-ball?

[carled]

We've lost a couple of players from our group trip to injury and need to play two matches as threeballs instead of fourballs. Usually it's simple fourball better ball off 90% difference to low handicapper. Doing the same in 2 vs 1 seems inequitable and likely to favour the pair, with two chances of performing on every hole vs. the single. I can't find anything using google to deal with this - anyone got any ideas please?

 

[Orikoru]

If the handicaps are different you could try and do a low capper vs two high cappers doing betterball where no shots are given? Saw them do that on Tubes Golf Life on YouTube where the two of them faced Jimmy Bullard (he's scratch).

 

[carled]

Can't guarantee it will work out like that. I was wondering if there's an accepted way to handicap the pair vs. the single.

 

[Neilds]

Play bowmaker and give the 3 balls a 'ghost' player which is drawn at random form the other cards. Don't get hung up on 4BBB

 

[carled]

Play bowmaker and give the 3 balls a 'ghost' player which is drawn at random form the other cards. Don't get hung up on 4BBB

Ah. I neglected to mention that it's also a team competition, with (usually) 5 pairs in each team. We now have 4 pairs and a single in each team. We *could* play a singles match each day, but trying to avoid that at the moment.

 

[fundy]

If theres 18 of you why not split into 3 teams of 6 and one from each team play in each 3 ball and each play a match against each of the other two simultaneously or play split 6s or similar?

 

[Bunkermagnet]

“In the box”

 

[carled]

If theres 18 of you why not split into 3 teams of 6 and one from each team play in each 3 ball and each play a match against each of the other two simultaneously or play split 6s or similar?

Thanks for the suggestion, but twenty two years of tradition playing as two teams is not something I want to deviate from at this point! We usually play two pairs matches and a singles.

 

[Golfnut1957]

I'm not sure that anything will meet your needs, other than two more players, but you could try "on the perch" otherwise known as "in the chair".

We play this all the time as a three or fourball. As a three ball, all 3 are playing against each other, if one wins a hole outright he goes on the perch. In our version if he wins a hole outright he goes one up and gets to keep that hole for the duration of the match. He is then playing against the other two as a pair. If he gets beat by any one of the other two he is knocked off the perch, and it is all square. They then revert to all three playing against each other. He with the most holes after 18 wins.

You can play it as straight matchplay, that is if you are on the perch and win you go one up, two up, three up etc and then down to two, down to one, all square. The problem with this version is that there can be two battling away for 16 holes with the third contributing nothing and then going on to win 17 & 18 and the match.

It's quite difficult to win and when you play as a fourball it is very difficult. Putting a pound a man in and having a lot of matches end all square has resulted in some quite tasty pots.

 

[peld]

in our club winter league, when there is an odd number and there is a 3 ball, they play singles against each other, then you score the average of your two games.

e.g we have ten points for a win, then +/- the holes result (played to 18 holes). 5 points for all square.
So in a 3 ball, if I beat player A 2 up (10+2 points) and beat player B 4 up (10+4 points) , id score the average of the two = 13 pts.
If I lost 2 down and 4 down, i'd score the average of -3 points.
If i tied (5pts) and won 1up (10+1), i'd score the average of 8 points.

 

[Region3]

If there is 1 person missing from each team I would either….

Play a lower hc from each team against 2 higher hc’s from the other team with no shots given. I (4) sometimes play against 2 mates bb who are both 10-12 with no shots given and is usually close, or……

Ask the course if you can have a 2 ball and all 4’s instead of 2 x 3 balls then play one match as singles.

 

[SocketRocket]

I've had to play myself against two from the other team when my partner didn't turn up.

 

[IanMcC]

1. You nominate a blind player, only known to yourself, to make up the team. Obviously you need to ask everyone to hole out.
2. You give them 3 cards, and the 3 ball submits 3 betterball scores. You then draw cards to see which one counts for each team.