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I'm the one that everyone's moaning about...

I personally think 4 man scrambles should be off scratch.
I play off 22, each year we do a corporate day with a 9 hole scramble, our 4 ball one it once with a high points tally (We also would of won it off scratch so all good)

Surely even if all 4 players were high handicaps you've got a good chance that 1 out of 4 will hit a decent shot.
You can't see how that massively favours four single handicappers over four 20 handicappers?? I suppose if you want no high handicappers to enter and only have two or three teams in your scramble event, then that would be a good way of ensuring that.
 
I personally think 4 man scrambles should be off scratch.
I play off 22, each year we do a corporate day with a 9 hole scramble, our 4 ball one it once with a high points tally (We also would of won it off scratch so all good)

Surely even if all 4 players were high handicaps you've got a good chance that 1 out of 4 will hit a decent shot.

It can’t be gross because that goes the other way on the spectrum

Hence why there needs be something in the middle or any adjustment of the allowances to make it a little be fairer
 
Anything can happen in a Texas Scramble so shouldn’t get annoyed.

It’s when singles or 4bbb shoot stupid scores that annoys .

Well played .
I did the card for one of the lads I was playing with in a board comp on Sunday. He played OK but on more than one occasion (many occasions) had outrageous luck. When I totted up his score at the end it came to 91...that's OK thought I...kinda better than I expected tbh. Then I looked at his PH and took it off his 91...65? How can playing like he has meant he's ended up 7 under is handicap? Well of course off a PH of 26 anything can happen. But I couldn't actually believe it at first.

Was I resentful? Hmmm...well of course not...but it certainly put my gross 77, nett 67 into perspective. Another low-teens PH lad thinking he'd a chance after his best knock for many a year and a nett 65 was a bit grumpier...'used to be we'd have a maximum allowance of 18 for any board comp'.
 
I did the card for one of the lads I was playing with in a board comp on Sunday. He played OK but on more than one occasion (many occasions) had outrageous luck. When I totted up his score at the end it came to 91...that's OK thought I...kinda better than I expected tbh. Then I looked at his PH and took it off his 91...65? How can playing like he has meant he's ended up 7 under is handicap? Well of course off a PH of 26 anything can happen. But I couldn't actually believe it at first.

Was I resentful? Hmmm...well of course not...but it certainly put my gross 77, nett 67 into perspective. Another low-teens PH lad thinking he'd a chance after his best knock for many a year and a nett 65 was a bit grumpier...'used to be we'd have a maximum allowance of 18 for any board comp'.
Thing is we've all hit it like a dog and scored well and others where we've striped it and cannot make a score for toffee
 
Played a Texas Scramble on Saturday. Team of four with indexes ranging from 15.1 to 20.1. The club was using the recommended 25/20/15/10 split to calculate the team handicap and it came out at 15.0.
We scored 63 gross and 48 net! Reports of this kind of score always prompt accusations of cheating and/or banditry - but we didn't cheat and we're not bandits (well one of us has slight bandit tendencies but we're trying to beat it out of him!). Scores like this can and do just happen from time to time.

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Random question, but when completing the card, why have you written the score against different players?
 
You can't see how that massively favours four single handicappers over four 20 handicappers?? I suppose if you want no high handicappers to enter and only have two or three teams in your scramble event, then that would be a good way of ensuring that.

If it’s just for fun, what does it matter?
 
Maybe there should be a sliding scale of allowance by handicap. So the higher your playing handicap, the less percentage you're allowed. At a certain point this would probably mean the most shots anyone can contribute to the team allowance is 3 or 4, whether they're off 18 or 28 - and the most a team could have would be 16, even with four high handicappers.

It's tough to work out a fair way though. There would have to be a lot of research done, maybe using Arcos or similar, to find out how useful a player of each handicap is in a scramble team. So like, how often does a 20 handicapper hit a good shot? If it's 1 in 4 then a team of four 20-handicappers in a scramble could effectively shoot level par.
 
I know, but the majority of answers are people saying it’s just a fun format.
Well, to answer your question then, even on a fun comp I think a lot of people wouldn't bother entering something they have no chance of winning. I'd have no problem with the allowances being pretty low though. Rather than 25/20/15/10 I'd have no problem with it just being 10% of every player. So a team of four 25 handicappers would only get a team allowance of 10 shots.
 
There was a scramble at my club on the 26th, I away so couldn't play in it. The winning team had a 40+ handicapper on it, which helped them a team allowance of 15 shots. (The others are around 15, 19 & high 20s if memory serves correctly.) They shot 3 under gross so a net 18 under / net 50. That's pretty good shooting. Looking at their scorecard, one of them actually achieved a hole in one on the 6th, but it doesn't tell me which player got it! And I haven't seen an announcement of it yet either. 😂
 
Maybe there should be a sliding scale of allowance by handicap. So the higher your playing handicap, the less percentage you're allowed. At a certain point this would probably mean the most shots anyone can contribute to the team allowance is 3 or 4, whether they're off 18 or 28 - and the most a team could have would be 16, even with four high handicappers.

It's tough to work out a fair way though. There would have to be a lot of research done, maybe using Arcos or similar, to find out how useful a player of each handicap is in a scramble team. So like, how often does a 20 handicapper hit a good shot? If it's 1 in 4 then a team of four 20-handicappers in a scramble could effectively shoot level par.
We used a system for scrambles off scratch years ago.

It was a drawn comp

One cat1
One cat 2
One cat 3
One cat4.

Worked well but it relied on the cat 1 s wanting to play,.

If teams only had three players a ghost score was put in for the one missing by drawing a card from the comp.
It died a death because players wanted to play with their mates.
 
We used a system for scrambles off scratch years ago.

It was a drawn comp

One cat1
One cat 2
One cat 3
One cat4.

Worked well but it relied on the cat 1 s wanting to play,.

If teams only had three players a ghost score was put in for the one missing by drawing a card from the comp.
It died a death because players wanted to play with their mates.
How can you draw a card for a scramble?
 
How can you draw a card for a scramble?
Pick a card ,
where the category player is missing use the player corresponding to handicap score if it’s better than the one scored.
Not perfect but it worked

We just let two players from the same category play as well.

It’s a Mickey Mouse game of golf , nobody was bothered.
Seems lots more complaining these days.
 
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Played a Texas Scramble on Saturday. Team of four with indexes ranging from 15.1 to 20.1. The club was using the recommended 25/20/15/10 split to calculate the team handicap and it came out at 15.0.
We scored 63 gross and 48 net! Reports of this kind of score always prompt accusations of cheating and/or banditry - but we didn't cheat and we're not bandits (well one of us has slight bandit tendencies but we're trying to beat it out of him!). Scores like this can and do just happen from time to time.

View attachment 57888

Well batted.

To be fair, I don’t think scores such as yours necessarily lead to accusations of cheating or banditry. What they do is illustrate why the current stroke allowances in scrambles are an absolute nonsense.
 
I'm with the previous person that mentioned it, play scrambles off scratch. I guarantee the scores would still be very good if you had a team made up of 24 handicappers.

The last scramble I played in we had a 24 handicap with us, we only had a requirement to use 3 tee shots each, I think we used 6 of his in total as he was hitting 300 yard bombs.
 
I'm with the previous person that mentioned it, play scrambles off scratch. I guarantee the scores would still be very good if you had a team made up of 24 handicappers.

The last scramble I played in we had a 24 handicap with us, we only had a requirement to use 3 tee shots each, I think we used 6 of his in total as he was hitting 300 yard bombs.
The ones I have played it's normally 4 tee shots from each person. That keeps it a bit more level because even on the last few holes there's still jeopardy of needing to use someone's tee shot. Often with only two holes left there is one player who still needs to get a good tee shot in. Then you get some funny moments where you send that person up first, and if they hit a decent enough shot you just take it and nobody else bothers hitting. 😄

I was in a scramble last year where we still needed to use 3 of my tee shots on the last 6 holes I think, but we ended up using 4 as I hit a good one on the last as well.
 
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