Flights in a 4 Person Scramble

Hello All,

I am hosting a 4 person scramble this weekend to raise some money for a local church.  It is just a fun scramble.  I am looking to see if any one can help me with the scoring at the end of the tournament.  We will have 26 teams and would like to do an A and B flight.  Once the tournament has ended and I have all of the scorecards, how do I determine the flights?  I know the lowest 3 scores will be the A flight winners.  How do I determine who the B flight winners should be?  I hope this makes sense.

Thank you,

Rich

Thank you for your response David.  I appreciate it.  So with this tournament we will not have handicaps.  So should I then just split the field in half? Put 13 in A flight and 13 in B flight?

I actually do this in my scramble, you flight afterwards, as most people do not have handicaps and it would be hard to flight beforehand.  This has always went over well at my tournament.  otherwise you have the same people always winning.  I've been doing this for about 4 years now.

You list the scores lowest to highest and then split in the middle.  Top 3 in each flight are winners in my tournament.

I also just played in a scramble that did this on Tuesday and they did it the same way, except they had three flights and only the top one in each flight won.

I've been scrambles that have -6 win usually and some were -16 win. I've been on teams that have out played their ability.

I was in a scramble last year,

My team had the following handicaps: 6, 12, 14, 18. We ended up in like 3rd place about 4 strokes behind a foursome of division 3 college players, which was probably 4 single digit players. We basically played the course were one guy had a good shot at the right time. Scrambles are weird were circumstances can make handicaps negated.

I would say pay out first place, 10th place and last place. This way people who appease those few teams that stack the teams, you appease those who are out there to have fun and compete and you pay out to those who don't have a shot but are just having fun. I played in a scramble that did this and it worked out really well, no one complained.

How we do our scramble is we do a blind draw of nine holes.  The teams will be flighted by the score they have on those nine holes.  Basicall you split the field in half based off those scores. Or you can just pick front side or back side, but make sure not to tell anyone how you will be picking.

We always put in the rules "blind draw" to determine flights. It takes some figuring right at the end but its pretty easy.

Greetings Rich,

Scrambles are tough to handicap, due to the variables on the team. One team might have 4 single digit handicappers, while another team might be golfers who only play twice a year. I think that you have several good ideas posted here.

It seems like you are planning to have 6 winning teams with three in flight A and three in flight B. I like what jsgolfer posted...

I like the idea of having three flights.  The rationale being that the cream rises to the top. The average golfers should be in the middle. And, the true higher handicappers would be at the bottom. Give two prizes for the top 9 teams, Two prizes for teams 10-18. And, two prizes for teams 19-26.

Best of all, was the fact that you said, " It is just a fun scramble. " With that in mind, your event should be a rousing success.

This is what i do, I have two flights and pay the top three teams in each flight.  I have also done 3 flights and paid 2 teams in each flight.  Plus I always give a prize to the team with the worst score.

Thank you all for the input.  Got some good ideas.  Much appreciated!!!

Hello Rich, mind sharing yoru experience with Flighting system?

I am going to do the same tournament also for the church. I am dividing into 2 flight. Flight A under 15 handicap and Flight B over 15. How do you calculate the winner. Its a par 71 golf course.

Thanks

I am going to do a golf tournament in 3 weeks using flighting system. A is 15 under and B is over 15 hdcp. Should I ask each player during registration what is their handicap is?

Since its par 71 gofl course, is that means gross score 86 could be the highest score on flight B?

Thanks for your respond.

My friend runs a scramble with about 40-45 participants every year. It's the most fairly flighted scramble I have ever played in, despite the sometimes great skill disparity amongst participants. What he typically will do is ask for everyone's handicap index when they are registering. If they don't have an index (and most in this event do not), he asks the following 3 questions

- How many times a year do you play golf?

- What is your average score?

- What is your best score ever?

At that point, it takes some finesse in determining where to cut off the flights. Is a guy who plays 8 times a year, has no official handicap, but averages 85 flighted better than the guy who carries a 12.5 index?

At the end of the day, there is no perfect way to do it, but the questions above should get you close enough to the truth that you can put together groupings that are mostly fair.