Groupings for a Scramble

[LindaJ]

At our club we occasionally have a scramble game involving both the men's and ladies clubs.  Meant to be just a fun thing although a small amount of money is tossed in the pot for prizes.

The dilemma is how to set up the pairings so that the foursomes are as equal in ability as possible ... so the same people don't win all the time.  Usually the organizer makes a list of the participants in order of handicap ... a list of the ladies and a list of the men.  Foursomes are 2 ladies and 2 men as much as possible (depending on who shows up).

Then there is a step-by-step matchup starting with low man-high woman + low woman-high man.  Then working down and up the lists until everyone is assigned a group.

However this system puts the low-HCP man and the low-HCP woman in the same group.  They end up making most of the shots for the 4-some, of course, and usually take home the winnings.

Is there somewhere on the internet a scramble bracket system/design/advice that would keep the groups fairly even?  Or has anyone figured this out on their own?

Thanks for your help.

[David in FL]

Why are you differentiating between genders, when handicaps already take care of identifying relative skill levels?

Simply list handicaps from low to high and split them into a, b, c, and d players.  Then randomly draw teams with one player from each group on each team.

No, the genders won’t be equally represented on each team, but do you really care?

 

[LindaJ]

Mostly because it's primarily a social mixer ... but that's a good thought

[djfajt71]

15 hours ago, LindaJ said:

At our club we occasionally have a scramble game involving both the men's and ladies clubs.  Meant to be just a fun thing although a small amount of money is tossed in the pot for prizes.

The dilemma is how to set up the pairings so that the foursomes are as equal in ability as possible ... so the same people don't win all the time.  Usually the organizer makes a list of the participants in order of handicap ... a list of the ladies and a list of the men.  Foursomes are 2 ladies and 2 men as much as possible (depending on who shows up).

Then there is a step-by-step matchup starting with low man-high woman + low woman-high man.  Then working down and up the lists until everyone is assigned a group.

However this system puts the low-HCP man and the low-HCP woman in the same group.  They end up making most of the shots for the 4-some, of course, and usually take home the winnings.

Is there somewhere on the internet a scramble bracket system/design/advice that would keep the groups fairly even?  Or has anyone figured this out on their own?

Thanks for your help.

We run a monthly blind draw scramble that seems to work pretty well.  Say we have 72 participants signed up for a tournament.  And, because we use a shotgun start, we max our attendance at 72.  We'll simply use a bag of 72 bingo balls and a sheet that is broken up into 18 foursomes.  As people come in and pay their fees, they pick a bingo ball and are placed on a team according to the number drawn.  This completely randomizes the talent distribution, while allowing people to play with different folks every month.  As for gender, we try to limit the females to 1 per group.  But if we have more than 18 signed up, we do the best we can.  It's not often that we see the same people winning every month. 

[Vinsk]

54 minutes ago, djfajt71 said:

This completely randomizes the talent distribution, 

Only by process, not by results. You could still have four A players on a team and four D players on another.

[djfajt71]

Just now, Vinsk said:

Only by process, not by results. You could still have four A players on a team and four D players on another.

Absolutely.  But, for the most part, the teams have been evenly put together through the random drawing.  But you're absolutely right, having an "A" team or "D" team is a possibility.  Since we run it through a little muni course that doesn't have a membership, we have no way of tracking anyone's handicap. 

[JxQx]

Assuming there is equal amounts of men and women you could split both into A and B players. Then pair the together an A and B man and pair a A and B woman. Look at the handicaps of the pairs and match them accordingly to create the foursome.