4-Man Scramble Handicap: Does This Seem Off?

[cutchemist42]

Disclaimer....I know this is giggle golf and thus some will say this doesnt warrant a post but I'm trying to help organize a future bachelor trip for the Spring. As one of the bigger golf guys in the group, I was asked on how to equalize the results over 2 days.

For a 4 man scramble, the USGA suggest handicap allowances of 25%/20/15/10, lowest to highest.

Creating a quick spreadsheet was easy enough, but once I started playing around with handicaps, it just feels off based off what I know of these types of tournies, and it was calculating correctly.

Plugging in a team of a 1/2/2/3 gives me 1.25 strokes. To me this feels off as I usually expect low handicap teams to be 5-6 strokes under par in these things.

At the same time, a team of all 30s gets 21 strokes.

I'm not sure how much research went into the USGA recommending those allowances as once again, this is giggle golf.

 

Are they just saying the scramble format helps the higher handicaps a lot more? That the lower handicap players can only incrementally improve upon their other good teammates shots? Whereas the higher handicaps have much more room to improve upon their shots?

As an example I was just envisioning a scenario. 4 low handicaps are likely hitting drives of 260-280 with maybe 2 in the fairway and not likely lost.

The 4 handicaps though might have 1 teeshot lost/OB, one topped 80 yards, the other sliced 200 yards in the rough, but one sitting in the fairway at 230.

The higher handicaps get a much bigger help from 4 shots than lower handicaps?

 

[Double Mocha Man]

2 minutes ago, cutchemist42 said:

Disclaimer....I know this is giggle golf and thus some will say this doesnt warrant a post but I'm trying to help organize a future bachelor trip for the Spring. As one of the bigger golf guys in the group, I was asked on how to equalize the results over 2 days.

For a 4 man scramble, the USGA suggest handicap allowances of 25%/20/15/10, lowest to highest.

Creating a quick spreadsheet was easy enough, but once I started playing around with handicaps, it just feels off based off what I know of these types of tournies, and it was calculating correctly.

Plugging in a team of a 1/2/2/3 gives me 1.25 strokes. To me this feels off as I usually expect low handicap teams to be 5-6 strokes under par in these things.

At the same time, a team of all 30s gets 21 strokes.

I'm not sure how much research went into the USGA recommending those allowances as once again, this is giggle golf.

 

Are they just saying the scramble format helps the higher handicaps a lot more? That the lower handicap players can only incrementally improve upon their other good teammates shots? Whereas the higher handicaps have much more room to improve upon their shots?

As an example I was just envisioning a scenario. 4 low handicaps are likely hitting drives of 260-280 with maybe 2 in the fairway and not likely lost.

The 4 handicaps though might have 1 teeshot lost/OB, one topped 80 yards, the other sliced 200 yards in the rough, but one sitting in the fairway at 230.

The higher handicaps get a much bigger help from 4 shots than lower handicaps?

 

Well, I've played in enough scrambles.  Giggle golf is sometimes "throw up" golf, too.  Been there, seen it.  Can't un-see it.  Amateur hour.  With regard to handicaps; too complicated since a lot of scramble players don't even keep a handicap.   The local TSA officials should just check golf bags for erasers.

[DaveP043]

8 minutes ago, cutchemist42 said:

Disclaimer....I know this is giggle golf and thus some will say this doesnt warrant a post but I'm trying to help organize a future bachelor trip for the Spring. As one of the bigger golf guys in the group, I was asked on how to equalize the results over 2 days.

For a 4 man scramble, the USGA suggest handicap allowances of 25%/20/15/10, lowest to highest.

Creating a quick spreadsheet was easy enough, but once I started playing around with handicaps, it just feels off based off what I know of these types of tournies, and it was calculating correctly.

Plugging in a team of a 1/2/2/3 gives me 1.25 strokes. To me this feels off as I usually expect low handicap teams to be 5-6 strokes under par in these things.

At the same time, a team of all 30s gets 21 strokes.

I'm not sure how much research went into the USGA recommending those allowances as once again, this is giggle golf.

 

Are they just saying the scramble format helps the higher handicaps a lot more? That the lower handicap players can only incrementally improve upon their other good teammates shots? Whereas the higher handicaps have much more room to improve upon their shots?

As an example I was just envisioning a scenario. 4 low handicaps are likely hitting drives of 260-280 with maybe 2 in the fairway and not likely lost.

The 4 handicaps though might have 1 teeshot lost/OB, one topped 80 yards, the other sliced 200 yards in the rough, but one sitting in the fairway at 230.

The higher handicaps get a much bigger help from 4 shots than lower handicaps?

 

In my mind, yes, a scramble helps high handicappers more than low ones.  So your first team plays, the lead guy hits it 260 in the fairway.  Are any of the others likely to improve on that very much?  The first player is relatively likely to hit the green, and unless someone hits a shot inside 15 feet, they're not going to make a ton of birdies.  On the other hand, give a team of 30s 4 tries at each shot, and one will likely be heads and shoulders above the rest of the group.  Of course they'll have occasions where all 4 will hit poor shots, but those will be pretty rare.

And of course the ideal thing is to have a mix of handicaps, so the team gets strokes on account of the higher handicappers, but gets the skill and (hopefully) good shots from the lower handicaps.

[cutchemist42]

7 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

In my mind, yes, a scramble helps high handicappers more than low ones.  So your first team plays, the lead guy hits it 260 in the fairway.  Are any of the others likely to improve on that very much?  The first player is relatively likely to hit the green, and unless someone hits a shot inside 15 feet, they're not going to make a ton of birdies.  On the other hand, give a team of 30s 4 tries at each shot, and one will likely be heads and shoulders above the rest of the group.  Of course they'll have occasions where all 4 will hit poor shots, but those will be pretty rare.

And of course the ideal thing is to have a mix of handicaps, so the team gets strokes on account of the higher handicappers, but gets the skill and (hopefully) good shots from the lower handicaps.

Yep, and that's kinda the thinking I got to on my own. I still though would not expect a scramble team of 1/2/2/3 to average 1 stroke over the Course rating though right?  I would still expect that team to recover 6-10 under??

We are randomly drawing teams, they just wanted something incase the random draw ends up lopsided.

 

[Double Mocha Man]

1 minute ago, cutchemist42 said:

Yep, and that's kinda the thinking I got to on my own. I still though would not expect a scramble team of 1/2/2/3 to average 1 stroke over the Course rating though right?  I would still expect that team to recover 6-10 under??

We are randomly drawing teams, they just wanted something incase the random draw ends up lopsided.

 

If the drawing is truly random and there's a "loaded" team, so be it.  Them's the odds...

[DaveP043]

We've often done an ABCD drawing for teams, which kind of evens things out.  Its not perfect though.

[iacas]

Four low handicap players should really shoot 13, 14 under.

I think it’s believable that four 30 handicappers will shoot over par, so the 21 strokes they get bring them pretty close to that same number.