Stableford Scoring - Need Some Feedback for Our League

[chriskzoo]

We do a team match play format in our league, but wanting to run a parallel individual standings using Stableford.

Leaning towards modified Stableford (8 pts double eagle, -3 for double bogey and higher, etc.) since the normal Stableford is essentially just low net minus limiting blow up holes.    

If your league uses it, thoughts on modified vs. regular scoring?  

[Ty_Webb]

Modified makes everyone much more aggressive vs regular. But I think it's really hard to mix match and stroke play into one. Sometimes you just want to cozy the ball up to the hole in one format and the other you need to give it a chance. I think the ruling bodies used to say not to do that, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. 

Leaving that to one side, I think modified will be more exciting since larger swings are possible and it rewards aggressive play. It's a little harder to keep track of and there will be some players (long and wild) who are going to do much better with the modified than others (short and consistent). Two doubles and an eagle are better than three pars. 

[iacas]

Yeah, don’t mix match and stroke play if possible.

You can still have match play “scoring” by saying “oh, this team won 4 Stableford points and this other team won 3… but just score it as stroke play (i.e. no recalling strokes played out of turn, no “loss of hole” penalties, etc.) for all rules things if you must.

[GolfLug]

Someone in our league brought it up but didn't gain traction as it seemed like helping a partner to win a team hole in match play was in conflict with the fact that they were an opponent in the overall individual stroke play standing. Obviously it can work if it is singles match play. You just gotta play out the hole even if there is early concession. 

I think it can also work if teams are blind drawn after the game, i.e., play individual strokes with whichever Stableford scoring and then figure out match play standings with blind drawn partner in the clubhouse. But that's not 'real' match play though.

Edited February 25, 2024 by GolfLug

[GolfLug]

16 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Two doubles and an eagle are better than three pars. 

That's interesting. Likelihood of the eagle though would be super low and the two doubles would be dime a dozen if mostly mid cap league. I don't have any experience but I would be more defensive for fear of negative points. 

In our regular Stableford even a 35 feet bogey putt is do or die smash. Got nothing to loose after that. 

Edited February 25, 2024 by GolfLug

[Ty_Webb]

On 2/25/2024 at 2:18 AM, GolfLug said:

That's interesting. Likelihood of the eagle though would be super low and the two doubles would be dime a dozen if mostly mid cap league. I don't have any experience but I would be more defensive for fear of negative points. 

In our regular Stableford even a 35 feet bogey putt is do or die smash. Got nothing to loose after that. 

Eagles with strokes are not so unusual. If you have someone long and wild, they can definitely end up with birdies on stroke holes, or potentially even pars on two shot holes. My brother when he was a kid with a 22 handicap, started birdie, eagle, par, par, bogey. He had two shots on the 1st and 5th, so net albatross, net albatross, net birdie, net birdie, net birdie. 19 points after 5 holes on regular stableford. I don't even know what that would be on modified scoring. He made a double on the sixth for 1 point and my dad, who was playing with him, told me that his head went down, his shoulders went down and you'd think the world had come to an end. He ended up with 39 points. Not good after the start he had.