Help with league setup

[Newbie Collection Agency]

We have been running a golf league here at work for a few years and it has we have had some problems with the format. We run a pretty standard league such that we have two person teams and use a handicap system to try to even things out. Currently, we do not put a cap on the handicap like you are supposed to since we have a very diverse group of players. We have a few par shooters, few bogey golfers, and a few beginners who just learned how to play over the past few years thanks to the league.

This year we are looking for some ways to speed up the play of our league, try to even the playing field out some more, and just try something different.

What other formats can be used to run a run competitve league?

[neudi]

You can do a 2 person scramble but you would have to put the par shooters with the beginners, you could also just cap the handicap. Just depends.

[sole wolf]

some things my league does that may help evening out the field:

1)Handicap can only go up one stroke in a week.
2)No Handicap max
3)Handicap is set by the last 3 weeks not entire season

this prevents sandbagging when playing a beginner while it also keeps a beginners handicap to mature with him and not give his opponent a disadvantage.

as for speeding up play though, besides the scramble as already mentioned I have no solution. What kind of rules do you follow? ie OB - retee or move along the path of the ball.

[golfchief]

Our league is 18 weeks, handicap is based on 5 weeks score discarding highest and lowest then avg of the three left. First nine weeks we play each team then divide into A & B groups and A's play A's with B's vs B's. with a cap of 18 handicap. We have A & B group 1st place winners.

[Old Tom]

As far as speeding up the league play, I'd recommend picking up at triple bogey and just moving on. HOWEVER, I would not do that along with "unlimited" handicaps, unless you don't mind seeing "Jerry's Kids" at the top of your leaderboard every week. If, however, you adopt the U.S.G.A. limit of 36 - which is basically double-bogey golf - giving a guy triple isn't going to hurt anyone all that much, and will improve the pace of play quite a bit since lining up those tough 8 footers for triple bogey no longer becomes an issue.

[Rafcin]

I played in a league for 2 years. Format was 4 man teams, with each team composed out of A, B, C and D flights. Since we were playing only 9 holes instead of handicap we were using average strokes on 9 holes. A Flight was < 40, B 41 - 44, etc. Each weak you played a match against other team, where A player played match vs. A player from the other team. Difference between stroke average was rounded up and strokes were given, except for the A flight, where you played "scratch". There were 2 points to be won : 1 for matchplay, 1 for total strokes (1/2 if tied), so if your team beat the other team all the way - you'd score 8 pts. There was a prize fund and 1st place team was getting some money back, but then also we had a playoff with all teams involved for another prize.
It worked out well, except it puts a lot of pressure of having exact number of players with similar averages, I guess you can adjust the size of the teams and the ranges of the avg. score to your group.