4 ball scramble with one 3 ball flight

[John Preston]

Hi

I am running a 4 ball scramble tournament this week and I have one team who only has three players .. what rules will apply to them.

I was told that the three players have to hit a 4th ball at each point and also count 3 drives for the missing person so they have an equal chance, can anyone help me with this?

[MS256]

Interesting situation. Around here all of the scramble tournaments are for charity so any three person team would have to pay for the fourth person and get by with three attempts instead of four. Sometimes it has teams scrambling (no pun intended) for a fourth player on tournament day even if it's somebody that has never played much golf but might still have a chance to help with a putt or two.

In more informal games on the local courses I've played where everybody knows everybody we designate the worst player on the three person team as the one that hits an extra shot, or at least to attempt an extra putt and let everything from off of the green ride with three. In those choose up games we also put the best player in the field on the three person team if we are only going to let them hit three shots except on the green.

Letting the best player of that three person group hit any (or all) of the "extra shots" would be an unfair advantage in itself and might be the equivilent of having two of the best players in the county on the same team with a built in "Muligan" on every single shot. Good luck EVER beating that team.

Since I don't have a perfect answer if I was running a tournament I would require that all teams have four people...No exceptions.

[David in FL]

In my experience the 3 members rotate turns being the 4th team member.  All other rules apply.  Realize, that this could give them a pretty significant advantage

The other option would be to simply tell them that if they come in as a 3 man team, they compete as such.  If they want to have a 4th, they should do as everyone else did and find one.

[Unkynd]

Originally Posted by David in FL

If they want to have a 4th, they should do as everyone else did and find one.

+1