Philosophical hcp "quality" question ...

[Spitfisher]

The OP's example of being better in scrambles than their Country Club friend is a really bad example though. Unless you know for a fact that the CC friend and all his teammates have handicaps much lower than you and your teammates, using a scramble team score as a marker for a single persons ability is pretty inaccurate. We have a company scramble every year and my boss always grabs me to play with him and a couple other Directors because I'm the only scratch player in the company. The problem is all those guy's are 25-30 handicaps and provide little to no assistance. I play my ass off to get us -7, -8 under every year and we always finish in the middle of the pack with a team of 8-12 handicappers usually winning. If we played the tournament as a individual stroke play event I would mop the floor, so comparing scramble scores is not a good evaluation on this subject in my opinion.

agreed, In a scramble you are only as good as your weakest link on the team.  The winning team usually has a player or two that had "one of those days" where they shot very well.

I hate scrambles, especially scrambles that have mulligans available.  Brambals or hollywood scrambles are OK ( scramble off the tee, pick the best drive and play your own ball into the hole)

[bkuehn1952]

I don't see where my playing many courses over the season gives me an advantage over someone who largely plays a single course.  Of course, a player who develops an 8.0 index on an essentially flat, bunkerless short course might struggle to shoot his handicap on a more robust layout.  In most instances, however, someone who plays a decent course can pretty much expect to duplicate his results, over time, at other clubs.

[mdl]

There is definite truth to being a "1 Course Horse"..........   You will definitely play a course better if you play it regularly.  I was that guy in 2012 when I got down to a zero HC.   There is no way in hell I could play to that HC when I traveled.   I figure I had a 2-3 shot advantage playing my old home course........

On the other hand, if you tend to play a rotation of the same 5-10 courses and get to know them well.....you should play equally well on those courses!!  Whether it be 1 course....or maybe you play 5-10 regularly...it's no different.

Yeah I think this is a bit overblown.  How many guys really have both the course availability and the life circumstances and the desire to play 30-50 courses equally often (what it would take to play a course only 1-3x per year given you play 1-2x per week).  I'm not a one course guy, but realistically I play maybe 5 courses quite regularly and then another 5 every once in a while and another 5 every year or two.  I play best on my 5 very regular courses cause I know them all pretty well.  Sure, not as well as if I joined a club and played that one course 3x a week, but I don't need to play a course 100 times to know it well enough to be confident about where I want to hit each shot.

[MEfree]

agreed, In a scramble you are only as good as your weakest link on the team.  The winning team usually has a player or two that had "one of those days" where they shot very well.

I hate scrambles, especially scrambles that have mulligans available.  Brambals or hollywood scrambles are OK ( scramble off the tee, pick the best drive and play your own ball into the hole)

Off topic, but I think a scramble is a format that is pretty good at hiding a weak player.  In our mixed scramble this season, we likely had one of the worst players in the field on our team but still won by 5 shots.  On the first tee, the ladies get a big yardage advantage and we would have liked to use her drive, but she whiffed the first swing before hitting a good one that we could have used.  We had to use two of her drives and went with one on a par 3 that was 30 yards short of the green because we only had a long birdie putt on our best ball and figured we could get up and down from her drive (which we did).  Of course, she did make a couple of putts which was a nice bonus.

I do agree that a scramble is a poor place to try to take stock of someones ability.  Sure, you might get a general idea, but the rhythm of the round is different and some guys swing for the fences more than they normally would once the first guy gets a ball in play.  Its also easy to lose focus if someone before you has stuffed it close.

[MS256]

Sure, you might get a general idea, but the rhythm of the round is different and some guys swing for the fences more than they normally would once the first guy gets a ball in play.  Its also easy to lose focus if someone before you has stuffed it close.

I hit about half the number of fairways in a scramble as when I am playing my own ball if I am not the first guy hitting.

There is no good reason (except maybe saving a lost ball) to hit a drive in the fairway shorter than a teammate already has out there in the fairway.

Same goes for other low percentage shots into par 5s, that nobody in their right mind would try if playing their own ball, when somebody already has a good layup.