scramble vs. best ball

[HonestyPolicy]

On 6/22/2017 at 8:56 PM, Buckeyebowman said:

Look, nothing is ever going to be perfect. Just do the best you can matching up the teams. If somebody bitches a bit too much, just ask them if they want the job since you'd be glad to give it to them. Suddenly, your word will be as the word of God!

Lots of people like to bitch. Almost nobody wants to do the work!

Amen to that!

[No Mulligans]

On 6/22/2017 at 8:00 AM, lastings said:

ok..   got it.  4-man scramble is easiest.   

But, for various reasons we need to go with 2vs2 teams.   (we're pitting defensive pairs against wing pairs..   and there's already a bet in place about which Defensive pair will go the lowest, and a few other reasons..  )    

if it's two man scrambles, The teams that have the 80's golfers are easily going to win.   

not to disregard your opinions, but really what I am trying to figure out is

 

'how many strokes better should a 2-man scramble team be vs. a 2-man bets ball team of equal skill?'   

 

Just play a scramble as others have said But just for fun, it's a probablility math question.

Say you take two players that average 9 over, perhaps that would be about a 7 HI.  They are playing best ball.

If you simplify the assumptions and assume they only hit pars and bogeys and they are evenly distributed for par 3, 4, and 5 holes.  Since they average 9 over, they will bogey 50% of the holes and par the rest.  There are four possibilities for each hole...

1, Player A par Player B par

2. Player A bogey Player B bogey

3. Player A par Player B bogey

4. Player A bogey Player B par.

So, they are going to get a par 75% of the time instead of 50% or the time.  With these overly simplified assumptions, and if I'm getting this right, they will score a (1-.75) * 18 = 4.5 over on average.

To consider the birdie, eagle, double bogey, triple bogey possibilities and that scores won't be evenly distributed for par 3, 4, and 5 holes, that is so complicated that I think one would be best just accumulating a bunch of data to determine the answer.  I think 4.5 for two players with 7 HI's would be close though.

Edited June 24, 2017 by No Mulligans

[Midpack]

On 6/22/2017 at 10:00 AM, lastings said:

ok..   got it.  4-man scramble is easiest.   

But, for various reasons we need to go with 2vs2 teams.   (we're pitting defensive pairs against wing pairs..   and there's already a bet in place about which Defensive pair will go the lowest, and a few other reasons..  )    

if it's two man scrambles, The teams that have the 80's golfers are easily going to win.   

not to disregard your opinions, but really what I am trying to figure out is

 

'how many strokes better should a 2-man scramble team be vs. a 2-man bets ball team of equal skill?'   

 

 

 

There's no way to make a 2-person scramble fair with the handicap spreads and unknowns. And I don't think anyone can give you a meaningful answer re: best ball vs scramble - and you'll have to estimate handicaps for everyone playing even so. Since you insist on 2 person teams, and there's probably no way to normalize best ball vs scramble scores - I'd consider using net best ball. You don't need to read the whole article, you'll get the idea after reading the first couple paragraphs.

http://chance.amstat.org/2015/04/best-ball/

Quote

Generally recreational golf is played in foursomes—four golfers playing 18 holes as a group. The most popular betting game among amateur male foursomes is a net best-ball team game, where the foursome is split into two two-player teams, and the lowest score for a team on a hole is the lowest net score of its team members. This net score is termed the team’s net best-ball. For example, let’s suppose that a team has gross scores of 4 and 5 and corresponding net scores of 3 and 5 (the golfer who got the 4 has a handicap stroke so his net score on the hole is 3). Then the team net best-ball is 3, the lower of the two net scores. If we think of a golfer’s net score on a hole as being a random variable, then a team net best-ball is the minimum order statistic of the two net scores. Typically a match is played over 18 holes on the basis of team net best-ball score by hole (i.e., match play). There are many variations of this game, but its essence is a team net best-ball.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Midpack