So a string tournament means 1 putt per hole. Because 4 feet of string will be turned into 80 feet. Hit it on the green then 1 putt. To shoot a 43 with string means you were on in 2 on every par 5 or drive at least 2 par 4,s...

Most of the long drivers aren't very developed around the greens, where you really save strokes. Also have to account for accuracy and working the ball.

oldschool87 said:

---

Complete and utter Bull S***...

Have written on this subject many times. I am a 2 handicap, I have won dozens of scrambles in my time. None in the last 7 years... Stopped winning when the scores stopped being fair.

After you play a course you know what a winning score should be. You birdie the ones your suppose to, get a couple your not and miss one or 2 you should have.

Just because you have 4 people, somebody still has to hit the shot close. That is not going to happen on every hole. At some point during the round there will be a hole or 2 where you are really struggling for par. Given you might get an eagle, you birdie the par 5's, half the par 4's and half the par 3's. Your looking at a score of 14 under on a par 72 course. That is a 58. That should put you in the top 5 of most any scramble given there is not string. You put string in a scramble, there is no such thing as a 2 putt. If there is string in a scramble its not a scramble, its a drinking game at that point. Mulligans, mulligan just means putt till it goes in then that's my mulligan.

If you play a true 4 man scramble, no mulligans, no string, decent 72 course. An honest really good score is a 58 62. Depending upon conditions. anything lower, I am truly questioning the honesty of the score.

Look no further than the last string tournament I played. 2 48's were turned in. LOL, pure unadulterated cheating, plain and simple.

I have seen 48's, can honestly say I had never seen a 48... So a 48 is an eagle on every par 5, and a birdie on every hole. Thats basically a perfect score. So somebody either had to add to their score a hole and one, a double eagle or a hole out on the 2nd shot of a par 4.

Cheating in golf, pretty much says a lot about the person!

---

Easy now..

49. 6800 yards. Soggy conditions with no fairway roll. No string, just a single mulligan a person.

Even the head pro laughed when he saw the score and said, "no way."

Just did a two man event at my course for a navy seal foundation. Two man alternate shot with select drive for 9 and then two man scramble for other 9. We got second net with a 70 net 64. It's nice to see scores in the realm of reality. Though gross won with a 60 but one of the two is a pro and they won by 5.

This summer I played in a scramble at Le Tempete in Quebec City for a work event. I was paired with 3 guys who couldn't break 120 with a foot wedge and a string. Im between a 7 and a 10 depending on the time of year but I was playing pretty well this summer. We shot a 67 and used 59 of my shots and all 18 tee shots. Four of our five birdies were natural and the only one what wasn't was a 5 foot put on a par 3. If I had one guy at my level and guy who could shoot 90 we would have shot in the mid 50s. I think 61 won the day. No string and one mulligan per player.

Didn't say they all go straight, lol. And my putting sucks. But I am a great scramble player!

Other than the cheating, the distance of the course often drives the scores really low. Most of the scrambles I have played in, which is a lot, are played from the old mans tees which will bring all of the par 5s into two shot holes, at least a couple if not more of the par 4s into drivable holes, and make the par 3s all wedges.

Last year at one such course me and 3 other guys, all between 0 and 3, shot I think a 54 and won. We had two pars and two eagles. But I generally agree with our old school brother that anything below that is really bull*****

My favorite, is the last team to turn in there score wins the tourney. That's my all time favorite. We always seem to be the first ones done. I attribute that to we play pretty good and play fast, and push the guys in front of us. How if your team shot the best, IE should have taken the least amount of time to play are you last? How are you 45 minute behind us?

Whatever helps them!

Buck Compton said:

---

Net of 37?!?! These people don't even know how to cheat and make it believable!!

---

And Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You do understand how to get a handicap for a scramble right? You turn in everybody's handicap add them up and divide by 4. This is the groups average handicap for 18 holes of stroke play. You then divide by 4 again since it is a scramble.

These guys who shot 43, averaged a 24 handicap.

That's right, these guys who shot a 43, by themselves individually have never broken 90.

But, they were not cheating, I promise you, it was all legit!

oldschool87 is really angry about scrambles.

And it's news to me that there is a USGA-approved method of calculating team handicap for a scramble.

In fact, I just found the following recommendation by the USGA. https://www.usga.org/HandicapFAQ/handicap_answer.asp?FAQidx=20

Someone needs to tell them that you add them all together, then divide by 4, then divide by 4 again.

Played in one a few years back where a girl who was on the LPGA future stars tour or whatever it was called played and teed off from these ridiculously short forward tees, forgot their score but were on every par 4 in one.

oldschool87 is really angry about scrambles.

And it's news to me that there is a USGA-approved method of calculating team handicap for a scramble.

HouAggie said:

---

In fact, I just found the following recommendation by the USGA. https://www.usga.org/HandicapFAQ/handicap_answer.asp?FAQidx=20

Someone needs to tell them that you add them all together, then divide by 4, then divide by 4 again.

---

Where did I say it was a USGA rule?? That's how we have always done them. However you want to do them, the incorrect answer is add them up and divide by 4. Even the USGA knows enough to say that you should only get 5% of player D's handicap. Thanks for pointing that out.

On a legitimate course, no string or mulligans....it takes a very strong foursome to break 60. 56-59 is not uncommon but that requires 3 or 4 single digits who can make 20 footers. When you throw in string, mulligans, bonus drives, etc it brings ridiculous scores into play because cheating is rampant.

3.8 index

I don't play in many scrambles, but have played in enough to be able to see a bullsh*t score.

My team shot 59 at the Engineering career fair tournament a few years ago and surprisingly won. We had a 5, an 8, and I was around a 10. The fourth guy was about a 40. Two of us were putting well that day and one was one fire with his wedges, but we still has a few holes where we had 30+ footers for birdie.

I've also played a tournament with 4 single digits where we shot 60 in pretty windy conditions. The winning team "shot" 53 and they were the group in front of us. On one par 3, I watched all 4 of them hit in the water, proceed to the drop area and get up and down. So they "shot" 53 with a bogey on a hole where no one could hit the green with an 8 iron.

I had over a dozen balls in my yard after this tournament last year and I live next to the tee box. I average about 1-2 a week and that is normally from the rear tees. I saw several people hit multiple tee shots.

What are the thoughts on playing a 4-man scramble with only 3 people? I played in one a few weeks ago and me (8 HC), a guy who is about an 11 HC and a guy who's played golf about 10 times shot an absolutely legitimate -15 (57) at Blackhorse North Course from the whites. No mulligans or strings. We went -7 on the 5s (3 eagles and a birdie). No eagles on any par 4s and no bogeys, so 6 pars, 3 eagles and 9 birdies.

There was no rule dictated to us about rotating the 4th shot. So the admittedly BS advantage we had was on the greens because someone always got two rolls at every hole. I'm a fairly good putter, so give me 2 looks at the putt prior to my 2 attempts and I'm going to make a lot that I shouldn't. We were sinking pretty much anything within 20 feet. No doubt that if we had a 4th person we wouldn't have shot that well.

One of the best scrambles I've ever been apart of was with the engineering career fair while at a&m. It was two students and two company reps. Our other student was on the women's team at a&m. So she got to tee off from the ladies tee box and drove damn near every green if I'm remembering correctly.

oldschool87 said:

---

Complete and utter Bull S***...

Have written on this subject many times. I am a 2 handicap, I have won dozens of scrambles in my time. None in the last 7 years... Stopped winning when the scores stopped being fair.

After you play a course you know what a winning score should be. You birdie the ones your suppose to, get a couple your not and miss one or 2 you should have.

Just because you have 4 people, somebody still has to hit the shot close. That is not going to happen on every hole. At some point during the round there will be a hole or 2 where you are really struggling for par. Given you might get an eagle, you birdie the par 5's, half the par 4's and half the par 3's. Your looking at a score of 14 under on a par 72 course. That is a 58. That should put you in the top 5 of most any scramble given there is not string. You put string in a scramble, there is no such thing as a 2 putt. If there is string in a scramble its not a scramble, its a drinking game at that point. Mulligans, mulligan just means putt till it goes in then that's my mulligan.

If you play a true 4 man scramble, no mulligans, no string, decent 72 course. An honest really good score is a 58 62. Depending upon conditions. anything lower, I am truly questioning the honesty of the score.

Look no further than the last string tournament I played. 2 48's were turned in. LOL, pure unadulterated cheating, plain and simple.

I have seen 48's, can honestly say I had never seen a 48... So a 48 is an eagle on every par 5, and a birdie on every hole. Thats basically a perfect score. So somebody either had to add to their score a hole and one, a double eagle or a hole out on the 2nd shot of a par 4.

Cheating in golf, pretty much says a lot about the person!

---

Sounds like someone needs to practice more

Some people try to rotate shot, but that can get tricky. Do you count a tap in for par as part of the rotation? Easiest way to do it is rotate holes.

I like that idea of paying out for 2nd place, middle and 2nd to last teams. I help run a charity tourney here in OKC every spring and while most of the teams in the money just turn right around and give the money back to us for the association, that still may true up some of the teams.

I've been on a team that shot a legit -19 on a par 72. Three single digits, one 12 hdcp plus 2 mulligans each.

I've also played in a 3 man scramble where the scorekeeper of my team tried to cheat. Was invited to play by a local school board member and a politico friend of his. I wasn't real good friends with either but played because it was good for the business I worked for. Was supposed to be 2 3-man teams playing together, but our other group didn't show up. Something the school board guy said early in the round made me uncomfortable, so I kept our score too. When we got done, school board guy says we shot -9. I knew we shot -3, and told him so. He said "well, we can turn in your scorecard if you want to." I told him my scorecard was the correct one so that is what we were turning in. Made sure I got mine to scorer first.

The guy was always kinda sheepish around me after that. Ticked me off that he thought I would just go along with his plan

We shot a 56 today from the whites at my home course with me (1), a 3, a 14, and a 3 times a year guy.

We had 12 birdies, 2 eagles, and 4 pars. The never play guy drained a 60 footer for birdie on the last hole. We only had one kick in birdie and made a bunch of 8 to 10 footers.

We lost by one to a guy who I don't completely trust either. Kind of guys that will walk up and hit a longer putt than the one they want to take and if it goes in they call it good and go.