Team Best Ball, 3 some vs 4some

[larrybud]

We have a league year-end outing today in 4 hours, and we are playing 4 teams, 4 man NET Best Ball. One guy dropped out, so they are playing as a threesome.

 

Any advice on adjusting handicaps to make it equitable? I'm thinking of giving each of the players on the threesome an extra 10% in handicaps. I don't see any usga recommendation on such a thing.

[Abh159]

I've never played in or heard of a 4-man best ball team event. I don't really see any way you could adjust the handicaps and have that be fair to all the other teams. I'm sure a number of them would "give up" a player if it meant they could get extra strokes on several holes. Especially when you still have 3 other players.

 

In the past events I've played in, whenever someone drops out of a 2-man best ball you just have the other guy (or gal) play as a team by themselves. No handicap adjustment. 

 

 

[rogolf]

1 hour ago, larrybud said:

We have a league year-end outing today in 4 hours, and we are playing 4 teams, 4 man NET Best Ball. One guy dropped out, so they are playing as a threesome.

 

Any advice on adjusting handicaps to make it equitable? I'm thinking of giving each of the players on the threesome an extra 10% in handicaps. I don't see any usga recommendation on such a thing.

Please describe "4 man best ball".  How is the scoring done?

[larrybud]

10% adjustment wouldn't really be "several" holes, it would be 1 hole, but in any event, I've decided to go with five three-man teams since we have 15 players.

 

[larrybud]

22 minutes ago, rogolf said:

Please describe "4 man best ball".  How is the scoring done?

 

Just like 2 man best ball. Each player plays his own ball, Low net score for the team is the team's score. Stroke play event, low net score for the team wins.

[Abh159]

2 minutes ago, larrybud said:

 

Just like 2 man best ball. Each player plays his own ball, Low net score for the team is the team's score. Stroke play event, low net score for the team wins.

 

Interesting. Is there a big difference in scores? I would assume with that may players doing a best ball you'd end up with all of the groups finishing right around the same number. Especially if the teams were pretty even in terms of skill level.

[larrybud]

29 minutes ago, Abh159 said:

 

Interesting. Is there a big difference in scores? I would assume with that may players doing a best ball you'd end up with all of the groups finishing right around the same number. Especially if the teams were pretty even in terms of skill level.

 

In the past it's been within a couple of shots between first and second, but I don't have a history of the last 3 years we've done this to recall all the details.

 

Even though it's best ball, I still break up the teams by flights so the total handicap of each team is very close. You get a hot mid-handicapper and that's big. We have handicaps which go between 4 and 30.
 

[davep043]

I think your choice to play 3-person teams is the best choice, with 15 players.  When its impractical to do that, I've seen competitions where each of the (very few) 3-man teams have a 4th player chosen at random from among the other teams.  Its far from a perfect solution, since neither the team nor their "unknown partner" know what each other are doing, but it evens the situation a good bit.

[larrybud]

5 minutes ago, davep043 said:

I think your choice to play 3-person teams is the best choice, with 15 players.  When its impractical to do that, I've seen competitions where each of the (very few) 3-man teams have a 4th player chosen at random from among the other teams.  Its far from a perfect solution, since neither the team nor their "unknown partner" know what each other are doing, but it evens the situation a good bit.

Unfortunately the 15 players will be in 4 groups, so you won't necessarily be paired with a teammate. Tee times were made a month ago and cannot be changed.

But these guys aren't pros, I don't see the 30 capper changing strategy because of what another teammate has done.

The random player I considered, but there's a small payout so I guess it would be luck of the draw if you are on 2-teams.

Edited September 24, 2021 by larrybud

[nsxguy]

25 minutes ago, larrybud said:

Unfortunately the 15 players will be in 4 groups, so you won't necessarily be paired with a teammate. Tee times were made a month ago and cannot be changed.

But these guys aren't pros, I don't see the 30 capper changing strategy because of what another teammate has done.

The random player I considered, but there's a small payout so I guess it would be luck of the draw if you are on 2-teams.

 

Agree with davep. Can't have 3 4s and 1 3 in a NET game. For a gross game it could work.

 

What my old club would most likely do is have the 2 of every team play together and have the 5 "singles" dispersed in the other 3 groups.

 

Enjoy.

[Augster]

We have 3 of 4 ball events all the time. In this case, you’re playing 1 of 4 ball. 
 

Drawing a random player for the ghost player is most fair for scoring. It won’t help for “strategy” on the course, but it does work nicely for overall team score. 

[rogolf]

57 minutes ago, Augster said:

We have 3 of 4 ball events all the time. In this case, you’re playing 1 of 4 ball. 
 

Drawing a random player for the ghost player is most fair for scoring. It won’t help for “strategy” on the course, but it does work nicely for overall team score. 

When we play best 3 of 4 and have one or two threesomes, we switch to regular Stableford.  The best three of four Stableford points count in the foursome, and the threesomes count the best Stableford and the second best Stableford twice (ending up with three counting Stableford in the threesome).  This has worked out very well, and still allows one player in each group to have a bad hole without significantly impacting the group.

[Newby]

11 hours ago, rogolf said:

When we play best 3 of 4 and have one or two threesomes, we switch to regular Stableford.  The best three of four Stableford points count in the foursome, and the threesomes count the best Stableford and the second best Stableford twice (ending up with three counting Stableford in the threesome).  This has worked out very well, and still allows one player in each group to have a bad hole without significantly impacting the group.

Exactly what we do in our 'fiddle'.

We have data going back 25+ years where different approaches were used and this has proved to be the fairest (and easiest to manage).

[rogolf]

4 hours ago, Newby said:

Exactly what we do in our 'fiddle'.

We have data going back 25+ years where different approaches were used and this has proved to be the fairest (and easiest to manage).

I think that I picked it up from GM website, perhaps it was from one of your posts?

[2bGood]

I think a phantom player is one solution that can be considered. (ie after the rounds you use scores for one player randomly drawn on a another team.) It is not ideal but it is one solution. 

[larrybud]

Three-man teams worked great even though players weren't paired together. In fact, out of the 5 teams, only 2 players on the same team were actually playing together.

 

We had two net 61s and one net 62, 69, and 70. I do a scorecard playoff, best last 9 holes... that was tied with a 29, had to go to last 3 hole total to break the tie!

 

Stableford idea is great, but I don't think many (any??) of our players know what that is. lol

Edited September 25, 2021 by larrybud

[sui generis]

6 minutes ago, larrybud said:

Stableford idea is great, but I don't think many (any??) of our players know what that is. lol

 

Same here. But, if you said we'd do "par points" they'd all know what was meant.

[Newby]

2 hours ago, rogolf said:

I think that I picked it up from GM website, perhaps it was from one of your posts?

Very likely👍🏼

Edited September 25, 2021 by Newby

[DaveLeeNC]

We play a lot of four person team games. For the case of mixed threesomes and foursomes we prefer some kind of Stableford with the winning team being the team with the highest average score per player (divide team score by 3 for a threesome and 4 for a foursome). 

 

But if you want/need to stay with the 1BB format, you could consider having one player from each foursome 'sit out' WRT to the team score (his score would not count against the team score on a give hole), and just rotate through by hole. Player #1 on the card 'sits out' hole #2, player #2 on the card 'sits out' hole #2, etc. 

 

dave

[nsxguy]

On 9/25/2021 at 10:11 AM, larrybud said:

Stableford idea is great, but I don't think many (any??) of our players know what that is. lol

 

 

Ain't that the truth.

 

Since getting serious about golf and joining my club in '87 I had never played a Stableford until 2012,,,,,,, in S.E. Asia.

 

 

13 hours ago, DaveLeeNC said:

We play a lot of four person team games. For the case of mixed threesomes and foursomes we prefer some kind of Stableford with the winning team being the team with the highest average score per player (divide team score by 3 for a threesome and 4 for a foursome). 

 

But if you want/need to stay with the 1BB format,

 

1 or 2 best balls, in a 3 or 4 person group, gross or net I can live with.

 

What I can't live with is the worst player or 2 on the team, player(s) with likely the widest gap between their best and worst rounds, sinking the team all by themselves, is not acceptable (to me).