Competition formats
Parful runs thisCha Cha Cha
Also called 1-2-3 best ball, One two three, Cha cha cha golf, Rotating best ball.
Cha Cha Cha is a team format in which every player plays their own ball and the number of net scores that count for the team rotates by hole: one on the first, two on the second, three on the third, then one again all the way round. Each player receives 95% of their Course Handicap™.
- Played as
- Own ball, own card, teams of 3 or 4
- Team score
- The lowest 1, 2 or 3 net scores on the hole, added, rotating in that order
- Pattern
- Holes 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and 16 count one; 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 and 17 count two; 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 count three
- Allowance
- 95% of Course Handicap™ per player
- Ranked by
- Team net total, lowest wins
- Runs on
- Parful Clubs competitions
How Cha Cha Cha works
Every player plays their own ball on every hole and keeps their own card. What changes from hole to hole is how many scores the team counts. On hole 1 the single lowest net counts (cha). On hole 2 the two lowest nets are added (cha cha). On hole 3 the three lowest are added (cha cha cha). Hole 4 goes back to one and the pattern repeats to the eighteenth, so six holes count one score, six count two and six count three.
The rotation is the whole game. On a one-count hole the team needs one good score and everybody else can be aggressive. On a three-count hole the team needs three solid nets, and the player who is having a bad day suddenly matters. Teams learn the pattern quickly and start managing it: the hero shot goes in on the one-count holes, the safe play on the three-count holes.
Handicaps and team size
Each player takes their own strokes at 95% of Course Handicap™, placed by the stroke index of their own tee. An 8 receives 8 (7.6 rounded), a 14 receives 13, a 20 receives 19, a 26 receives 25. The allowance is higher than the 85% used for a fixed best-of-four count because a third of the holes count three scores and the team cannot hide a weak player on those.
Teams are three or four players. With a team of three, the three-count holes count everyone, which makes the format harder and the rotation sharper. With four, one player is spared on every hole.
Ties and ranking
Teams rank on net total, lowest first. A tie on net is broken on the Parful leaderboard by the lower gross total of the counted scores, then shared. A club can apply countback on the team card under its own conditions, comparing the team's hole scores over the back nine.
How Parful scores it
Cha Cha Cha runs on Parful Clubs competitions. Every player scores their own ball on the group scorecard and the counted-scores engine builds the team card: it knows which holes count one, two and three, sorts the team's nets on each hole, keeps the right number, and updates the team total and the leaderboard on every score. The result records how many scores counted on each hole and whose they were.
Parful classes Cha Cha Cha with the shared-drive formats for side-game purposes, so the individual hole scores and post-drive facts are kept but own-ball identity is not. Games that depend on each player's own tee shot or own ball, Wolf, Dots, Arnies, Fairways and Greens and Greenies among them, are unavailable on a Cha Cha Cha day; games that need only hole scores, such as Skins, Nassau, Nines and Snake, still run alongside the competition.
Worked example
A worked example: the front nine
Ana, Ben, Cal and Dee play off Course Handicaps of 8, 14, 20 and 26, receiving 8, 13, 19 and 25 strokes at 95%. Net scores are shown with the number of scores that count on each hole.
| Hole | Par | Count | Ana net | Ben net | Cal net | Dee net | Counted | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | Ana 3 | 3 |
| 2 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | Ana 5 + Ben 5 | 10 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Ana 3 + Cal 3 + Ben 4 | 10 |
| 4 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 | Any of the three 5s | 5 |
| 5 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Two of the three 4s | 8 |
| 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Ana 3 + Cal 3 + one 4 | 10 |
| 7 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | Ana 4 | 4 |
| 8 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Cal 3 + one 4 | 7 |
| 9 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | Any three 5s | 15 |
- Hole 9 is the format biting: a three-count par 4 where everybody made net bogey costs three shots at once. The same four scores on hole 7, a one-count hole, would have cost one.
- Hole 7 shows the other side. Ana's net 4 on a par 5 counts alone and the three fives and a six behind it are invisible.
Common variants
- 3-2-1
- The same rotation run backwards, three scores on hole 1, two on hole 2, one on hole 3. Parful scores the 1, 2, 3 order; a reversed pattern is a variant Parful does not score.
- 1-2-3 by par
- Some clubs count one score on par 3s, two on par 4s and three on par 5s instead of rotating by hole number. A variant Parful does not score.
- Fixed count
- One, two or three scores on every hole with no rotation. Those are best 1 of 4, best 2 of 4 and best 3 of 4, each a page of its own.