Competition formats
Parful runs thisScramble
Also called Captain's choice, Four-person scramble, Two-person scramble, Ambrose.
A scramble is a team format in which every player hits, the team picks the best ball, and everyone plays the next shot from that spot until the ball is holed. The team records one score per hole on one card, and net scoring uses a single team handicap built from each player's Course Handicap™.
- Played as
- One ball per team, one card per team
- Team size
- 2, 3 or 4 players
- Team handicap
- Two players: 35% of the lower Course Handicap™ plus 15% of the higher; larger teams tiered
- Tee
- One committee-designated tee for the whole team
- Ties
- Countback on the team card: back 9, last 6, last 3, last hole
- Runs on
- Club outings, club competitions, events
How a scramble works
Every player on the team tees off. The team walks to the balls, chooses the one it likes best, and every player plays the next shot from within a club length of that spot, no nearer the hole and in the same condition (rough stays rough, a bunker stays a bunker). The team chooses again, and again, until a ball is holed. On the green the ball is placed on the chosen spot and each player putts from there; the first one to drop ends the hole.
The team writes down one gross score per hole. Nobody keeps an individual card and nobody's score is posted to a handicap record, because no player completed a hole with their own ball. That one-card rule is what makes the format fast: a player who has hit a poor shot picks up and the team carries on from the good one.
The team handicap
A scramble team is far better than its best player, because it only ever has to play the best of several shots. The team handicap has to be small for that reason. The USGA® recommendation, and Parful's default, weights each player's Course Handicap by position: for a team of two, 35% of the lower Course Handicap plus 15% of the higher, rounded to a whole number. Larger teams use a tiered split of each player's Course Handicap, decided by the club, with the lowest handicap carrying the most weight and the highest the least.
The team plays off that single number. Strokes fall by stroke index exactly as they would for one player: a team handicap of 6 receives a stroke on stroke index 1 to 6 and nothing elsewhere. The team net score is the team gross minus those strokes.
One tee for the team
Because the team plays one ball, it plays one tee. The committee designates it. Parful designates the tee with the lowest Course Rating™ among the tees the team's players hold and works the team's Course Handicap from that tee.
Ties are settled by countback on the team card: the back nine, then the last six holes, then the last three, then the eighteenth, comparing the team's gross hole scores. Two teams that are still level after the eighteenth share the position.
How Parful runs it
Choose Scramble when you set up a club competition or an event round and pick the team size. Parful builds the team handicap from the players' Course Handicaps using the split above, places the strokes by stroke index from the designated tee, and gives the team one scorecard. The scorer enters one number per hole; the leaderboard shows gross and net with countback applied, and the team's Playing Handicap™ is printed on the card so the arithmetic can be checked.
A scramble card carries no individual scores, so the side games that read a player's own ball, Skins, Wolf, Nassau, Snake and the rest, are unavailable on a scramble outing. A Custom bet, which records a result the group agrees between themselves, is the one side game a scramble team can carry. Nothing from a scramble is posted to any handicap record.
Worked example
A worked example: a two-player scramble, front nine
Ana plays off a Course Handicap of 8 and Ben off 20. Team handicap: 35% of 8 is 2.8, 15% of 20 is 3.0, total 5.8, rounded to 6. The team receives a stroke on stroke index 1 to 6. On the front nine those are holes 2, 4 and 7.
| Hole | Par | Stroke index | Team stroke | Ball chosen off the tee | Team gross | Team net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 7 | 0 | Ben | 4 | 4 |
| 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | Ana | 4 | 3 |
| 3 | 3 | 17 | 0 | Ana | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Ben | 4 | 3 |
| 5 | 4 | 11 | 0 | Ana | 3 | 3 |
| 6 | 3 | 15 | 0 | Ben | 3 | 3 |
| 7 | 5 | 5 | 1 | Ana | 4 | 3 |
| 8 | 4 | 9 | 0 | Ana | 4 | 4 |
| 9 | 4 | 13 | 0 | Ben | 4 | 4 |
- The team handicap of 6 is much smaller than either player's own 8 or 20. That is the point: the pair only ever plays its better shot.
- Ana's drive was chosen five times and Ben's four. Nothing turns on that in a standard scramble; in a Texas scramble a minimum count of drives per player is an honor rule.
Common variants
- Texas scramble
- A scramble with a minimum number of drives that must be used from each player, commonly 3 or 4 each in a foursome. Parful runs it as a format of its own; the drive count is an honor rule the team keeps.
- Florida scramble
- The player whose shot was chosen sits out the next shot, so the strongest player cannot carry the team on every stroke. Parful runs it as its own format.
- Ambrose
- The Australian name for a handicapped scramble, with the team handicap taken as a fixed fraction of the sum. Parful does not score the Ambrose division; it uses the tiered split above.
- Bramble
- A scramble off the tee and own ball from there, with the best two net scores counting. That is a counted-score format, not a one-ball format, and Parful runs it under its own name.