Aggregate Stableford

How Aggregate Stableford works

Two pairs play in the same group. Every player plays their own ball and scores ordinary Stableford points off their handicap on every hole: 2 for a net par, 3 for a net birdie, 1 for a net bogey, 0 for worse. The pair's score on the hole is the two partners' points added together. A 3 and a 1 is 4; a 2 and a 0 is 2.

The round total is the sum of the eighteen team hole scores, and the pair with the higher total wins. Because both scores count, a partner's blob is never covered. That is the difference from four-ball Stableford, where the better of the two counts and the worse is thrown away: a 3 and a 0 is 3 in both games, but a 2 and a 2 is 2 in four-ball and 4 in aggregate. Aggregate rewards two steady cards over one hot one.

It is the pairs version of Team Stableford, and the natural game for a fourball where the club competition is four-ball better ball and the group wants a second contest that keeps every score alive.

Strokes and unfinished holes

Strokes come from each player's Playing Handicap™ by stroke index, the same as the club Stableford. Parful reads the net score from the outing scorecard, so the allowance in play is whatever the outing has set for its competition; the game never applies a second one.

A hole without a score, or a pickup, is 0 points for that player and the partner's points on the hole still count. Totals accrue live as the cards fill in; there is no common-holes basis, exactly as in any other Stableford.

How Parful scores it

Aggregate Stableford is a private challenge started from the group scorecard; it is not offered as a club pool. The four players are one group, and the creator splits them into two pairs when the game is created. A pair with fewer than two players on the roster never scores.

Points come from the same Stableford engine as the competition, never a separate table. The standings show both pairs with their totals, highest first, and a tie shares first. With a stake attached, the settlement is the point margin: each member of the winning pair is up the margin, each member of the losing pair is down it, and a tied game settles nothing. Parful shows the ledger and never moves money.

It runs on own-ball rounds and four-ball style outings, and on a shamble where each player still holes out their own ball. It is unavailable on a scramble or an alternate-shot format.

Worked example

A worked example: six holes

Ana and Ben against Cal and Dee. Each cell is a player's net Stableford points on the hole; the pair columns add the two.

• infoHole 4 shows the point of the game: Cal's net eagle for 4 and Dee's blob for 0 add to 4, exactly the same as Ana and Ben's two net pars.
• infoScored as four-ball better ball the same six holes come out Ana and Ben 14, Cal and Dee 15, because only the better score counts on each hole: 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2 against 3, 2, 1, 4, 2, 3.
• infoSettlement at one unit a point: Cal and Dee are each up 2, Ana and Ben are each down 2. Had the totals been level, nothing would settle.

Common variants

Four-ball Stableford

Only the better of the two partners' points counts on each hole. Parful runs this as the four-ball competition format, not as Aggregate Stableford.

Team Stableford for three or four

The whole team's points are added on every hole, or the best two or three of four count. Parful runs these as team competition formats; Aggregate Stableford is the two-against-two game.

Better Ball and Aggregate

Two points a hole in a fourball: one for the better ball and one for the lower combined total. Parful scores it as its own game, Better Ball and Aggregate.

Gross aggregate

Both partners' points against gross par with no strokes. Parful scores Aggregate Stableford net only.