Golf games
Parful runs thisStraightest drive
Also called Straight drive contest, Closest to the line, Straightest tee shot.
Straightest drive is a one-hole skill contest, played on a par 4 or par 5, where the tee shot finishing nearest to a line down the middle of the fairway wins. The distance from the ball to the line is measured in yards and the smallest measurement wins, whatever the length of the drive.
- Hole
- One fixed par 4 or 5, chosen before the outing goes live
- Measured
- Yards from the ball to the center line; lowest wins
- Length
- Irrelevant; a 180-yard drive on the line beats a 300-yard drive 2 yards off it
- Open contest
- One contest for everyone, no men's or women's split
- Default
- Off in the club's contest library until switched on
- Ties
- An exact tie shows both players as tied for the organizer to settle
How a straightest drive contest works
The club marks a line down the middle of one fairway, usually a rope, a painted line or a string between two stakes. Every player hits their tee shot as normal and the group measures sideways from the ball to the line. The ball nearest the line wins. How far the ball went down the hole makes no difference at all, which is the whole point: it gives the short, straight hitter a prize the long drive never will.
Because the measurement is sideways, the hole should be one where the fairway is wide enough that most drives finish on it and straight enough that a single line makes sense. A dogleg is a poor choice; the line has to bend or the contest has to stop at the corner.
Measuring and ties
The distance from the ball to the line is recorded in whole yards. A new entry replaces the leader only if it is nearer the line; a wider entry is kept in the history and changes nothing. A ball sitting on the line is recorded as 0 yards and can only be tied, never beaten.
An exact tie, two balls both 2 yards off the line, is shown as tied rather than awarded to the first name entered. The organizer settles it, by a finer measurement, a split or a playoff, and records the winner.
Straightest drive is an open contest on Parful: one contest for the whole field, without the men's and women's split that closest to the pin and long drive carry, because a sideways measurement does not depend on which tee the drive came from. A club can still restrict it to one division, and its guest policy decides whether a guest can win.
How Parful runs it
- 1Straightest drive sits in the club's contest library switched off. A club that runs it turns it on once in settings and every later outing seeds it.
- 2The contest must be pinned to a par 4 or 5 before the outing goes live, or switched off for that day.
- 3On the contest hole the group scorecard shows the contest and its current leader. The group records the straightest drive in the group and its distance from the line in yards; the leader updates live and the outing feed announces the change.
- 4At close-out the leader is frozen into the results with the measurement. The organizer can assign or override the winner from the admin page.
Parful does not check that the ball is in the fairway or that it went any particular distance. Both are conditions for the club to apply before the group records a measurement.
Worked example
A worked example: the 14th, par 4, a rope down the middle
Six groups come through the 14th. Each records the drive in the group that finished nearest the rope, measured sideways in yards. Drive length is shown only to make the point that it does not count.
| Group | Player | Drive length | Yards from the line | Beats the leader? | Leader after this group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam | 241 yds | 7 | Yes, first measured entry | Sam 7 |
| 2 | Ana | 196 yds | 3 | Yes, 3 is nearer than 7 | Ana 3 |
| 3 | Ben | 288 yds | 5 | No | Ana 3 |
| 4 | Dee | 262 yds | 3 | Exact tie | Ana and Dee tied at 3 |
| 5 | Maria | 174 yds | 1 | Yes, 1 is nearer than 3 | Maria 1 |
| 6 | Cal | 301 yds | 2 | No | Maria 1 |
- Length is never compared. Maria's 174 yards beat Cal's 301 because the contest measures sideways, not forward.
- The tie between Ana and Dee at 3 yards was overtaken before the organizer had to settle it.
Common variants
- Measured in feet
- Some clubs measure from the line in feet for finer separation. Parful records straightest drive in whole yards; a club measuring in feet rounds to the nearest yard or settles close calls itself.
- Nearest to a marker
- A single marker in the fairway instead of a line, with the drive nearest the marker winning. That is a proximity contest rather than a straightness contest, and Parful scores it as a custom contest the club defines in its library.
- Straightest and longest combined
- Points for being both long and straight, added together. Parful runs long drive and straightest drive as two contests and does not combine them.
- Must be in the fairway
- A drive that finishes in the rough, however close to the line, does not count. A club condition applied by the group before recording; Parful does not check the lie.