How to even up a company golf outing?

Question

We are having a best ball not-so serious tournament and have a total of 13 people. If we do 3 - threesomes and a 4-some, or 3-somes and 2-twosomes, how can the rules be evened out to make it fair? The extra putt would obviously be the biggest advantage.

Answer 1

When we do outings (company, church, etc.) we will arrange teams based on handicaps.  For example, if we had 13 players, we would break them down into categories - 3 A players, 3 B players, 3 C players and 4 D players.  We would then put teams together with one player from each flight represented to make it as fair as possible.  The extra golfer would go onto the team with the worst cummulative handicap and then we would offer one extra mulligan to the teams who are short one player.  This way, you have 3 teams of 3 and one team of 4.  The team of 4 gets 4 mulligans (one per person) for the round, the teams of 3 get 5 mulligans (one per person with the 5th to be taken by the team member of choice).

Answer 2

with a scramble forrmat (that is what I am assuming...

Make every foursome use four drives of each member...

every threesome 5 drives of each member...

That'll keep things in check...

Answer 3

well try to divide the teams so each has some good and not so good players that should make it fair

Answer 4

If one golfer is significantly worse than the others, put that person in the foursome.

If one golfer is much better than the others, put them with 3 weaker players.

In short, put the players who are at both extremes of ability together in the foursome.

Answer 5

Let the threesomes take an extra putt each hole and rotate which player in the threesome takes the putt so the best player doesn't always get to take the extra putt. They can monitor that themselves. As you said, it's a not-so-serious golf tournament.

Once you give them the extra putt they will probably say "why can't we also have an extra tee ball or an extra iron shot". That's when you say "Don't push it buster"!

Answer 6

If  it is best ball format, it should not make much of a difference with that few people.  What we usually do when this problem comes up is to obviously pair them according to skill, whether it be handicap or the honor system.  Then set a maximum number of strokes per hole.  Everyone tees off from the same spot (women and seniors also).  If you can have the course make extremely hard pin placements on that day, that will level the playing and create hard and fun shots for everyone.  I play in the same foursome in about twenty outings a year.  We have the most fun playing in this format.