The Banquet Scrambler

First off, thank you to Bette for providing the photography below!

Thanks also to Lisa, Jill and Dan for filling in for our wounded Hackers tonight.

Last, but not least, thank you to Tommy for organizing the banquet, and putting up with all of my harassment about the scheduling/re-scheduling 😊

 

Well, that was fun! Probably more so for the scramble teams 😊😊😊than for the singles .

No, I know that’s not true. I had a fun time as the “youngster” getting schooled by my more “seasoned” opponents. They performed the best scrambled ham & egg & cheese round I have ever seen, with just 1 bogey. With Dan R hitting fairways, and amongst the three of them, I believe, only 2 missed greens, they didn’t allow me even 1 full point on the night. Most impressive was their 8th hole performance. Coming to this hole dormy, I needed to win the last two holes just to tie the match. Well, with their anchor driver short and left in the rough, Bob stepped up with a great drive to keep the team in-play. Dan then launched a terrific second shot, coming to rest in the middle front part of the green. Tommy then put the icing on the cake by dropping the 50’ putt for birdie to seal the deal! Truly a tremendous team effort! I would’ve needed an eagle to win the hole.

Dan F suffered a similar fate in his match with Tim, Lisa and Sue. Starting 1-down at the first hole, he did manage to get the match back to all square and hold there for two holes. An extraordinary birdie by the team at the 4th hole may have dampened his spirits a bit. His opponents, however, seemed re-invigored, as they went on to card just 1 bogey over the remaining holes, while he struggled down-the-stretch with 2 bogeys and 2 doubles. The only bright spot may come in the knowledge that while he and Andy tied for 3rd in net score, his 2 net birdies to Andy’s 1, breaks the tie, leaving Andy in solo last place 😊

Marty managed to win two full holes in his match against fellow lefty Dave, and husband/wife combo Jim & Jill. It just wasn’t enough, as the team was relentless on their way to an even par finish for a net 32, and second place in the team category.

Mark  had his hands full against the team of Dan P, Brian and Pete. I’m only guessing here, but I’m sure Dan’s length off the tee had something to do with their 2 birdies coming on both par 5s.

For skins, in the GROSS category, the team of Jim, Jill and Dave took 2, 1 for 2 holes at the 2nd and 1 for 1 hole at the 7th.

Tim, Lisa and Sue took 1 skin for 2 holes at the 4th.

Dan R, Tom and Bob took 1 skin for 1 hole at the 8th.

Dan P, Brian and Pete took 1 skin for 1 hole at the 9th.

Mark took the only skin from the single players, taking 1 skin for 2 holes at the 6th.

 

In the NET category, the skins were nearly identical, as the 2nd skin of Jim, Dave and Jill was negated by the net birdie of Dan F at the 7th hole.

Jim closed out a book-end CTP season, knocking it to 7’ 6”, just under half the distance of his week one distance of 15’ 1” on the same hole.

Nice shot Jim!

 

 

Click below for all the scores

 

Scoresheet

 

 

Final(?) thoughts on the format:

The following is not meant to detract from the scramble competition winners in any way. They all played great rounds.

In hindsight though, this format may not be as straight-forward to handicap as I had thought. While all of the scramble teams had sub-par net scores, none of the singles managed to break par. Mark was the closest with a net even par. In addition, the matches were all won by at least a 3-point margin.

It should also be noted that as a group there were 7 gross birdies scored during the round, all but 1 of which were made by the scramble teams.

As a test, I re-calculated the matches with the teams being scratch, or 0-handicaps, and with the single players still using their same handicaps. The match results were nearly the same, but by narrower margins. Mark did manage to eek out a 5-4 win against his opponents, while Dan tied his on the match score, but lost to their birdie on the 4th hole. Marty and Andy still lost their matches, 5½-3½ and 5-4, respectively.

While using one round may not be statistically sufficient to determine the best course of action, viz-a-viz change of handicap method, given the moderately more competitiveness of the test results, I think that if/when we try this format again, we play it this way, and see what happens. It may take a few rounds of playing this format to figure out the best way to handicap it.

Handicapping, while useful in leveling the playing field as much as possible, does not always take into account the “great” rounds, nor the “not-so-great” rounds, that can hit any given player at any time.

Perhaps a best ball match would be a better approach?  Still 1v3, but everyone plays their own ball and uses their own handicap. The team player with the best net score on each hole versus the net score by the single player.

Anyway, something to think about during the off-season.