My old club did handicapped match play by starting the higher handicap player up a certain amount of holes and playing straight up. So long as you are doing what you need to do, you can dig out of the hole, but if you don't start winning fast, it's a short day. On one hand, teeing off 8 down is pretty rough, but having to give two shots on a hole isn't fun either. I wish I knew the formula they used to determine how many holes a player started up.