Golf Tournament Flights

[perseveringgolfer]

guys, I see this mentioned in lots of posts about tournaments. We don't have this 'flight' thing you talk off, can someone elaborate?

We do have categories in a comp of scratch to 12, 13-18, 19+ etc(varies slightly depending on the upper h/cap limit for entry), is that similar? we also have scratch comps with no handicaps.

But I see people posting they changed 'flights' after each round, I'm at a loss.

 

[STUDque]

It's the same concept as the ranges you've mentioned but it's tailored to the quantity and types of the actual entrants. That way, the groups are balanced. 

 

Example: The following HCs enter

0

1

3

4

12

15

22

25

They could either be grouped by core handicaps with 5 in the scratch 12, 1 in 13-18, and 2 in 19+ or break them evenly into 2 groups of 4. The effort here is to just keep evenly sized groups with similar handicaps still instead of uneven groups based off raw numbers. 

 

 

Hope that made sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cnosil]

It's the same concept as the ranges you've mentioned but it's tailored to the quantity and types of the actual entrants. That way, the groups are balanced. 
 
Example: The following HCs enter
0
1
3
4
12
15
22
25
They could either be grouped by core handicaps with 5 in the scratch 12, 1 in 13-18, and 2 in 19+ or break them evenly into 2 groups of 4. The effort here is to just keep evenly sized groups with similar handicaps still instead of uneven groups based off raw numbers. 
 
 
Hope that made sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You also need add that some tournaments determine flights after a round to try and combat sandbagging. It could be based on scores for a set of holes, 9 holes, or 18 holes. Sometimes the criteria isn’t announced until the actually establish the flights.

[Kor.A.Door]

At our course in the past we have done flighting after the first round based on the scores for the round. It’s not really fair since you could have a scratch golfer have a horrible round on day 1 and then win a lower flight by 10 with his even par round on day 2. At our club, payouts are the same for first second third places for each flight, so there’s no incentive to play well on day 1.