Lowest score in a four man scramble?

[JustinY]

We played in a 4 man scramble tournament for a local high school this weekend, and why I know there is "some questionable scoring" that takes place, the winning team claims to have shot a 40 as their score. I mean, why would I sign up for another one of these if they allow this impossible score? 

Just curious - has anyone played in a tournament with a score that low? (we shot a 60 and why we didn't think we would win - we also didn't think we would be 20 strokes behind)

***Was a par 72 and 6500 yards. The only gimmick was you could buy 1 extra put per hole and 1 - 3 foot string closer used to get closer to the hole (to be used once - which we did to make an eagle on a par 5). We called the team out - only 1 guy went up to face the music. 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by JustinY

[Golfspy_CG2]

There's another thread around with lots of impossible scores, due to all the crap games they throw in.    But lowest legit I've seen without all the gimmicks.  is usually around 55. 

So we're playing in one tomorrow,  I somehow managed to land on a team with the following 3 players,   The course we are playing is moderately difficult, but a great track probably around 6400 I'm guessing since it's a charity scramble.  Ill be interested to see what we score.  Anything over a legit 60 will be disappointing.   And probably get fleeced by 6 shots

• +3 that played college D1 Golf and has possibly the best swing I've seen from a non tour pro
•  +1 that carries it about 280 to 290
•  2 index that is good friends with the above, and carries it close to the same

Then there's me who's main responsibility will probably be keeping the beer cart from passing the 2nd guy by...LOL

 

 

 

 

[xOldBenKenobiX]

10 minutes ago, JustinY said:

We played in a 4 man scramble tournament for a local high school this weekend, and why I know there is "some questionable scoring" that takes place, the winning team claims to have shot a 40 as their score. I mean, why would I sign up for another one of these if they allow this impossible score? 

Just curious - has anyone played in a tournament with a score that low? (we shot a 60 and why we didn't think we would win - we also didn't think we would be 20 strokes behind)

 

 

I have seen a lot of those scores posted on Reddit and other socials as of late, foursome shooting on the 40s, honestly it seems to me that nowadays it almost became a norm where the winning groups are the ones who have the best pencil work and have the guts to claim that score and be unfazed.

That being said, I have given up on signing up to 4 man scrambles as it seems that more and more are just going to be people with their pencils out.

I am waiting to see the day someone posts that they shot an 18 for 18.

[BNewton51]

7 minutes ago, Golfspy_CG2 said:

There's another thread around with lots of impossible scores, due to all the crap games they throw in.    But lowest legit I've seen without all the gimmicks.  is usually around 55. 

So we're playing in one tomorrow,  I somehow managed to land on a team with the following 3 players,   The course we are playing is moderately difficult, but a great track probably around 6400 I'm guessing since it's a charity scramble.  Ill be interested to see what we score.  Anything over a legit 60 will be disappointing.   And probably get fleeced by 6 shots

• +3 that played college D1 Golf and has possibly the best swing I've seen from a non tour pro
•  +1 that carries it about 280 to 290
•  2 index that is good friends with the above, and carries it close to the same

Then there's me who's main responsibility will probably be keeping the beer cart from passing the 2nd guy by...LOL

 

 

 

 

I do so loath some 4 man scrambles....  Not so much for the majority, but there is always NO DOUBT going to be a hand full of pencil whippers that always tend to come in at the lowest possible score ever.  Just played in one where 4 guys that legit couldn't be younger than 65 shot a 22 under par round.  Funny, enough, they played right in front of my group.  They MAY have gotten to 10.... But 22... 

I tend to play in them sometimes, but it's always a "we're going to go out there and have fun, drink some beers, and NOT try to win this thing cause it's just simply not going to happen.  Legit low round for my 4 man was 19 under.  

[GolfSpy_KFT]

I played with a group of buddies this year in the annual Athletic Club Golf Outing and we shot a 57. One of my buddies has a very fast swing speed and can crush it off the tee. He played D2 baseball and was getting pro looks in college. He had one of those days where every single drive was mashed and was straight and put us in position on every driver hole to get on in regulation with little effort or we were on from his tee shot. Combined with everyone else hitting at least one good shot on each hole, we just had a day where it worked out well. The winning score was a 50, and that team had three former collegiate golfers on it, all kids I knew from my high school coaching days. A 40 is absurd and you almost have to assume some cheating there unless there were tons of gimmicks offered and you could buy as many as you want.

[GolfSpy_BEN]

Last summer, the stars aligned and I was on a team that shot a legitimate -16 56. We had a long bomber that was consistently 300+ yards on the 4’s & 5’s and a putter that didn’t miss anything inside of 30’ that day. Me and the fourth were hitting irons and wedges competently and everything just fell into place. 

We tied for low round and lost out to some arcane scorecard tiebreaker for a second place finish. 
 

All that being said, the golf we played that day just to finish that low was spectacular. A group finishing in the 40’s is utter and complete nonsense. Without creative accounting and a host of other scramble opportunities i.e. mulligans, throws, buy an ace, etc., I don’t think it is possible to do it legitimately.

[sholling]

Assuming a Par 72, and no buying of shots, somewhere around 55-60 usually wins . Would call BS on 40…. a sub 50 would raise some eyebrows. You sure that wasn’t their stableford score and they actually came last

Think about it, that’s the equivalent of 4 birdies and 14 eagles…. Not likely.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[shailey]

This is nothing new.  I have not played in a 4 man scramble for money since 2008.  At the time we had 4 golfers including myself that were all well into the + handicaps.  Every year the four golf clubs in our city sent the top 6 players in their club championships to compete in a 3 day event.  So the top 24 in our city competed and the lowest individual and team scores were awarded.

This was our 4some.  The top guy was the 3 time in a row and current city champion.  He shot a final round 62 in the 3 day event for a 3 day total of 196.  The other was a ranked college player that finished 2nd in the city tournament.  I finished 9th in the tournament and consistently hit the ball 20 to 30 yards longer than any of them and our 4th was the 5 time reigning senior city champion. We came into the club house with a -24 under and we were TIED for 7th with 6 other teams!  31 under won it. I still to this day do not believe that there were that many teams in our area that could beat the four of us like that or that many to even equal us.  

Par was 72 on a VERY tight course that was right at 6,500 yards, hilly with several blind shots.

I've played in charity events to raise money, but will NEVER play in one that has large cash payouts.  No one to watch the teams that cannot resist temptation.

 

[funkyjudge]

Best scramble score that I have ever been part of (no mulligans, “string”, or other goofy add-ones, as this was the Olds Scramble national event) was a 58 on a par 71 course. Our team consisted of a 2, an 8 (me), an 11 and a 16 handicap golfer, and we won the gross division (Olds Scramble also had a net division, where teams received approximately 1/4 of the team’s “adjusted team handicap”, but we elected to play in the gross division because we knew that there would be some artificially inflated team handicaps in the net division). We won this “local” event, which qualified us for the Regional Qualifier to play in the National Championship.

In the Regional, you play as a 5-person team with the Head Professional at the course where you won the “local” event. In this Regional, we shot a 54 and tied for first place, where we lost in a chip-off.  The team that beat us in the chip-off had a substitute player who had not played on this team when they won their “local” at a golf course that is located right behind my house. This guy was listed as a 10 or 11 handicap, when I knew that he was actually close to a scratch golfer (even teams playing in the gross division had to submit player handicaps because the Olds Scramble had a rule regarding minimum combined team handicaps).  This pi$$ed-off my entire team but we decided not to protest their win and appear to be sore losers. We were just glad that they didn’t finish in the money in the national finals.

P.S. — in the Regional event, we eagled 3 of the 4 par-5 holes, including one where I hit my approach shot to within 3 feet by using my driver off the deck.

[funkyjudge]

Other than charity events, where I am playing only because the proceeds go to a good cause (e.g. — Folds of Honor, Wounded Warrior Project, etc), I do not play in any scrambles, and have not done so in at least 10 years.

[Big moose]

The one 4 man scramble I play in there are two teams on each hole and both teams play together, so there is no cheating. 

[xOldBenKenobiX]

1 hour ago, BNewton51 said:

I do so loath some 4 man scrambles....  Not so much for the majority, but there is always NO DOUBT going to be a hand full of pencil whippers that always tend to come in at the lowest possible score ever.  Just played in one where 4 guys that legit couldn't be younger than 65 shot a 22 under par round.  Funny, enough, they played right in front of my group.  They MAY have gotten to 10.... But 22... 

I tend to play in them sometimes, but it's always a "we're going to go out there and have fun, drink some beers, and NOT try to win this thing cause it's just simply not going to happen.  Legit low round for my 4 man was 19 under.  

I just saw this one on Instagram

[Golfspy_CG2]

2 hours ago, BNewton51 said:

I do so loath some 4 man scrambles....  Not so much for the majority, but there is always NO DOUBT going to be a hand full of pencil whippers that always tend to come in at the lowest possible score ever.  Just played in one where 4 guys that legit couldn't be younger than 65 shot a 22 under par round.  Funny, enough, they played right in front of my group.  They MAY have gotten to 10.... But 22... 

I tend to play in them sometimes, but it's always a "we're going to go out there and have fun, drink some beers, and NOT try to win this thing cause it's just simply not going to happen.  Legit low round for my 4 man was 19 under.  

Yeah, this one is to support a local university's volleyball team, you know they don't generate much revenue like the football and basketball teams do, so anything to help them out a bit.  They have won 2 conference championships in a row.   And cool prize for the 1st place team, they get the same Championship Rings that the girls will get this fall.    So I'm sure the erases will be in fine shape.  It'd be nice if they had one of the girls following each group to keep the actual score.    

[Golfspy_CG2]

26 minutes ago, xOldBenKenobiX said:

I just saw this one on Instagram

LO....yeah saw that one earlier as well.   just blatant. And the thing is it's 9 strokes better than the next best, so it's not like they could have had too many of those gimmick holes. 

[Thegolferdude]

Best scramble team I was on shout 15 under for 18 holes.

[Caddie1966]

I am with @funkyjudge, no scrambles except charity.  
Winning is too important for some out there, NOT to cheat.  I don’t get it.  
I played in a 4 man scramble event about 15 years back which had a cash payout of $2000/1500/1000 for 1st, 2nd, 3rd. It cost $1000/ team to play.  The rest went to a school system athletic fund for uniforms and equipment.  There were over 30 teams so we had a long day.   I was the high handicap in our group and was in the low 4s at the time.  Our group’s total handicap was 10.  We shot a legit 59 on a tough par 72 Pete Dye layout playing almost 7000.  No junk like mulligans, strings, throws etc, no handicaps, just  pure golf.  
The course  was crowded enough that we had a 5.5 hour round and could watch the groups in front and behind.  Neither shot anywhere close to our 59.  We birdied 13 holes missing on the par 3s and one long par 4 as I recall.   We didn’t make any of our eagle opportunities.  We were out of the money.  Had we eagled the par 5s, we would have had 55 and would have felt pretty good about it. 52 was the low round we saw when we posted our score and knew that was certainly possible since we could have gone that low had we birdied everything and made an eagle or 2.  
We watched the groups in front and back of us miss par putts on a couple holes.  The group in front of us turned in a score in mid 60s. The guys behind us turned in 49.  That meant 5 eagles and 13 birdies.  We knew that was bogus as we saw them bogey at least 2 holes.  They might have had 64.  One of my playing partners nearly got in a fist fight with theguy in the “49” team  that turned in the card when he called BS on their score.  The “49” team was the last to turn in their card.  I think they got in, waited to see what was posted and then filled their card and turned it in.  This experience  motivated me to reduce my scramble tournaments from around 6 a year to 2 that I know are legit charities.  I don’t play any that payout cash anymore.

[revkev]

This topic seems to come up once a season.  You have to know going into a scramble that there is a huge potential for fudging. Your entry fee is for charity as are all the other things that you purchase.  Just look at it that way.  You can't win with this one.  I would agree that if no one is cheating and there are no gimmicks (mulligans, string, etc) that the winning score is normally between 55 and 60.  

 

I've also mentioned it before, but I used to play in a big money scramble at my club in Indiana.  I can't recall the exact parameters now but it was a 5 man scramble and there was a handicap limit for each team - something like 60 total handicap minimum (handicaps weren't used beyond that).  Pros could play but if you had a pro on your team you could not have a single digit handicapper.  All males played the tips, if a woman were a professional she played the white/men's tees and you could have an Am woman on your team playing from the red/ladies tee (you always wanted one.)  There was a marker on every green roving rangers to make sure no cheating was taking place.  It was a two day tournament so your team could pick the best score or a player could be on two different teams.  17 under usually won, occasionally it was 18 or 16 but almost always 17.  You needed 15 to cash - we did that once in the 7 years that I played in it - mainly because we got the high school girls basketball coach to play on our team.  She was a 23 but a great athlete who could hit the ball 220 or so - it was a huge advantage on the par 5's.  

[xOldBenKenobiX]

50 minutes ago, Golfspy_CG2 said:

LO....yeah saw that one earlier as well.   just blatant. And the thing is it's 9 strokes better than the next best, so it's not like they could have had too many of those gimmick holes. 

That score card would make me thing that every par 4 is set up to be reachable from the tee

[Golfspy_CG2]

4 hours ago, xOldBenKenobiX said:

That score card would make me thing that every par 4 is set up to be reachable from the tee

That and or the outing is selling A LOT of string and hand throws.  

[revkev]

57 minutes ago, Golfspy_CG2 said:

That and or the outing is selling A LOT of string and hand throws.  

Ooh i

love the hand throw!!! 
 

My favorite though is the opposite - the call back. There’s nothing like a good call back after a guy hit a great shot.

[Shapotomous]

I only play in the charity scrambles, maybe 3 a year and have no expectations of beating the pencil whippers.  We were -16 in one earlier this year and tied for 7th.  Sadly we were not surprised.

[KC Golf]

1 hour ago, revkev said:

Ooh i

love the hand throw!!! 
 

My favorite though is the opposite - the call back. There’s nothing like a good call back after a guy hit a great shot.

Have any golfers recently come in to ask God for forgiveness?

[revkev]

3 minutes ago, KC Golf said:

Have any golfers recently come in to ask God for forgiveness?

Other than me personally kneeling before the altar?

 

Not a chance.

[BNewton51]

15 hours ago, xOldBenKenobiX said:

I just saw this one on Instagram

I bet that 41 had a couple sharp pencils in their bag RIGHT before they went to the course!  SMH  And funny enough, if you looked at the guys in that group they probably look like they couldn't break 100 on their own ball!  Living proof why playing in a 4 man is ONLY done for fun and or to support a good cause.  Otherwise, the odds are NOT in your favor.  Well, unless you have a very sharp pencil on your own team of Enron Executives. 

[CHIPTHEBALL]

14 eagles.  Did they even make it out of the bar to play?

[MalYoung27]

Well, interesting subject. I never have an expectation of winning a scramble for the reasons stated. Best a team I was a part of scored was 14 under and that was straight up, no string or extra putts. We each bought one mulligan though. For me it’s more about playing as a team and the enjoyment of contributing to the end result. 

[Golfspy_CG2]

Ok I think I have an understanding how this can happen. 
 

We played in a charity scramble today, we shot an “honest” 49 and finished 3rd

Here’s the deal.  Each player could buy a Suoer Package.  That in addition to raffle tickets it included the following ler player. 
2 Mulligans 

1-throw that doesn’t count as a shot 

1 -Cut the Flag. Meaning move your ball closer to the hole by the length of the flag.  So you can turn an 8 footer into a 1 or 2 footer. 
 

so X those by 4 of each player buys a Suoer package $75

But here’s where it gets crazy there were about 5 or 6 on course games where you could either deduct a stroke from your score or move ahead by 100 yards or so off the tee without taking a shot.  Agsin each player could take these strokes. 
 

For example on a cornhole hole.  You paid $30 for two bags. You got to deduct a stroke of it stayed on the board.  2 if it went in.   We only had 2 of us play that one but got to deduct 4 strokes from our natural birdie 3.  So a -1  

so you get the idea.   If all 4 guys are ponying up $30 for each contest, your saving massive strokes.  
 

And to make it easier they took Venmo and had QR codes for payment.   How nice!!    
 

iin talking to the tournament planner afterwards. They had over $8,000 in the Venmo account from today alone.   So it was hugely successful in that regard 

Oh and get this. Pace of play 112 players and we finished in 4:20 minutes in a scramble.  That’s unheard of around here 

One more “fun” thing.  It was a fundraiser for University Women’s Volleyball team.  So all the players weee out running the games.  Tough to say no to them  
so we could have easily “bought” another 5 strokes and finished first.  But we had fun.  Regardless of the goofy games and the outrageous scoring.  I felt it was one of the best scrambles I’ve played in.    

So the 41 while not legit at all, I now see how it can happen  

 

[funkyjudge]

11 hours ago, Golfspy_CG2 said:

Ok I think I have an understanding how this can happen. 
 

We played in a charity scramble today, we shot an “honest” 49 and finished 3rd

Here’s the deal.  Each player could buy a Suoer Package.  That in addition to raffle tickets it included the following ler player. 
2 Mulligans 

1-throw that doesn’t count as a shot 

1 -Cut the Flag. Meaning move your ball closer to the hole by the length of the flag.  So you can turn an 8 footer into a 1 or 2 footer. 
 

so X those by 4 of each player buys a Suoer package $75

But here’s where it gets crazy there were about 5 or 6 on course games where you could either deduct a stroke from your score or move ahead by 100 yards or so off the tee without taking a shot.  Agsin each player could take these strokes. 
 

For example on a cornhole hole.  You paid $30 for two bags. You got to deduct a stroke of it stayed on the board.  2 if it went in.   We only had 2 of us play that one but got to deduct 4 strokes from our natural birdie 3.  So a -1  

so you get the idea.   If all 4 guys are ponying up $30 for each contest, your saving massive strokes.  
 

And to make it easier they took Venmo and had QR codes for payment.   How nice!!    
 

iin talking to the tournament planner afterwards. They had over $8,000 in the Venmo account from today alone.   So it was hugely successful in that regard 

Oh and get this. Pace of play 112 players and we finished in 4:20 minutes in a scramble.  That’s unheard of around here 

One more “fun” thing.  It was a fundraiser for University Women’s Volleyball team.  So all the players weee out running the games.  Tough to say no to them  
so we could have easily “bought” another 5 strokes and finished first.  But we had fun.  Regardless of the goofy games and the outrageous scoring.  I felt it was one of the best scrambles I’ve played in.    

So the 41 while not legit at all, I now see how it can happen  

 

.... and that is one of the reasons that I hate scrambles!  I'd much rather just give the money to the charity than have all of those goofy gimmicks and games that slow the pace of play even more than the scramble does.

[Golfspy_CG2]

47 minutes ago, funkyjudge said:

.... and that is one of the reasons that I hate scrambles!  I'd much rather just give the money to the charity than have all of those goofy gimmicks and games that slow the pace of play even more than the scramble does.

90% of the time I'd agree with you and to be honest, I was kind of dreading it when I heard about all the games.   But the pace was the best pace of any scramble I've ever played in,  4:15 minutes, and we were in the middle of the pack, not like we were the lead group, and we had a group in front of us that while we only waited on them on the last two holes, they had the highest score of any group 90--as they strictly obeyed the bogey max rule.  We even saw them not even go to the putting green on some holes

But the games were run by the girls on the team and they were all very engaging and fun.  And most importantly very sincere in thanking everyone for coming out and supporting the team.   So it really was a great day all the way around.

That said, I really would have liked to seen what the scores were with real golf.  As our team was stacked.   Two guys I work with, one is a +1 and the other is 2 handicap and the both get it out to 290-310 territory, and a rep from one of the OEM's who isn't as long as them, only about 270 but he doesn't know what it's like to hit from the rough or what it's like to miss a green, he plays to about a +2 and was D1 golfer.   Then there was me, who made sure the beer cart didn't pass us buy....and truthfully made 3 of our birdie putts from around 10 feet. 

 

[xOldBenKenobiX]

12 hours ago, Golfspy_CG2 said:

Ok I think I have an understanding how this can happen. 
 

We played in a charity scramble today, we shot an “honest” 49 and finished 3rd

Here’s the deal.  Each player could buy a Suoer Package.  That in addition to raffle tickets it included the following ler player. 
2 Mulligans 

1-throw that doesn’t count as a shot 

1 -Cut the Flag. Meaning move your ball closer to the hole by the length of the flag.  So you can turn an 8 footer into a 1 or 2 footer. 
 

so X those by 4 of each player buys a Suoer package $75

But here’s where it gets crazy there were about 5 or 6 on course games where you could either deduct a stroke from your score or move ahead by 100 yards or so off the tee without taking a shot.  Agsin each player could take these strokes. 
 

For example on a cornhole hole.  You paid $30 for two bags. You got to deduct a stroke of it stayed on the board.  2 if it went in.   We only had 2 of us play that one but got to deduct 4 strokes from our natural birdie 3.  So a -1  

so you get the idea.   If all 4 guys are ponying up $30 for each contest, your saving massive strokes.  
 

And to make it easier they took Venmo and had QR codes for payment.   How nice!!    
 

iin talking to the tournament planner afterwards. They had over $8,000 in the Venmo account from today alone.   So it was hugely successful in that regard 

Oh and get this. Pace of play 112 players and we finished in 4:20 minutes in a scramble.  That’s unheard of around here 

One more “fun” thing.  It was a fundraiser for University Women’s Volleyball team.  So all the players weee out running the games.  Tough to say no to them  
so we could have easily “bought” another 5 strokes and finished first.  But we had fun.  Regardless of the goofy games and the outrageous scoring.  I felt it was one of the best scrambles I’ve played in.    

So the 41 while not legit at all, I now see how it can happen  

 

This makes sense when getting such low score, as the packages allow for it.

And that is one thing we do not get when those score cards are posted.

When we see a lot of the super-low scores, we all assume that was straight play, no mulligans or anything else taken in consideration.