Team Game - Circles

As suggested by the President of the Webmaster's other club, this is a way to get your own score, contribute to your team's score, and get as much help as you can from your teammates. Plus it's a lot of fun.

You've seen the televised golf tournaments where they show the players' scorecards from time to time. When you see a square box around a score, you know it was over par and is costing the player. But when you see a circle around the score, you know it's under par and is what every pro works towards.

At our level, we can move the line a bit, disregard the squares, and put circles around net par or better. So, if you shoot a 5 on a par-4 hole and are entitled to a pop (handicap stroke), your net score would be 4 which is a par and you would get a circle. The way we're playing it, the maximum on any hole is one circle, even if your net score is a birdie.

At the end, you add up the number of circles for each player, then add up the total circles for the team. That's your team score. Pretty easy in the scorekeeping department.

How many pops, you ask. The number will be printed on the scorecard for you. Each dot that's printed in the score cell is a pop. But for theoretical understanding, say your course handicap is 18, you are entitled to one pop on each hole. If your handicap is 24, then you get two pops on the six "hardest" holes and 1 pop on all the others. So the ratings of each hole plus your handicap come into play. We are going to max out at 2 pops when we play this game in Foon Hay.

A sample scorecard for Player X:

So Player X will receive 3 circles over the six holes pictured. On hole #1, his net score of 3 was under par. On hole #1, his net score was equal to par, and on hole #5 his net score was under par. Remember, it's the net score compared to par. Good luck to all our Foon Hay players.

When are we going to give this game a try? August 14 when we play Sunnyvale Muni Golf Course. Bring your scorecards to Clarence ASAP after you finish your round. And please make your handwriting legible!

Good luck to all the teams. We will work out a procedure to add a "Blind Draw" fourth person if a teams ends up with only 3 players. That person's scores can only help the team and we've had several instances of the Blind Draw person helping a team to the winner's circle. (pun intended!)

Questions: Clarence Bakken