Hi guys,

My dad's 60th birthday is this weekend we are surprising him with having all of his 10 brothers and sisters come for a birthday party along with some of my cousins. Anyways we are playing two rounds of golf and calling it the "Barrie Open". We have done that in the past and always give out a green jacket to the winner, in the past it was 3 rounds where i would average everyone's first two rounds then it whoever beat their average by the most won the jacket. I was wondering if you guys have any ideas as to a better format. Keep in mind that other than me nobody has a handicap and a third of the players play weekly a third we will call it bi-weekly and a third don't play more than once a year. I want everyone to have a chance.(I'm okay with not having a chance , last time i shot 78-74 and obviously got dummied by my uncles 109-92 haha).

My father in law was talking about a system where you randomly pick 3 holes after the round(a par 3, a par 4, a par 5) and see how many shots over par a player is for those holes times it by six and thats' your handicap. Then the best net round would win the jacket.

Thanks for any ideas

Have each person start out with a bank. For the sake of simplicity, you get 100 chips.

On each shot, a player can lay odds with the shooter. So if you are in the bunker, I could say "I'll give you 12/1 that you can't get it inside 8 feet". Then you do some quick negotiations on the line, and bam.

or

On the tee of a hole you can lay 5/1 that someone won't score a dbl bogey or better, etc.

Most chips at end win.

I find this is the best format to play with a wide spectrum of golfers.

How do the people in group 1 gamble with the people in group 3?

Calloway scoring works well for this situation where some players rarely play and others may have established handicaps. Although Calloway scoring is meant for single round events you could make the adjustments for each round and keep a running total of the adjusted scores to determine the winner.

I like the idea UC but my 60 year old aunts and uncles aren't gamblers and it would be tough to get them to understand and have fun playing that game... The calloway scoring is what I'm thinking of doing right? Do I have it right or is there some nuances i'm missing?

Nevermind I found it on the internet... surprise surprise a google search answered the question lol thanks though

When there's a large group of people of varying abilities I always feel that a scramble is the best way to go. If I were you I'd make 3-4 fair teams and let em rip. It speeds up the game (which is nice when you have a bunch of 110+ golfers). It will make the scores relatively close and competitive. And it will keep uncle sandbag from pulling his 109-92 again.

Just to give an update I decided on the following and it worked out awsome...

We were sitting around after the round and I got my aunt who has no clue about golf to give me some numbers between 1 and 18 I took the first four par 4's and first par 3 and first par 5 she named. Used those to count the strokes over par then multiplied by 3 to get the 18 hole handicap. Repeated using the same holes for all the players and all the net scores were between 71 and 80.

My uncle that has played maybe 4 lifetime rounds won with a 131 net 71 and a happier guy couldn't of won. When I said his name he was like" what is this a prize for worst golfer?" Once we explained that he had won he start laughing and saying how good he is. Haha

Thanks for all the ideas.