Somebody on the first tee says “teams, best ball,” and half the group hears “scramble.” You and Mike plan to play your own balls into every green. Tom and Dave are already deciding whose drive to play. Both formats put partners on a side, and both have “best” somewhere in the description. They aren’t the same game, and the difference changes the card, the handicaps and the partner you’d want.
Whose ball, whose score
In best ball, every player plays their own ball from the tee until it’s in the hole. Nobody picks a drive or plays from anybody else’s spot. When the hole is finished, the team’s score is the lower of the two partners’ scores. The Rules of Golf call this Four-Ball, and Rule 23 says exactly that: the side’s score on a hole is whichever partner’s score is lower. The Rules keep the name Best-Ball for something narrower, one player against the better ball of a side. On most first tees, best ball means Four-Ball.
In a scramble, everyone on the team tees off, the team picks the best drive, and everyone plays their next shot from that spot. Repeat until the ball is in the hole. One ball, one score per team. The Rules of Golf have no Rule for scrambles. Rule 21.5 says the Rules can be adapted for them, and the details are whatever the group or the event agrees, which is one more reason to say them out loud.
One hole, played both ways
The 7th is a 390-yard par 4. You and Mike against Tom and Dave, scored without handicaps to keep it simple.
Played as best ball: you hook your drive into the trees, punch out, reach the green in three and two-putt for a 5. Mike splits the fairway, hits the green and two-putts for a 4. Your side’s score is Mike’s 4, and your 5 never mattered. Tom and Dave both make 5, so you win the hole.
Played as a scramble: you play Mike’s drive. You both hit approaches from the fairway; yours finishes 12 feet away, so you both putt from there. Mike holes it, and your team makes 3. Tom and Dave make 4 the same way, playing whichever of their shots was better each time.
| Team | Best ball | Scramble |
|---|---|---|
| You and Mike | 4 (Mike’s) | 3 |
| Tom and Dave | 5 | 4 |
A scramble score is a team’s best shot, every shot, so it runs well below what any one of them would make alone. A best-ball score is still one person’s real score on the hole. That difference drives everything else: the handicaps, the strategy and who you want on your side.
Handicaps don’t carry over
In best ball, each player keeps their own handicap. Strokes fall on the holes the card ranks hardest, each player’s net score is worked out separately, and the side counts the lower net. If Mike’s course handicap is 18, he gets a stroke on every hole, and a net par from him is as good as a gross par from a scratch player.
GoLo’s Team Play gives every player their full course handicap and takes no percentage off. When all four handicaps are close, that barely matters. With a 4 and a 24 in the group, know it before you agree on the amount.
In a scramble there’s one ball, so there’s one handicap: the team’s. The usual method adds up a share of each player’s course handicap, with the biggest share from the lowest handicap, because a scramble team mostly plays its better players’ shots. The World Handicap System recommends 35% and 15% for two players; 30, 20 and 10% for three; and 25, 20, 15 and 10% for four, lowest handicap first.
Run the same foursome both ways and the strokes come out very differently. With course handicaps of 6 and 18, best ball at full handicaps, the way GoLo plays it, gives you six strokes and Mike one on every hole. As a two-player scramble team you get five for the round between you: 35% of 6 is 2.1, 15% of 18 is 2.7, and 4.8 plays as 5. Tom and Dave, on 10 and 14, get 6. Both sides add up to 24, and the scramble still gives Tom and Dave a stroke more, because the formula leans on the lower handicap. The index-to-course-handicap guide covers where those course handicaps come from.
Picking teams for each
The format changes what a good partner looks like.
There are more scramble tips, and the house versions groups add, on the scramble page.
Best ball in GoLo is Team Play
With exactly four players, turn on Teams on the Games step. GoLo splits you into Team A and Team B, and you can move players between them. The scorer enters every player’s score on every hole, and GoLo counts each team’s lower gross and lower net. Skins, the Nassau, Best Score and the Overall Match play team against team; Wolf is off. In a Stableford round you choose whether a team scores its better player’s points or both players’ points added together.
One name to keep apart: GoLo’s Best Score game isn’t best ball, which is a way of scoring a hole. Best Score is played on totals: everyone puts in the same entry, and the best total for the round takes it, or the top two or three split it. Without teams it compares each player’s card. In Team Play it compares the two teams’ totals, so pay first place only: with two teams, a top-two split hands everyone their entry back.
A scramble in GoLo
A scramble is its own format: pick Scramble when you set up the round. It takes up to 12 players in two to six teams of up to four, with one score per team on each hole, and each team can have its own scorer. Team handicaps come from the percentages above, or play gross, or set each team’s number yourself. Skins, the Nassau, Best Score and the Overall Match play team against team; Wolf and Bingo Bango Bongo aren’t played. GoLo doesn’t count Texas scramble drives and has no shamble setting.
Which one to play
Play best ball when everyone wants their own game to count. Each player still has a real score on every hole, a bad hole is covered by a partner instead of ending the day, and Four-Ball rounds can count for handicap: it’s on the World Handicap System’s list of authorized formats. A scramble isn’t.
Play a scramble when the group is bigger than four, when the handicaps are far apart, or when some of you would rather not hole out every 8. Nobody’s own score is on display, and the highest handicap in the group still hits the shot that gets played now and then.
Either way, say the format, the partners and the amount on the first tee. The rest of what’s worth agreeing is in the first-tee checklist, and the games that go on top are in Skins vs. Nassau and match play vs. stroke play. Then see one round from setup to settle-up or get GoLo for the next one.
