Rules of the different competition formats
Below are the most popular competition formats. Golf can be played and competed in in many different ways; here you can see the various playing formats:
www.golf.fi/pelimuodot
Eclectic
With us this is a format favoured especially by the clubs' ladies' committees, in which the player aims, over a longer period such as a month, to reach the best possible eclectic score.
The eclectic score is an 18-hole score in which each individual hole carries the player's best result achieved on that hole during the agreed period.
The number of rounds may be limited or unlimited, encouraging activity. Only the results of a full 18-hole round count. Handicaps in full or 3/4.
Greensome (choice drive) virvik_golf_greensome 2024.pdf
This is a very popular form of foursomes. It is by nature more relaxed than actual foursomes, because the tee shots are not unrepeatable in the same way as in foursomes.
In a greensome competition both players of the two-member team play a tee shot, and one of them, the one more suitable for the pair, is chosen as the ball in play for that hole. After that, play continues with the same ball, striking it alternately.
Greensome can be played as match play, stroke play or Stableford. The handicap is usually calculated in the same way as in foursomes, but sometimes only 3/4 of the handicap is given.
Flag competition
A competition format popular in Finland, which at many clubs has become the traditional opening competition of the season. The competition is played as a stroke competition in which the players setting out first, for example fifteen of them, are handed a flag at the start with a numbered tag bearing their name attached to it.
The flag is placed where the player's ball lies at the moment when they have used the number of strokes indicated by the course's SSS plus the strokes given by their own handicap.
If a player still has strokes so calculated left after 18 holes, they continue onto a new round for as far as the strokes last.
The players following behind the competition's first participants, the "flagged" ones, the "flagless" ones, pick up the first flag they reach at a point where they still have strokes in reserve, cross out the previous name and write their own.
The competition is played with full handicaps.
Foursomes Virvik Golf ohje foursome 2024.pdf
Foursomes is a playing format that a beginner in particular should take up as soon as they have reached the handicap required in competitions. Foursomes are played quite often in Finland, and it is wise for a beginner to seek out such games, especially if they get an experienced and good player as a partner.
As foursomes proceeds, problem situations arise constantly; the pair of players considers them together, and the more experienced party passes on golf's deepest wisdom to the beginner. The beginner, in turn, does not want to disappoint their partner, fights like a lion and takes in the finer points far more effectively than when playing only for themselves on practice rounds.
The simplest foursomes is a playing format in which the pair of players strikes the same ball alternately. Officially foursomes is match play, but it can also be played as ordinary stroke play and as Stableford. In a handicap competition a handicap is calculated for the pair, which in Finland is usually half of the sum of the team players' handicaps.
In match play the number of handicap strokes given to the other team is the difference between the handicaps calculated for the teams. Internationally a handicap of 3/8 of the combined handicaps of the pair of players is used. Each pair decides in advance which player plays the tee shot on the first tee. From then on they play the drives alternately. After the tee shots the shared ball is struck alternately, and any penalty strokes do not affect the order of play.
If one of the players, in the heat of play, strikes out of turn, their side loses the hole. In the stroke play version the stroke is cancelled, the ball is returned to its original place and the offending side receives two penalty strokes.
Best ball, two players (Best-Ball Twosome) Virvik ohje best_ball .pdf
Stroke play in which two players form a team. Each plays their own ball with their own handicap.
On each hole the better net score is recorded as the team's result. The teams' net scores compete against each other.
This game can correspondingly be played in teams of four, in which case one score per hole is taken from the team as above, or the two best hole scores (in the USA the term is Best-Ball Foursome).
Stableford (Pistebogey)
A competition format growing ever more popular in the golf world, in which merciless stroke play has been turned into a gentler collecting of points that even a couple of disasters cannot upset.
The player measures their ability against the par of the hole (which used to be called bogey). The player has a personal par, determined by their handicap, for every hole of the round. This own par is the par of the hole + the player's handicap strokes on that hole (see the Hcp column and the scorecard).
The points are determined as follows: two or more strokes over one's own par 0 points; one over one's own par 1 point; one's own par 2 points; one under one's own par 3 points; two under one's own par 4 points, and so on.
Stableford is suitable as a method of scoring for most golf competition formats. The format is particularly suitable for beginners, because it speeds up the round. If no points are to be had on a hole any more, the player may pick up the ball and hurry on to the next tee. Such "cutting corners" nevertheless does not remove the possibility that the scorecard is valid for, say, lowering a handicap.
Scramble
Played in teams of two, three or four. The handicap calculated for the group is usually 25 % of the average of the players' slope handicaps. The team's handicap is, however, at most the slope handicap of the team player with the lowest handicap.
It is often also possible to divide the participants into reasonably evenly matched groups, in which case the groups' handicaps need not be calculated. Both stroke play and Stableford work as the playing format. Everyone drives. The team then chooses the ball that is in the best position for the next stroke. Beside the ball, for example at the distance of a scorecard, a pitchmark repairer or a tee is placed as a marker.
If play follows the normal summer rules, the player whose ball was chosen plays the first following stroke. The others drop their balls as close as possible to the marked spot, but not nearer the flag, and play their strokes.
In Finland it is often the custom to agree that the so-called winter rule is in use – even in the rough (in which case the ball may always be placed) and that the order of play for the following strokes is free. Of the following strokes the best is again chosen, the same process continues – and so it goes all the way to the hole.
The weakness of the scramble described above is that if the group contains one exceptionally good player, man or woman, their strokes may dominate the group's score too much: the chosen ball is nearly always theirs. And there are not enough stars for every group.
Texas Scramble (3-4h)Virvik ohje OL Texas sääntö.pdf
All players play from the tee, and after the tee shots the team chooses the ball it considers to be in the best position. The spot of the ball is marked. The player whose ball is chosen skips the next stroke.
After that the team's two other members drop their balls, however at most one club length from the marked spot, but not from the rough onto the fairway.
Rules 20-2b and c apply to the dropping of the ball. After the drop the players whose turn it is play the following strokes in their turn.
Play continues in the same way, except that on the green the balls are placed and everyone putts.
In bunkers the lie of the balls is restored to be the same as the lie of the chosen ball; if the chosen ball is in a footprint, everyone plays their ball from a footprint.