Three Player Match, For When Your Fourth Doesn't Show Up

 Me and my golfing mates tried out this variation today, and it worked pretty well.  I had a look through the Interwebs to see if anyone else has tried this, and I'm not finding it.  If anyone spots this variation already covered, please leave a message in the comments.

Two points can be scored on any hole, as follows:

• If one of the three players wins the hole outright, he scores 2 points;
• If two players tie for best score, they each score 1 point;
• If all three players have the same score, nobody scores any points.

Handicaps apply to each hole.  When we played this today, my opponents had handicaps of 9.5 and 11.5, and I'm a 9.6.  So our 11.5 got two bumps, and at Diamond Bar Golf Course, that's holes 1 and 18.

The competition was fierce, and it literally came down to the last three putts.  If our 11.5 made his up and down, he'd get a net birdie and win the match.  If he missed it, and if I made my putt for par, I'd win the match.

He sized it up, and drained it, winning the match.  We were only playing for a dollar each, but it felt like a lot more than that.  I considered this to be a resounding success.

If two players are tied at the end, step back through each of the holes from hardest (#1 handicap) to easiest (#18 handicap).  Our 11.5 and I actually had a tie score at the end, but because he had won #1 outright (without needing one of his bumps), he took the tiebreaker.

I thought about how this could be translated to four players, and it's still do-able but the scoring is more complicated:

• If one of the four players wins outright, he scores 6 points;
• If two players tie for best score, they each score 3 points;
• If three players tie for best score, they each score 1 point;
• If all four players have the same score, nobody scores any points.

Rules for ties apply the same way.  Go from the #1 handicap hole through #18 until the winner emerges.

We played for a dollar each today, just so we would feel like we were playing for SOMETHING.

We'll see about trying the four player match on Monday.