Quota
The basics
Everyone races a personal target: 36 minus your course handicap (18 for a nine-hole round). Points come from gross scores — par 2, birdie 3, eagle 4, albatross 6, bogey optional — and the handicap lives entirely in the target.
Beat your quota by the most and you win. A 25-handicap grinding pars can beat a scratch player having an off day — that's the whole point.
⚡How to actually win it
Your quota is a par-equivalent, so play like it. The target already contains your handicap, which means you don't get strokes on individual holes — you get one number to beat across the whole round. That makes steady scoring far more valuable than heroics.
Birdies are worth triple a bogey's cost. A birdie is 3 points, a par is 2, a bogey is 0. Losing two points to a bogey hurts, but gaining an extra point from a birdie is the only way to actually get ahead of your number. Take on the reachable par 5.
Bogey isn't a disaster — a blow-up is. Since bogey scores zero and anything worse also scores zero, a double costs you exactly what a bogey does. Once a hole turns bad, stop bleeding and move on; there's no extra punishment waiting.
Track the gap, not the total. The standings show you as plus-or-minus against your quota. That number, not the raw points, tells you whether to attack the last four holes or protect.
🔥Why it's the fairest game here
Quota is the rare format where everybody plays their own race. Your target is your target; the scratch player's is theirs. Nobody is taking strokes off anybody, nobody is arguing about the dots, and a 25-handicap can beat a 4 without either of them feeling like the format did it.
It also works solo, which almost nothing else here does. You against your own number on a quiet Tuesday evening is a genuinely good round of golf.
And there's a specific satisfaction to being told, on the first tee, exactly what you're expected to shoot — and then beating it.
💰The wager
Everyone settles against their quota. Beat it by more than the next player and you collect the difference in points.
Most players finish within 6 points either side of their number, so the spread between best and worst is usually 8–15 points. It's a tight, forgiving game — swings are small and steady, which suits a group with wildly mixed abilities.
Why groups love it
No strokes on holes, no dots, no arguing about where strokes land. Everyone plays their own ball against their own number, and the leaderboard shows plus-or-minus against quota all day.
Point values are adjustable in setup, and Battle Tees shows everyone's quota before the round starts.