Scramble

One ball per team

The basics

Everyone tees off, the team picks the best shot, and everyone plays their next shot from that spot. One score per team per hole. Lowest team total wins.

It's the format of charity events and member-guests everywhere — fast, forgiving, and social.

Handicaps

2 v 2: Battle Tees applies the USGA two-player scramble allowance — 35% of the low course handicap plus 15% of the high — as net strokes for the higher team.

One team (all four): tournament mode. The whole group plays one ball and the app keeps the official card with the 25/20/15/10% four-player allowance.

⚡How to actually win it

Order of play is a strategy. Send your most reliable player first to guarantee a ball in position, then let the big hitters swing freely from safety. Reversing that — hero first, then pressure on the steady player — is how scramble teams throw away shots.

Putt worst-to-best, always. Every player before the last one is a free read: same line, same speed, no consequence. Teams that putt in random order are giving away a stroke a side.

Take the aggressive line on par 5s and short par 4s. With four attempts, the expected value of going for it is far better than it is in your own ball. Scramble scores are won on the holes where you can get greedy.

Play from the best position, not the best-looking shot. A ball forty yards further back in the fairway often beats one closer but in the rough — especially if your group has a preferred yardage.

🔥Why it's the most social round in golf

Scramble is the format where nobody has a bad day. Your worst shot disappears the second somebody else hits a good one, which means the pressure evaporates and the conversation starts. It's why every charity event and member-guest on earth runs one.

It's also the fastest way to bring a beginner into a money game. A new golfer who would be miserable playing their own ball can contribute one great drive on one hole and be a hero for the rest of the round.

And it's genuinely fun to watch a team gel — four people converging on one ball, arguing about the line, then all making the same putt in sequence.

💰The wager

In 2 v 2, scramble settles team against team on strokes of difference: the margin is paid once by the losing pair and split evenly between them. In one-team mode there is nothing to settle — you're building a card for a committee, not a bet.

Friendly · $0.50 / strokeStandard · $1 / strokeGrown folks · $2–5 / stroke

Team scramble scores cluster tightly — a normal 2 v 2 finishes within 2–6 strokes — so the per-stroke number needs to be higher than in individual stroke play to make it interesting.

Mixed handicaps? Play it net.Scramble uses the USGA allowances rather than plain strokes — 35% of the low handicap plus 15% of the high for a pair, or 25/20/15/10% for a full team — so mixed teams are balanced by formula, automatically. Battle Tees computes every player's course handicap from their index and the tees they actually played, then keeps gross and net side by side, live, on every phone — so the scratch sees their real number while everyone bets the one that decides the money. It is the difference between a group that bets and a group that talks about betting.

Battle Tees never touches the money. The app scores it, applies your handicaps, and shows exactly who owes whom at the end — one clean list, no arguing on the tailgate. You settle it in the parking lot, the way golfers always have.

In Battle Tees

Your group, your point structure.Every group has its own house rules, and the app bends to them instead of the other way round. In Scramble that means 2 v 2 or one team of four, which changes the USGA allowance the app applies (35%/15% for pairs, 25/20/15/10% for a foursome) and whether there's anything to settle at all. Change any of it in setup before the round — the scoring, the standings and the settle math all follow automatically, and the numbers ride along to every phone in the group.

In one-team mode there's nothing to settle — hand the card to the committee. In 2 v 2, settlement pays by strokes of difference.

If you like Scramble, try these

⚔️ Play Scramble in Battle Tees — request beta access Battle Tees — thirteen golf games, one scorecard, settled before the parking lot