It’s time to take a break and look at some golf history. LIFE Magazine recently released a photo gallery of the 10 Greatest Golfers. Here’s their list along with a brief description of their accomplishments:

10. Gene Sarazen
Sarazen is one of five men to have won all four majors, including the British Open in 1932. His double eagle in the 1935 Masters is one of the most famous shots in golf history.

9. Walter Hagen
Hagen ranks third all-time in majors, with 11, including a record-tying five PGA Championships. He was the first superstar pro golfer, at a time when pros were frowned upon.

8. Gary Player
Player did not get as much press as Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, but he was a major force when they were in their prime, with nine majors, a career Grand Slam, and more than 130 worldwide wins.

7. Arnold Palmer
Palmer’s place in history is due to his personality as much as his play (seven majors). As the face of golf when it was first televised, the King helped the sport surge in popularity.

6. Byron Nelson
Though Lord Byron retired at age 34, he won a career Grand Slam (five total majors) and had the greatest season ever: Eighteen victories in 1945, including a mind-boggling 11 in a row.

5. Sam Snead
Sporting his famed straw hat, Snead was a winning machine for his entire career, with a record 82 PGA Tour victories, including seven majors.

4. Bobby Jones
Competing only as an amateur, Jones won his era’s majors (the U.S. Open and Amateur, the British Open and Amateur) 13 times, including all four in 1930 for golf’s only “true” Grand Slam.

3. Ben Hogan
Hogan is considered the best ball striker in the history of the game, with club control that is admired to this day. He used that swing to win 64 PGA Tour events and nine majors.

2. Tiger Woods
It’s only a matter of time before Woods ascends to the top spot. He already has 14 majors and, still only 33, has won 70 PGA Tour starts as a pro. He was golf’s youngest and fastest to 50 tour wins. He is 35-1 on the PGA Tour when in the lead going into the final round of a tournament. (That’s not a typo; 35-1!) And on and on …

1. Jack Nicklaus
The greatest ever (for now), Golden Bear is an 18-time major winner and, perhaps even more incredibly, a 19-time major runner-up. That speaks to a monumental talent tied to an almost indomitable will. Just amazing.

Be sure to click through the links to see pictures in the photo gallery.

The definitions of the “scramble” format and the “best ball” format were provided in the last two previous posts. At first glance they seem very similar, but they are actually very different. After looking around for the real differences, I came across a great blog post by Nick Momrik over at MtDewVirus.com:

In a scramble, each player hits their own shot from the tee. The team then chooses the best shot. Players whose shots were not selected, go pick up their ball and the entire team shoots their second shots from where this “best shot” came to rest, (typically) with the option of shooting from within a club length of this “best ball” spot (except on the green of course). You cannot, however, move from rough to fairway, or fringe to green. After the second shot, this process continues as many times as necessary until a ball is in the hole. The team score for each hole is how many “best shots” were needed.

In a best ball format, each player on a team plays their ball from where it ends up (no “best shot” or picking up and moving the ball to another location). It can be viewed as each player playing a typical round of golf, with their own score for each hole. The team score for each hole is the lowest score by any one player. As an example, a team of 4 players shoot 4, 5, 4, and 6 on a hole. The team score for this hole would be a 4 because it was the lowest score.

Both formats have advantages and disadvantages.

By playing in a scramble, teams are able to put up some low scores, because there is a good chance that 1 out of 4 golfers will have a pretty decent shot. One thing I do find in scrambles is that players do no play their typical golf game. If the first player to tee of hits one safely down the fairway, every player after usually tries to crank one a mile, leading to bad habits.

When playing a best ball format, each player gets to play their own game. This gives everyone the chance to know how they scored for the course, because each player has an individual score for each hole. The team scores are usually much higher with this format, because it’s not a collective effort for each shot, like in a scramble.

My previous post defined the word “scramble”, which is a popular format for tournament golf play. At first thought, a “scramble” sounded very similar to “best ball”, another popular format. Let’s look at the definition of “best ball”, as provided by About.com’s Golf section:

Definition: Along with the scramble, “best ball” is one of the most popular golf tournament formats.

Best ball can be played using 2-, 3- or 4-person teams. Each player on the team plays his or her own golf ball throughout the round, and on each hole the low score – or “best ball” – of the group serves as the team score. Player A gets a 5, B gets a 4, C gets a 6, D gets a 6, then the team score for that hole is 4, because the low score of the group was B’s 4.

Best ball is usually played as stroke play with the total score added up at the end of the round. It can be played as match play, but best-ball match play with more than 2-person teams results in a lot of halved holes.

When using 3- or 4-person teams, it’s almost imperitave to apply handicaps so that the weaker players will be able to contribute.

A 2-person best ball match play competition is also known as Four Ball.

“Best ball” can also refer to a competition in which a single player plays match play against a 2- or 3-person team playing best ball. That variation is good for a low-handicapper taking on a team of higher handicappers.

In preparation for the new golf season, and to look ahead toward one of this season’s goals, let’s see exactly what a “golf scramble” is. Here is the definition from About.com’s Golf section:

Definition: The Scramble is one of the primary forms of tournament play for golf associations, charity events and the like. A scramble is usually played with 4-person teams, but 2-person scrambles are popular, too. At a 2-person scramble, handicaps are usually applied; at a 4-person scramble, handicaps are usually not applied – unless it is an Ambrose-style scramble.

In a scramble, each player tees off on each hole. The best of the tee shots is selected and all players play their second shots from that spot. The best of the second shots is determined, then all play their third shots from that spot, and so on until the ball is holed.

When played as a foursome, teams are usually constructed with an A player, B player, C player and D player, with those players designated based on handicaps. The A player would the low-handicapper, the D player the high-handicapper.

A scramble might require A and B players to tee off from the back tees and C and D players from the middle tees; or A’s from the back, B’s and C’s from the middle and D’s from the front; or the tournament organizers might specify that all players play from the same set of tees.

I knew that golf involved simple mathematics: counting your strokes on each hole, adding them all up at the end, and subtracting your total score from the course par total to get your score “over par”. But this game got a little more complicated…

Course hole handicaps
I was looking into golf handicaps today, and trying to learn a little more about them. When I was at Chick Evans with Mike, he was explaining to me what the handicap number for each hole on the score card meant. The lowest number handicap (1) means that the hole is the hardest, and the highest number handicap (18) means the hole is the easiest. After looking at the handicap number for each of the holes, it makes sense that the par 5 holes will have the lowest handicap number, and the par 3 holes will have the highest handicap number.

After researching course hole handicaps, Mike was very close to being correct. Golf Digest published an article back in February 2004 called “Solving the mystery of a hole’s assigned handicap“, and it states:

The handicap ranking assigned to each hole on a course doesn’t necessarily reflect the difficulty of making a good score there. The lower-numbered holes are where higher-handicap players most need a stroke to halve the hole when competing with a better player.

Golfer’s handicaps
Course hole handicaps seem pretty simple to understand, but there are more to golf handicaps. After a simple search on the definition of a golf handicap, Wikipedia told me this:

A golf handicap is a numerical measure of an amateur golfer’s playing ability. It can be used to calculate a net score from the number of strokes actually played, thus allowing players of different proficiency to play against each other on somewhat equal terms.

That means next time I play with a non-noob, if we factor in handicaps, I have just an equal chance of winning. I like that.

So what is my handicap?
This is where the more complex mathematics comes into play. There are a couple of things that need to be taken into consideration when determining a player’s golf handicap:

• The gross score (total score) from the most recent rounds
• The course rating and slope rating for those rounds

There are also some terms that can be defined. A “scratch golfer” is a golfer who’s handicap is 0. A “bogey golfer” is a golfer who’s handicap is 18. Handicaps below 0 are known as “plus” handicaps.

A course rating is generally between 67 and 77, and marks the average “good score” by a scratch golfer. A course slope rating is a ratio that is generally between 105 and 155, and marks the difficulty of the course for a bogey golfer compared to a scratch golfer.

With these values, for each round of golf, you can determine the handicap differential (rounded to the nearest tenth) using this formula:

Handicap differential = (gross score – course rating) × 113 / (slope rating)

Knowing all of the handicap differentials for each round of golf, you can determine the handicap index. To find the handicap index, you take the average of the best 10 differentials of the last 20 rounds, and multiply it by 0.96. If the golfer has posted at least 5 rounds of golf, but fewer than 20, then the index is calculated using between 1-9 differentials (see the table in the Wikipedia article).

There is also a course handicap to calculate, which is the number of stokes to deduct from golfer’s gross score to determine the net score. The course handicap uses this formula (and rounds to the nearest whole number):

Course handicap = (handicap index) × (slope rating) / 113

The Wikipedia article also mentions something about equitable score control, but that’s a little too much for me to grasp right now.

Now… what is MY handicap?
Well, it turns out I need to play 5 rounds of golf to figure this out. After my fifth round, I’ll determine my approximate handicap (real handicaps are given out by the USGA).

To make the process of determining your handicap much simpler, there are many golf handicap calculators on the web.

Special thanks to all the Wikipedia authors who put that article togethers so I can better understand golf handicaps.