Track Any Team Format with Settle Up Golf
Best ball, scramble, shamble — Settle Up Golf handles the scoring math, handicap percentages, and side bets for any team format you set up.
Three of the most common team golf formats, side by side. How each is played, how scoring works, and which to pick for your group.
If you only remember one thing: scramble means the team plays one ball; shamble means the team picks one drive, then each player plays their own ball; best ball means every player plays every shot of their own ball, and only the lowest score on each hole counts for the team.
The structural differences in a single view:
Scramble shares everything. Best ball shares nothing. Shamble splits the difference — one shared shot, then individual play.
In a best ball format (sometimes called "four ball" in match play settings), every player plays their own ball from start to finish on every hole. There is no team selection at any point during play. After every player has finished a hole and recorded their individual gross score, the team takes the lowest score as the team's score for that hole.
In a 2v2 best ball match, the two teams compare their lowest score on each hole — if your partner makes a 4 and you make a 6, your team plays a 4. The opposing team does the same. The lower of the two team scores wins the hole. This is the standard format for the four-ball portion of the Ryder Cup and most member-guest tournaments.
Best ball produces the highest aggregate scores of the three formats because every shot is played by an individual under individual pressure. There is no safety net during the hole — only the result is shared. For competitive players, this is the appeal: best ball rewards individual skill on every stroke, but the team format makes it social.
For full rules and scoring variations, see Best Ball Golf Format.
In a scramble, the team functions as a single unit on every shot. After every player tees off, the team selects the best drive and everyone moves their ball to that spot (typically within one club length, no closer to the hole). Everyone then hits a second shot from that spot. The team picks the best second shot. Repeat for every shot until the ball is in the hole.
The team produces one score per hole — the number of shots it took the team's chosen sequence of "best shots" to finish the hole. There are no individual scores to track, only team totals.
Scramble is the most forgiving format. A bad drive doesn't matter as long as one teammate hit a good one. A bad approach doesn't matter if another teammate is on the green. It's the standard format for charity tournaments, corporate outings, and any event where the goal is fun and a low team score, not individual competition. Four-player scrambles routinely finish 10–20 strokes under par.
Handicap allocation in scramble is usually a weighted percentage of each player's course handicap — commonly 25% of the lowest, 20% of the second, 15% of the third, and 10% of the fourth — summed and applied to the team's gross score.
A shamble is exactly one shared shot per hole — the tee shot. Every player tees off, the team picks the best drive, and every player drops within one club length of that drive (no closer to the hole). From that spot, each player plays their own ball to the hole and records their own individual score. There is no further team selection on approach shots, chips, or putts.
Shamble combines the social safety net of a scramble (no one's stuck on the tee box if they slice it) with the individual accountability of best ball (everyone plays their own approach and putts). Scoring options vary by group:
Shamble scores fall between scramble and best ball. The shared drive lowers scores by 1–3 strokes per round (depending on the strength of the drives), but individual play on approaches and putts keeps things close to a normal round.
For full shamble rules including handicap allocation and Texas shamble variants, see Shamble Golf Format.
Match the format to the group and the goal:
The handicap math is different for each format:
Whatever you choose, agree on the percentages before the first tee. The biggest cause of post-round disputes in team formats is handicap math nobody confirmed at the start.
All three formats work for money games, but each fits a different style:
Best ball is the natural format for serious wagers because individual skill matters on every shot. Pair it with Nassau for front-nine, back-nine, and overall bets, or with match play for hole-by-hole point scoring.
Scramble is best as a single team-vs-team match — too much shared luck for individual side bets to feel meaningful. Add skins if you want a per-hole layer.
Shamble is the most flexible for betting because it supports both team and individual layers simultaneously. Run a team match on the best-ball-after-shamble result, plus an individual side bet on lowest score after the shared drive, plus skins for the lowest individual score per hole. Three games, one round.
"Best ball means the team's best score." True at the hole level, but every player still plays their own ball every shot. The team only "shares" by taking the lowest score after the hole is over.
"Scramble and shamble are the same." They're not. Scramble shares every shot; shamble shares only the tee shot.
"Best ball is just match play." Best ball is a scoring format. Match play is a competition format. You can run best ball stroke play (lowest cumulative team total wins) or best ball match play (each hole compared head-to-head). The Ryder Cup four-ball matches are best ball match play.
"Shamble removes the value of long hitters." The opposite — long hitters are MORE valuable in a shamble than in a scramble. In a scramble, only one player needs to hit a good drive. In a shamble, the long hitter's drive gives every teammate a shorter approach for the rest of the hole.
Best ball, scramble, shamble — Settle Up Golf handles the scoring math, handicap percentages, and side bets for any team format you set up.