CHEETAH
Two dots on every hole: one for the best individual score, one for the best team score. Half individual competition, half team game, and it swings right to the end.
Cheetah asks two questions on every hole and pays a dot for each. Which side had the single best score? And which side had the best combined score? A side can take both, split them, or, if both questions tie, neither side gets anything.
It is a clean way to run two competitions at once. Better ball and aggregate are both on the card at the same time, so the player having a hot day is worth something to the side and so is the pair who both grind out pars.
How you play it
Everyone plays their own ball into the hole and holes out. The combined dot means every score counts.
Then award up to two dots:
- One dot to the side with the lowest single net score on the hole.
- One dot to the side with the lowest combined net score.
Ties on either dot mean neither side gets it. That matters more than it sounds: on a hole where both sides make the same best score and the same total, nothing happens at all, and the hole is a genuine stalemate rather than a hollow half each.
Most dots takes the nine, and most dots over eighteen takes the round.
Modified: counting the best few
With sides of three or four, the combined dot should count only the best two or three scores rather than everybody's, for exactly the reason it does in aggregate. Otherwise one wipe hands the dot over before anyone has putted.
The individual dot is unaffected. It is always the single lowest score on the side, however many people are on it.
Handicaps
Full course handicap, allocated normally. Cheetah rewards both ends of the field by design. The low handicapper takes individual dots, the steady middle of the side takes combined dots, so there is no reason to cut anybody.
Why it works
Most team formats reward one kind of golf. Better ball rewards the hot hand and ignores everyone else; aggregate rewards consistency and punishes the flyer. Cheetah pays for both at once, which means nobody in the side is ever irrelevant and the two dots often split, keeping the match close.
It is also very easy to follow in your head walking off a green: who had the best, and who had the best total. Two questions, two dots, move on.
When to play it
Any day of the trip, with any size of side. Cheetah is the best all-rounder on this list, forgiving enough that a bad hole is survivable and demanding enough that everyone has to contribute. It works equally well as a one-off match or as the running team game underneath a whole week.