SCOTCH

Scotch puts five points on every hole and asks five separate questions to hand them out. It is the format for a group that finds one competition insufficient.

Because all five are live at once, a hole can swing by ten points in a single putt, because winning all five doubles it in most crews, and a side that is well behind after fifteen is genuinely still in it. That volatility is the reason people play it.

The five points

One point each, on every hole, for:

1. Low net score. The best single net score on the hole.
2. Low combined net. The side's scores added together.
3. Fewest putts. As a side, added up.
4. Closest to the pin in regulation. Nearest the hole with the approach that hits the green.
5. A net birdie. One point to any side where anyone makes one.

Ties are worth nothing

This is the rule that makes Scotch work, and the one groups forget. If both sides tie on any of the five, neither side gets the point, and not one each.

It sounds like a technicality. It is not. It means a hole where both sides make the same score and the same number of putts produces nothing at all, and it pushes the value of the round into the holes where somebody actually does something. Halved points would flatten the game into a draw; ignored points keep it swinging.

The sweep

If one side takes all five on a hole, double it: ten points for that hole instead of five. Optional, and worth having. It gives a side that is behind a way back, and turns an ordinary par five into an event.

Make it your own

The five are a starting point, not scripture. Swap any of them for something your group cares about:

• Up and down for par from off the green in regulation
• Longest drive in the fairway
• Fewest penalty shots
• Nobody in the side three-putts

Agree the list before the first tee, write it on something, and do not renegotiate on the twelfth.

Handicaps

Full course handicap on the lowest stroke indexes. The net birdie point and the two scoring points all run off net scores, so strokes fall where they normally would. Putts and closest to the pin are gross measures and are not adjusted. The short game is the short game.

Scoring it

Loop keeps all five. Two of them come off the cards on their own; the other three need a tap.

Set a round to Scotch and the card gains an extras line under every player: putts, GIR and CTP. Tap the number of putts, then tap CTP for whoever was closest. It is one player a hole, so claiming it takes it off whoever had it. Loop settles the five, voids the ties and doubles a sweep.

You will not tap putts as often as you expect. Hitting the green in regulation says what the putts were: you reached the green in par minus two, so everything after that was a putt. Loop fills those in for you, shown faintly on the card. You only type putts on the holes somebody missed the green, which is exactly where the chip-in happens. Tap a number and it overrides the arithmetic.

Nought putts is a real nought, and it wins the point. A putt nobody recorded and nobody can work out leaves the point with nobody, which is the right answer rather than a guess.