UMBRELLA
The same five points as Scotch, but each one is worth the number of the hole. The eighteenth is worth eighteen times the first, so nothing is over until it is over.
Umbrella is a points game that gets steadily more serious as the round goes on. Five things are worth a point on every hole, and the point is worth the number of the hole you are playing. A point on the first is worth one. The same point on the fifteenth is worth fifteen.
The arithmetic runs away from you by design. The front nine is worth 45 points in total; the back nine is worth 126. A side that wins the front nine comfortably can be three holes from losing the match badly, and both sides know it standing on the tenth tee.
The five points
One point each, worth the hole number, for:
- Low net score on the hole
- Low combined net for the side
- Green in regulation for the first partner
- Green in regulation for the second partner
- A net birdie from anyone on the side
Two of the five being individual greens in regulation is what gives Umbrella its character. Both partners have to hit the green to collect both, so the pressure lands on whoever is playing second into the hole.
Ties are worth nothing
As in Scotch: if both sides tie on any of the five, neither side scores it. On the seventh hole, two sides making the same low net is not seven points each. It is nothing to anybody.
The umbrella
Sweep all five on a hole and the total doubles. On the fifth that is fifty points instead of twenty-five; on the sixteenth it is a hundred and sixty. This is the shot that decides matches, and it is where the name comes from: the sweep covers everything.
Make it your own
Swap points for what your group actually argues about. Up and down from off the green in regulation is the most common substitution. Some groups replace one of the greens-in-regulation points with fewest putts to reward the short game instead of the long.
Handicaps
Full course handicap, allocated normally. The two scoring points and the net birdie are all net; the greens in regulation are gross. Nobody gets an extra green for being a twenty.
Scoring it
Loop keeps all five, and does the arithmetic that makes this game hard to run on paper.
Set a round to Umbrella and the card gains an extras line under every player. Tap GIR for anyone who hit the green in regulation, and the rest comes off the scores. Loop multiplies each point by the hole number, voids the ties, doubles a sweep and shows the running total. Nobody has to keep a column of increasing numbers in their head on the sixteenth tee.
The two greens-in-regulation points go by how many greens each side hit: the first to a side that hit one when the other hit none, the second to a side that hit both when the other did not.
When to play it
Once a trip, and preferably on the day everyone has written off. The back-nine weighting means a group that is out of the individual competition entirely still has a live match on the sixteenth tee, which is exactly what the fourth day of a golf trip needs.