IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jqsprt/v9y2013i3p217-227n1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scrambled experts: team handicaps and win probabilities for golf scrambles

Author

Listed:
  • Grasman Scott E.

    (Industrial and Systems Engineering, Kate Gleason College of Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, 81 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, New York 14623, USA)

  • Thomas Barrett W.

    (Department of Management Sciences, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, W272 Pappajohn Business Building, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000, USA)

Abstract

Golf is a popular form of competition, and it is traditional for amateur players to use a handicapping system when competing against one another in order to make the competition more interesting and perhaps more equitable. Additionally, the scramble, where each player plays a ball and the better/best of the shots is selected and played (by all players) until the ball is holed, is a popular format for team competition. However, an official handicapping system for scrambles has yet to be developed. This paper develops a model that could provide a rationale for assigning handicaps to multi-person scramble teams with the objective of yielding equitable matches, i.e., equal win probabilities for both/all teams. Probabilistic analysis is used to derive the distributions of team scores and winning probabilities, which can then be use as a mechanism for optimally assigning teams. This paper relaxes many strict assumptions of previous work; results show that equal handicaps are not the best measure of fairness and that player inconsistency may be desirable in scramble formats.

Suggested Citation

  • Grasman Scott E. & Thomas Barrett W., 2013. "Scrambled experts: team handicaps and win probabilities for golf scrambles," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 217-227, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:9:y:2013:i:3:p:217-227:n:1
    DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2012-0024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2012-0024
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/jqas-2012-0024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hurley William J, 2007. "The Ryder Cup: Are Balanced Four-Ball Pairings Optimal?," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 3(4), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Swartz Tim B, 2009. "A New Handicapping System for Golf," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-22, May.
    3. Ball Michael O & Halper Russell, 2009. "Scramble Teams for the Pinehurst Terrapin Classic," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-25, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oberhelman Dennis & Galbreth Michael & Fry Timothy, 2013. "Equitable handicapping of scramble golf tournaments," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 285-300, December.
    2. Puterman Martin L & Wittman Stefan M, 2009. "Match Play: Using Statistical Methods to Categorize PGA Tour Players' Careers," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-63, January.
    3. Ball Michael O & Halper Russell, 2009. "Scramble Teams for the Pinehurst Terrapin Classic," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-25, May.
    4. Wright, Mike, 2014. "OR analysis of sporting rules – A survey," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 232(1), pages 1-8.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:9:y:2013:i:3:p:217-227:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.