At the start of each year of the golf calendar, Oakleigh Golf Club develops a syllabus documenting the various competitions held throughout the year. The forms of the game offered by the Club, which would vary on a weekly basis (and at the Captain’s discretion), include:
- Stroke
Strokeplay is the most common form of competition at most professional tournaments. In stroke play, every player (or team) competes all 18 holes and counts the total number of strokes and the party with the lower total nett score (gross score minus handicap) wins.
- Stableford
Stableford is a form of strokeplay where the scoring is made by points awarded in relation to a fixed score at each hole as follows:
Hole played in points:
2 or more over fixed score = 0 points
1 over fixed score = 1 point
Par (fixed score) = 2 points
1 under fixed score = 3 points
2 under fixed score = 4 points
3 under fixed score = shout the bar
Playing to your handicap should yield 36 points
- Foursomes
A foursome (defined in Rule 29 of the “Rules of Golf”) is played between two players in partnership, playing one ball which they hit alternately. O ne player tees off on the odd numbered holes, the other on the even holes, regardless of who played the last putt on the first hole. The other shots are played in turns until the hole is finished. Penalty shots do not affect the order of play. Foursomes can be played under match play or stroke play rules.
Canadian foursome each player plays his/her own ball from the tee and the players then decide together which ball is in the best position and the other ball is taken out of play.
- Match play
In match play, two players (or two teams) play every hole as a separate contest against each other. The party with the lower score wins that hole, regardless of how many shots he won the hole by. If the scores of both players or teams are equal the hole is “halved” (drawn). The game is won by that party that wins more holes than the other. - 4 ball best ball
The same as foursomes but each player plays with his own ball and the better score of the team counts. Four-balls can be played as match play or stroke play. (Defined by rules 30 and 31).
A slightly different form is Best-Ball, in which one player plays against the better ball of the two players
- Par
- Any hole for which a player makes no return, i.e. a bogey of greater, is regarded as a loss (minus).
- A hole which is parred is a square
- A hole which is birdied (or better) is a win (plus)
The winner is the player who is most successful in the aggregate of holes.
- Ambrose
Each player in a team (of two, three or four players) tees off on each hole and the players decide which shot was best. Other players then picks up their ball and play their second shot from that position and the procedure is repeated until the hole is finished. The lifted balls must be placed within one scorecard’s width of the selected position. If on the green, the balls are to be placed within one putter head of the marker.
Ambrose handicaps are used in the game, as in strokeplay. The net score is the total gross score minus the adjusted handicap. The adjusted or team handicap is calculated by dividing the total of all handicaps of a team by two times the number of players in a team, so 1/8 of the aggregate for a 4-person team, 1/6 of the aggregate for a 3-person team and 1/4 of the aggregate for a 2-person team.