For several years, Division 3 and Division 5 have played a tournament as a “Division Challenge”. This Division Challenge, or team format, explained below, uses the same scoring process as high school and college cross-country team competitions. Applied to golf, this can be used to pit an unlimited number of teams against each other. The teams can be made up of individual competitors, 2-person scrambles, 4-person scrambles, best ball, “Ryder Cup”, or any other golf competition.
Scoring is simply as follows. The top finisher gets a score of 1. The 2nd place gets a score of 2; 3rd place a 3, etc. Before the event, it is decided how many finishers on each team make up the team score. If there is a tie, for example for 15th place, then both get a 15 and the next finisher gets a 17.
In the attachment of the results of the 2017 Division 3 and Division 5 competition, we counted the top 10 finishers from each team (in this case, the teams were 2-person scrambles). Two finishers tied for 15th. We then added up the scores of the top ten finishers and Division 5 won with only 102 points to Division 3’s 107 total – very close.
One of the interesting features of this type of scoring is that finishers from one team, who do not count in the scoring, can actually push the other teams scoring higher. In the example above, Division 5’s 10th finisher got a score of 19 and Division 3’s 10th finisher got a score of 20. If Div. 3’s 10th finisher had finished 19th and pushed the Division 5 finisher to 20th, the total score would have been 103 to 105 – extremely close. Additionally, if Division 3’s 11th, 12th and 13th finisher had beaten Division 5’s 10th place finisher and pushed that person’s score on up to 23rd, Division 3 would have won 105 to 106.
One of the terrific and unique qualities for this team scoring is that these 20th to 30th finishers are just as important to the final score as 1st and 2nd. It truly is a team event.
If you are interested in adding a Metro Seniors Special Event for 2019 that would be team based like this – maybe 5 Divisions? – then let your Special Event Committee representatives know your thoughts on this.