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Shamble Tournaments

Create and manage Shamble team tournaments — the hybrid format that combines a scramble's team drive with individual best ball play.

Overview

In a Shamble (also called a Bramble), all players tee off and the team selects the best drive. Then, from that drive location, each player plays their own ball individually to the hole. The best individual score(s) count as the team score.

Key Features:

  • Team-based competition (2-4 players per team)
  • Scramble tee shot + individual best ball finish
  • Standard and Texas Shamble variants
  • Configurable best ball count (1 or 2 individual scores count)
  • Drive selection tracking with Texas Shamble minimum drive requirements
  • Individual USGA handicap allowances (80%) for fair NET scoring
  • Real-time counting score indicators during score entry
  • Player contribution tracking
  • Tournament branding, skills contests, flights

Premium Feature: Creating Shamble tournaments requires an active Premium subscription. All users can participate.

Shamble Format Variants

Standard Shamble

All players tee off. The team selects the best drive. Everyone moves their ball to that drive location and plays their own ball individually to the hole.

Best for: Groups wanting more competition than a scramble but still with the team tee shot advantage.

Texas Shamble

Same as Standard Shamble, but each player's drive must be used a minimum number of times during the round (typically 4 out of 18 holes). This prevents the best player from always having their drive selected.

Best for: Ensuring all team members contribute off the tee.

How Scoring Works

Team Score

After the team drive, each player plays their own ball. The team score is determined by:

  • Best 1 score (default): The single best individual score on each hole counts
  • Best 2 scores (optional): The two best individual scores are summed

Handicaps

  • Each player receives individual handicap strokes based on their course handicap
  • USGA recommended allowance: 80% of individual course handicap
  • Strokes are allocated to holes by stroke index (hardest holes first)
  • This applies to scoring after the drive, not the drive itself

NET vs GROSS

  • NET scoring (recommended): Each player's score is reduced by their handicap strokes before the best scores are selected
  • GROSS scoring: Raw scores used, no handicap adjustment

Shamble vs Scramble vs Best Ball

FactorShambleScrambleBest Ball
Tee shotTeam picks best driveTeam picks best shot (all shots)Everyone plays their own ball
After driveIndividual playTeam picks best shotIndividual play
ScoringBest N individual scoresSingle team scoreBest N individual scores
CompetitionMedium — individual skill matters after the driveLow — team carries weak playersHigh — every player's score matters on every shot
PaceMediumFastSlightly slower

How to Use

Creating a Tournament

  1. Open the menu (hamburger icon, top-right on mobile) → Games → Tournaments
  2. On the Tournament Hub, tap the Shamble card
  3. Click "Create Tournament" (Premium subscription required)
  4. Follow the 4-step wizard:

Step 1: Tournament Details

  • Name, date, course, tees, branding (same as other tournament types)

Step 2: Format Settings

  • Choose variant: Standard Shamble or Texas Shamble
  • For Texas Shamble: set minimum drives per player (default 4)
  • Select how many individual scores count: 1 (Best Ball) or 2 (Two Best Balls)
  • Select scoring type (Net or Gross)
  • Set max score per hole (optional)

Step 3: Registration Settings

  • Max teams, flights, guests, start type (same as other tournament types)

Step 4: Review & Create

Adding Teams & Starting

Same as Best Ball: add at least 2 teams (Teams tab), assign every team to a playing group (Manage tab → Manage Playing Groups), then Start Tournament. Start stays locked until all teams are assigned.

Deleting a team drops it from its playing group, and a re-created team is unassigned even if it has the same name and players — re-check groups before starting.

Date, course, tees, format, team size, scoring type and max score per hole lock when the tournament starts and stay locked once it's completed; name, description, visibility and branding stay editable. See Best Ball for the full walkthrough.

Entering Scores

Shamble score entry has two parts per hole:

  1. Select Drive: Choose whose tee shot the team is playing from. Each player's button shows their running drive count (e.g. Chad (2)). Required for Texas Shamble; optional for standard Shamble (the picker is labeled (optional) and the hole saves without it).
  2. Enter Individual Scores: Each player enters their score from the selected drive location

The score entry screen shows both sections together:

  • A live team position in the header (e.g. 🏆 2nd of 6) that updates in real time as any team posts a hole — so you can see your place without leaving the scorecard. It appears once your team has scored a hole, shows ties as T2 of 6, and reflects your flight when flights are enabled
  • Drive selection grid at the top
  • Individual player +/- score entries below
  • Counting indicators (stars) show which scores contribute to the team total
  • Team score summary at the bottom

Every drive button shows that player's running drive count (e.g. Chad (2)). For Texas Shamble, an additional drive-progress banner tracks each player against the per-player minimum (e.g. 2/4) and warns once a player can no longer reach it.

Playing Over More Than One Day

A tournament can run 2, 3 or 4 rounds — the same teams, the same course, one round a day. Every round's score adds to the team's running total, so a team that is −2 on day 1 and +3 on day 2 sits at +1 overall. There is no conversion or normalisation: everybody plays the same schedule, so the totals compare directly.

Setting it up. Create the tournament as normal, then open Settings → Number of Rounds and pick 2, 3 or 4. The count is locked once play starts, and a round that has already been played can never be removed.

Running it. A multi-day tournament gets a Round Controls panel on the Manage tab:

  • Start a round when the field is ready to tee off. Rounds run in order — Round 2 stays locked until Round 1 is marked complete, and the reason is shown right on the row.
  • Complete a round once every team has posted. That does not end the tournament.
  • Reopen a round you completed too early. Only one round can be in play at a time, so if another round is currently active you'll be asked to complete that one first. A finalised tournament can't reopen a round.
  • Complete Tournament stays disabled until every round is complete, since finalising is what settles the results.

Scoring. Players scoring a multi-day tournament land on the round that's in play automatically, and the button names it — Enter Scores — R2 — so there's no doubt which card you're filling in. Each round is its own 18-hole card: day 2 starts fresh at hole 1 (or your shotgun hole) rather than continuing day 1's card.

Between rounds — when no round is in play — the Enter Scores button is replaced by a line telling you why, either "Round 2 hasn't started yet." or "All rounds are complete." (Single-round tournaments are unaffected; their button behaves exactly as it always has.)

The leaderboard gains a row of buttons: one per round, plus Total. A round view ranks that day's card; Total ranks the sum across every round, and a red dot marks the round still in progress. Golf convention applies — a team at −14 after one round leads a team at −9 after two; the "thru" column shows who still has golf to play.

Skills contests can run either way. By default a multi-day tournament awards a winner per round on each contest hole; switch it off in the contest settings to run one winner per hole for the whole event.

Results. The final PDF gains a column per round alongside the overall total.

Troubleshooting

"Do I have to select a drive?"

In a shamble the whole team plays their second shot from the same spot (the selected best drive), and picking it records whose tee shot was used. It's required for Texas Shamble (the pick powers the per-player minimum) but optional for standard Shamble — the picker is labeled (optional) and the hole saves without it. Whenever you do pick, that player's drive count on the buttons goes up.

"What's the difference between Best 1 and Best 2?"

  • Best 1: Only the single lowest individual score per hole counts as the team score
  • Best 2: The two lowest individual scores are summed for the team score (more demanding)

"How does Texas Shamble work?"

Each player's drive must be used at least the minimum number of times (typically 4 of 18 holes). The drive-progress banner shows each player's count against the minimum and warns once a player can no longer reach it. At Complete Round, if any player is short you'll see a modal listing exactly who and by how much. The requirement is advisory — the organizer can Force Complete anyway, and there's no scoring penalty (the score counts as-is).

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