eventsformats
Split Teammates Up or Keep Them Together?
How to put a team golf event into playing groups: why some events split teammates, the usual shapes for teams of two, three and four, and when not to.
You have your teams. Now you need playing groups: the four (or three, or six) people who walk the fairways together. Most organizers put a team in one group and never think about it again.
Some events split them up on purpose. I know one that sends every team of four out as two pairs in two different groups. My guess is it’s there to limit cheating: if the other team keeps your card, nobody writes down a friendly 5.
Why split teammates
Honest cards. Put two teams in a group and each side keeps the other’s scores. You never mark your own teammate, and “that was a 5, right?” gets checked by someone with a reason to check it.
A mixed field. If you only ever play with your own team, the event is a set of private rounds sharing a leaderboard. Split the teams and people meet. For a club trying to get members playing with someone new, that alone is worth it.
Pace. Four teammates in one group can turn every green into a strategy meeting about the team total. Two from each side keeps the talk shorter and the group moving.
The usual shapes
| Team size | Playing group | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Foursome | Two teams per group. The standard. |
| 2 | Sixsome | Three teams per group. |
| 3 | Threesome | Each team plays on its own. |
| 3 | Sixsome | Two teams per group. |
| 4 | Foursome | Each team is its own group. |
| 4, split | Two foursomes | Each team goes out 2+2, each pair with half of another team. |
Ask the course before you plan on sixes.
The split four is the one worth spelling out. Take Team A and Team B:
- Group 1: A’s first pair and B’s first pair.
- Group 2: A’s second pair and B’s second pair.
Both teams play in both groups, and in each group one team’s pair keeps the other pair’s card. Put the two groups back to back on the tee sheet so each team’s halves finish around the same time and the team total isn’t waiting on a group two hours behind.
When to keep a team together
- They share a ball. In a scramble, shamble, alternate shot, or greensomes, teammates pick a shot or hit the same ball, so they have to be in the same group. (Which formats play one ball.)
- Teams of two in a foursome. The other team is already right there keeping your card. You get the honest-card benefit without splitting anyone.
- The partner is the point. A member-guest, a couples’ day, a parent and child: people entered to play with each other. Split them and you’ve broken the reason they signed up.
How Swilkin handles it
You make the teams. Swilkin builds the playing groups from the team size, and one choice splits teammates across groups.
Set up an event · can it pick the teams for us? · free for golfers.
More organizer reading: shotgun, split tee or one tee and member-guest formats that actually work.