Golf Stableford

Why play Stableford?

One of the most common questions we at FLOGOLF get asked when do a rules exam (regelexam) is, I do not understand the Stableford.

To learn more about Stableford see this article https://www.golf.nl/zelf-golfen/beginnen-met-golf/stablefordsysteem

Although most get the right answer, because we advise people to practice the exam questions in advance, and also we explain the Stableford during our GVB 1 dag or 2 dagen cursus, we find they still do not understand the concept of Stableford

After the exam I always ask the question, why play Stableford? And rarely do I think I get the right answer.

The most common answer I get is “ It allows players of different skill levels to play with each other and still compete against each other”.

Wrong! that is Handicap! Which can be used in other formats like stroke play and matchplay.

So why play Stableford?

What is the point of writing the amount of shots you took on the hole and then converting it into points?

The answer is speed (snelheid)

Stableford is a point scoring system, invented by Frank Stableford, which allows a golfer to pick up his ball when he is having a bad hole and taking too many shots to make any points on a hole but still record a score for their round.

In stroke play the player has to continue until the ball is holed out, if they fail to do so they will be disqualified, as a result, when a player has a bad hole (a lot of shots) this will slow the game down dramatically.

Stroke play is the normal scoring system used by the pro’s you see on tv.

The player with lowest total amount of shots over the duration of the tournament is the winner.

Back to Stableford, Stableford allows a golfer to pick up his ball when he or she can no longer make any points therefore saving time, instead of writing a score down for that hole the player would simple add a dash (streepje), Stableford is like stroke play with a maximum amount of shots that you can hit on a hole, equivalent to 2 over the par (double bogey), of course this is relevant to your personal par after adding any handicap shots.

So if you where playing Strokeplay and the maximum score allowed on any hole was 2 over the par taking your handicap into account, and you picked up your ball and entered that on your scorecard, eg 6 on a par 4, that would be the same result as playing Stableford, and in my opinion a lot less complicated.

So the moral of this story is, once you understand how many shots you can take on any given hole, and you have used them up before getting the ball in the hole, pick up your golf ball, write a dash (stableford) or net double bogey and resume play on the next hole.

Keep it moving!

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