Stableford
is a scoring system used in the sport of golf. It involves scoring points based
on results at each hole. Unlike traditionally scored golf, where the object is
to have the lowest score, in Stableford rules, the objective is to have the
highest score.
Scoring
Before play starts, players
should adjust the pars on the course to their handicap. For example, a player
with a handicap of 18, would increase the par on every hole by one. In the UK,
the par is adjusted per the stroke index (SI) of the hole. As 1 is the hardest
and 18 is the easiest hole, shots are allocated in order of difficulty. Here are
a few examples: A six handicap golfer would adjust the par (add one) to holes
with SI 1-6. A 28 handicap golfer would receive 2 shots on SI 1-10, and 1 shot
for SI 11-18. A plus 2 handicap golfer would lose two shots on SI 17-18 (as
these are the easiest holes). Stableford is a popular form of the game,
especially at club level. It tends to benefit higher handicappers, as they are
not punished as harshly for bad holes (i.e., minimum score is 0) and better
players are not rewarded for their relative consistency.
The points scoring method is not
a cumulative number that indicates how you fared relative to par. Instead, you
gather a certain number of points on every hole. That number is determined by
your score. There are different forms of Stableford that use different point
levels, so here are the points:
If you reach 2 strokes over your
adjusted par, you may pick up your ball as you cannot do any better or worse and
resume play on the next hole. At the end of the round, all points scored are
added for each nine holes and totaled for the eighteen. The player with the most
points is declared the winner.
The Stableford competition has
one major advantage: it means you can have one or two bad holes, and compensate
for them during the other holes. This is because you would achieve no points on
these holes, rather than gaining many strokes as you would playing stroke play.