The 2-Man No Scotch Golf Format Explained
2-Man No Scotch works like this: Both partners on a team play their drives, then they switch balls — each plays the other's drive on the second strokes. They select the one best shot from the second strokes and both play from that spot for the third strokes. From the third strokes on, they play a scramble until the ball is holed for the team's score.
You can think of 2-Man No Scotch (also called 2-Person No Scotch) as a combination of Chapman System (in which two partners hit drives, then each plays the other's ball on the second strokes) and a scramble (in which both players play shots, the one with the best outcome is selected and both play their next strokes from that location, and so on for each stroke).
Example of Playing 2-Man No Scotch
To break it down with a specific example of a 2-player team playing a hole in the 2-Man No Scotch format, let's imagine that George and Martha are partners. Starting on the first tee:- Both golfers tee off, so Martha and George hit their respective drives.
- When they walk forward to the balls, Martha goes to George's ball and George goes to Martha's ball. They switch drives, in other words. This is the Chapman System part of 2-Man No Scotch.
- Both golfers play their second strokes, then walk forward to where the balls now sit. Which ball is in the better position? Let's say Martha's second shot is in the best spot. So George picks up his ball, moves it to where Martha's ball is, and both golfers play their third strokes from the spot of Martha's ball. This is the scramble part of the format.
- And from there they continue playing a scramble until the ball is holed. The golfer who holes out first provides the score for the team. (Or, if playing with handicaps, the low net score of the two golfers is the team score.)
What Does 'No Scotch' Mean?
What's the deal with the name — 2-Man No Scotch? What does "No Scotch" mean? In the golf world, when you see "Scotch" in the name of a competition, that is usually a reference to alternate shot. And "alternate shot" means the two partners alternate playing the strokes: If Golfer A hits the drive, then Golfer B plays the second stroke, Golfer A the third, and so on.So when you see "No Scotch" in a format's name, it usually means that there is no alternate shot in that format. Why bother pointing out that there is no alternate shot? A couple reasons, starting with the fact that, once upon a time in golf history, alternate shot was the most-common format played by two-person teams.
But specifically in the case of 2-Man No Scotch, this format starts out borrowing from Chapman System with the switching of balls after the drives. In Chapman System, the golfers would continue from there playing alternate shot. But in 2-Man No Scotch, from the third stroke on the golfers play a scramble. Unlike in Chapman, there is no alternate shot in this format — hence, the "No Scotch" part of the name.
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