How a 'Blind Partner' Tournament Works
A Blind Partner tournament begins with golfers being grouped into foursomes, but those foursomes are not partnerships. Each golfer is playing individual stroke play and will turn in his or her score at the end of the round.
When the last group leaves the No. 1 tee (or when all groups have hit their tee balls in a shotgun start), tournament organizers decide who is partnering whom. They might literally draw names from a hat: Golfer X and Golfer Y are the first two names drawn? They are now partners, even though they won't know it until tournament play ends. If organizers are using tournament software, they probably will let the computer program randomly assign partners.
When tournament play ends, the "blind partners" are revealed, and their scores are combined according to whatever scoring format is in use. And any scoring format can be used. Maybe it's as simple as combining the stroke totals of the partners, and low combined total wins. Or maybe the format is 4-person teams, best ball (the one low ball per hole among the four partners).
And a Blind Partner tournament can use teams of two, three or four players. If you are playing such a tournament, you might be finding out the identity of one, two or three partners after the round, depending on the organizers' chosen format.
Luck plays a large part in a Blind Partner tournament. You might wind up partnered with other golfers who played great that day ... or who played lousy.
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