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How to Set Up a Four-Person Best Ball Event in PlayThru

PlayThru's live golf event scoring system can support 4-Person Best Ball golf events. 

What Is 4-Person Best Ball?

4-Person Best Ball is a golf event scoring format where up to four players are assigned to the same team. Each golfer records their score on each hole. The team score is calculated by looking at the best score of the four players on each hole and adding up the total. 

For example, Keith, Lana, Lex and Michelle are on team "Boring Moehrings." On hole 1, Keith shoots a double bogie, Lana shoots bogie, Lex shoots par, and Michelle shoots a birdie. Michelle's birdie is what counts for the team score.  


PlayThru automatically calculates team 4-Person Best Ball scores as players enter their hole scores throughout the round. At any time, golfers can view the live leaderboard and see how their team is playing against the other teams in the field.

How to Set Up a 4-Person Best Ball Event

Here's how to set up a 4-Person Best Ball event in PlayThru. 

Step 1: Choose Your Format

Create your event. In the Event tab, select the "Four-Person Best Ball" Game Format. You can choose to use Stroke or Point scoring. If you choose points, you can update the standard Stableford points with custom point values (including negatives). 

Next, select if you're playing with handicaps and if those handicaps need to be adjusted for the course.

Step 2: Add Pars

Next stop is the Course Tab. Here you need to add hole pars for the different tee boxes from which your golfers will be playing.

PlayThru needs the To-Par hole scores to calculate the team score. PlayThru's 4-Person Best Ball scoring uses To-Par values. You won't be able to access the scorecard link until the par values are all entered.

You can associate golfers with different tees.

Step 3: Add Your Golfers

Now, it's time to add your golfers. In the Golfers Tab, you'll add all your golfers individually. In each golfer line, you should see a space to enter in a "4PBB Team". Enter the name of the team the golfer is playing on. 

IMPORTANT—Make sure each occurrence of the team name is written exactly the same for each golfer. If the names are different, you'll see two versions of the team on the leaderboard. 

Now share your event link with all your golfers.

How to Keep Score

Instruct your golfers to open the event link on any mobile browser. They'll be taken to the Golfer Select screen, where they will see a list of all golfers.

The scorekeepers will then select the names of the golfers they are keeping scores for. The scorekeeper can select up to four golfers, and they do not need to be on the same team.

From there, the scorekeeper will be taken to their starting hole, where they can start entering in hole scores.

IMPORTANT - Golfers must enter their individual scores, not the score for the team. PlayThru will calculate the team score automatically.

On The Leaderboard

The leaderboard and Top 3 Snapshot Leaderboard will show team scores. At any time, golfers can access the leaderboard to view how their team is fairing against the others in the group.

On the main leaderboard, anyone can also view the full to-par scorecard of each team by tapping that team's name.

Ties

PlayThru breaks 4-Person Best Ball team ties according to USGA rules. It first adds up the team's last 9 hole scores (holes 9-18 for 18 hole events or holes 1-9 for 9 hole events) and compares them with the last 9 hole scores of the tied teams. The lower score (or higher if playing points) gets the edge.

If the last 9 hole totals are tied, PlayThru compares the total of the last 6 holes, and then the last 3 holes, and then the last hole played.

If the teams are still tied, teams are sorted alphabetically.

Individual Golfer Scores

You can also run an individual event in the same scorecard with our Multi-Game Scoring feature. Learn how to combine two golf competitions in one scorecard here.

Not Finding Answers

If you have additional questions, please email support@golfplaythru.com or complete the form below.