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Enter each player's course handicap. This uses the standard USGA-recommended allowances — the same calculation Tourlyx runs when it scores a real scramble.
In a scramble every player tees off, the team picks the best ball, and everyone plays the next shot from there. Four players each getting a swing at every shot score far better than any one of them would alone — so handing the team their full handicaps would make a high-handicap team unbeatable. The allowances below exist to stop that.
Sort the course handicaps from lowest to highest, apply a shrinking percentage to each, add them up, and round to the nearest stroke:
A foursome with course handicaps of 8, 14, 19 and 26:
Total 10.25, which rounds to a team handicap of 10. The team deducts 10 strokes from its gross score — or takes a stroke on each of the 10 hardest holes if you are scoring hole by hole.
Feed this calculator each player's course handicap for the tee they are actually playing, not their handicap index. The conversion matters: an index of 14.0 is a course handicap of 13 on one set of tees and 16 on another, and on a four-player team those differences compound. If your field plays mixed tees, that conversion is worth doing properly — the manual covers it.
Sort the four course handicaps from lowest to highest, then take 25% of the lowest, 20% of the second, 15% of the third and 10% of the highest. Add those four numbers together and round to the nearest whole stroke. These are the allowances the USGA recommends for a four-player scramble.
A twosome uses 35% of the low handicap and 15% of the high. A threesome uses 30/20/10. The same rule applies: sort low to high, apply each percentage in order, add, and round.
Course handicap. Convert each player's handicap index to a course handicap for the tee they are playing first, then feed those numbers in. Using raw index values will give the wrong answer, especially on a course with an unusual slope.
Because four players each hitting a shot and taking the best one score far better than any of them would alone. A full-handicap team would win every event. The sharply reduced allowance is what keeps a scramble competitive against teams of stronger players.
To the nearest whole stroke, with an exact half rounding up. A team that works out to 0.5 becomes 1; a team at exactly 0 plays scratch.
Running the whole event, not just the math?
Tourlyx does this calculation for every team automatically, then handles pairings, live scoring, skins and the final payout.