How the Designated Hitter Golf Format Works
Designated Hitter, also known as 4-Player Baseball, is a golf tournament format for four-person teams. On each hole, the scores of two of those team members are combined for the team score. And one of those scores must come from the team's "designated hitter."
One of the team's four golfers is the designated hitter on each hole, and that role rotates throughout the round. On each hole, the score made by that designated hitter is combined with the low score of the others to create the team score.
If on Hole 1, for example, Golfer A is the designated hitter and scores 5, while Golfer B makes 6, Golfer C scores 4 and Golfer D scores 5, the team score is nine (the designated hitter's 5 combined with Golfer C's 4) for that hole.
Each player on the team will be the designated hitter four times during the round. That leaves two holes left over. There are a couple different ways to determine the rotation, and a couple different ways to play the two leftover holes:
- The most-common rotation is that Golfer A is the designated hitter on holes 1, 5, 10 and 14; Golfer B gets holes 2, 6, 11 and 15; Golfer C takes holes 3, 7, 12 and 16; and Golfer D is the DH on holes 4, 8, 13 and 17. There is no designated hitter on holes 9 and 18, so on those holes the team uses its two low scores among the four players.
- If the tournament has set up teams so that A, B, C and D represent playing abilities (A being the strongest player, D the weakest), then you can use the Handicap holes as designated on the scorecard to set the rotation. Look at the Handicap line on the scorecard and make Golfer A the designated hitter on Handicap Holes 1, 2, 3 and 4; Golfer B on 5, 6, 7 and 8, and so on with Golfers C and D. This version leaves Handicap Holes 17 and 18 (theoretically the two easiest holes) with no DH, so on those two holes the team combines its two low scores.
More formats:
