Formats
Every game you actually play
Stableford off your full handicap, singles, four-balls, a cup that runs all week or a team day scored off everyone's own card, and a pound a hole on the side. Then the ones for the day the group wants something else: a shamble, a 1-2-3, a mystery player, a pairs game where the points multiply, a yellow ball that doubles whoever is holding it, a scramble off one ball with a team handicap, a blind draw, and straight gross for the man who thinks handicaps are for other people. All of it read off the same eighteen numbers, all of it worked out from the shots each player is actually due.
One scorecard
Four competitions, one number
Nobody plays one thing. You have a card in for the individual, you are two down in your match, and there is a quid riding on the next green. Put a gross score in once and every one of them moves.
- Stableford3points
A shot here off his full twenty, so a net three. Net birdie, three points, straight onto the order of merit.
- Birdies1net birdie
A four on a par four is nothing gross. The net three counts, so it lands on the net birdie board and not the gross one.
- Skins2skins
Net three is the lowest in the group and nobody matches it, so he takes the hole and the skin that carried off the fourth.
- The four-ball4net, halved
In the match he plays off nine, and nine shots stop at stroke index nine. No shot here, net four, and the hole is halved.
Stableford and birdies are counted from every round whatever else is being played, so a day of match play still feeds the order of merit, and so does a shamble, a mystery player or a gross day. The team formats add a competition on top of the same card rather than replacing it.
The individual
Net stableford
The competition that runs the whole week. Every round counts towards it whatever format that round is being played in, and it is always played off your full course handicap.
- Net double or worse0
- Net bogey1
- Net par2
- Net birdie3
- Net eagle4
- Net albatross5
A six on the short sixth is nought and that is the end of it — stableford will not let one hole follow you to the next tee. A hole with nothing in it is not a nought either: it is a hole you have not played, and the total says so.
# hole · Pr par · Si stroke index · Sh shots received · Gr gross · Net net · Pts stableford points
Twenty is eighteen plus two, so stroke index 1 and 2 get a second shot on top of the one every hole gets. That is the six at the fourth turning into a net four and two points.
Head to head
Singles match play
Net score against net score, one hole at a time. Lower wins the hole, level halves it, and the score is holes up — a nine at the last costs you exactly one hole, same as a bogey.
Four up with three to play, so the match is over on the fifteenth green and 16, 17 and 18 are never played. The app closes it out there and writes it up as 4&3 rather than waiting for eighteen scores.
Level in play reads A/S on the board. Level after the last hole is All Square, and in a cup that is half a point each. The shots come from the gap between the two of you — see handicaps.
Two against two
Pairs, four-ball better-ball
Everyone plays their own ball. On each hole the better net score of the two counts for that side, and the two best nets play each other. One of you can make an absolute mess of it and the pair loses nothing by it.
Highlighted is the ball that counted. Doyle's five at the last of these and Hartley's six on the same green never touch the match — only the better net of the two does.
Four-ball is the one where nobody picks up, because your partner being in the trees is exactly when your bogey is worth something. Shots are 90% of the gap to the lowest handicap in the match as standard, and the organiser can move that per round.
Side against side
Shamble
Everyone tees off, the side walks to its best drive, and everyone plays their own ball in from there. Scored in stableford against par with the best two of the four balls counting on every hole, side total against side total.
Pike's six on the first and his seven on the second are on his card and nowhere else. Two of four means the two worst balls on a side are dropped every hole, so a blob costs the side nothing as long as two partners are standing. Two a side and it is the best one of two, the only rule a two-man side can have.
Shots are 85% of your own course handicap and not of the gap to the lowest: Sam Hartley plays off 17 here, Ellis off 9. Points are counted against par, so cutting everyone to the lowest man would only delete points from the higher handicaps. The organiser can move the percentage on any round — see handicaps.
A hole counts once every ball on the side is in. A side one card short has not scored it yet, so the total never lurches when somebody's phone catches up. Your own card still goes on the stableford and birdie boards off your full handicap — all twenty of Sam's, not the seventeen.
One team
1-2-3
Four play their own stableford as one team. On the first hole the best card counts, on the second the best two, on the third all three, then round again down the card. Also called Cha Cha Cha, or Waltz: the same game, one-two-three.
By hole number, not by par, and the rotation is what makes it a game: Ellis's net birdie carries the first on its own, Hartley's eight at the second costs nothing because only two count there, and at the third every card but one is in. The fourth starts the count again at one, so a bad hole from three of you is survivable and a bad hole from all four is not.
One team and no opponent. The total is played against the course, or against another four-ball's total on the same day, so there is nothing to lead and nothing to close out: the round card shows the team's running points and how many cards count on each hole. It does not go on the Ryder Cup board, which is two sides by definition.
Full handicap as standard: everyone plays their own stableford, which is normal individual golf with a counting rule on top, and the organiser can move the percentage on the round. A hole counts once every card is in. Your own card still goes on the stableford and birdie boards as usual, and the same rotation runs a team day across the whole trip.
Side against side
Mystery player
Everyone plays their own ball. On every hole the app draws one mystery player a side and only that card counts: a blob from the man drawn is a blob for the side, whatever the other three did.
Pike's six at the short third was a nought, and it was his card, so the Bogey Boys scored nothing there whatever the other three made. Quinn came up three times in six holes because every hole is its own draw: no rota, nothing to do with the hole before, and the other side's pick is a separate draw again.
Before or after. The organiser chooses whether the mystery player is named on the tee or only once every score on the side is in. After is the default and the version the format is for: nobody knows whose hole it was until the last putt drops, and the app shows nothing that would give it away, not a badge and not a side total, until it is.
The pick comes off the round itself, so every phone gets the same name with no signal and nobody can roll again. Full handicap, because one card counts but a random one, not the best one, and a single card drawn blind is just a card — Pike plays off all twenty-four.
Pair against pair
Russian roulette
Two against two, everyone playing their own ball. On every hole the pair's two stableford scores are multiplied, not added: a two and a three is six, a three and a three is nine, and a nought from either man is nought for the pair whatever his partner made. That is the roulette.
The first is the arithmetic: Ellis's net birdie and Pike's bogey are three times one, and two steady pars from the other side are two times two. Four beats three, and the better ball on the hole lost it. Consistency across the pair is worth more than one man's fireworks.
The second is the roulette. Hartley's eight on the par five is a net double, a nought, and a nought times Taylor's two is nought. Ellis and Pike win the hole three to nothing without either of them breaking par. A hole counts once all four cards are in, because a product read off one card would swing to nought the moment the other arrived.
Exactly two a side, because a side is one pair whose two scores multiply. Shots are the full course handicap by default: a cut to each partner is scaled by the other's score, so any reduction bites twice, and the organiser can type less on a day that wants it — at 85 Pike would play off twenty and Hartley off seventeen. Your own card still goes on the stableford and birdie boards as usual.
One team
Yellow ball
Four play their own stableford as one team, and one yellow ball goes round the group a hole at a time. Everybody's points count on every hole; whoever is holding the yellow ball has theirs counted twice. Lose the ball and the doubles stop for the rest of the round.
Same four, same cards as the 1-2-3 above, a different game. Ellis has the ball on the first and his net birdie is worth six to the team, not three: eight for everybody once and three again for him, eleven. Taylor has it on the second and his three goes in twice; Hartley's nought is a nought whoever is holding what.
Then Doyle puts it in the water on the third. That is the one thing the app cannot work out from the cards, so anyone in the group taps Lost the yellow ball on this hole on the round and every phone stops doubling from that hole on - the third scores seven, everybody once, and it would have been nine. The ball still shows who would have had it, greyed, and a mis-tap has an undo.
The ball goes round in a fixed order the app keeps, so nobody has to remember whose hole it is, and it never moves when someone is renamed. Full handicap as standard, because a card already cut by an allowance would be cut twice on the hole it is doubled; a hole counts once every card is in. Your own card is an ordinary stableford card, so it goes on the stableford and birdie boards and scores a team day exactly as it would on any other day.
One ball
Scramble
Four hit, the team picks the best ball, four play from there. One score a hole, and the handicap is the team's: a quarter of the lowest, a fifth of the next, then 15% and 10%. It reads as strokes under par, gross and net, the way a scramble reads wherever it is played.
Why a team number and not shots on holes: with one ball there is nobody to give a shot to. The four course handicaps go in at 25, 20, 15 and 10 per cent, lowest first - 2.5, 2.4, 2.4 and 2 make 9.3 - and it comes off the total at the end, to a tenth, because a tenth cannot be dealt out hole by hole without inventing a rounding rule.
One number a hole, tapped by whoever is holding the phone, and the hole counts the moment it is in. Sixty-three gross is nine under; take the 9.3 off and the team is 53.7 net, eighteen and a bit under. Net only exists once every hole is in - a 14-hole net is a shorter round, not a score.
Nobody's own card, so nobody's stableford, birdies or skins: a scramble day lives on the Scramble board and nowhere else, and your order-of-merit numbers are exactly what they were the night before.
One ball, by division
Ambrose
The same game with the handicap done the Australian way: add the team's course handicaps and divide - 8 for a four, 6 for three, 4 for a pair. The divisor is typed on the round, so a society with its own rule types its own.
- Scramble · 25 / 20 / 15 / 10 %9.3
- Ambrose · 58 ÷ 87.3
The divisor is typed on the round when it is set up, 8 for a four by default, and stays with the round: a later change to the default never moves a card already played. Type 7.5 if that is your rule; the app refuses anything that is not a positive number up to ten.
Net to a tenth is how it reads - 55.7 - because dividing 58 by 8 is 7.25 and rounding to a whole shot would be someone's opinion. A drive rule (every player's tee shot used so many times) is the group's to keep for now; the app takes only the score.
Everything else is a scramble: one ball, one number a hole, the Scramble board and nowhere else.
One ball, step aside
Florida scramble
Step aside. Whoever's shot the team picks sits out the next stroke, so nobody's putter does all the work. Scored exactly as a scramble.
The par-five second, in prose: all four drive, Doyle's is the one, so Doyle stands and watches the other three hit the second shot. Taylor's finds the green, so Taylor stands and watches the other three putt. Ellis holes it. The team writes down 4.
Only the score to enter. The rota is the group's to keep - the round page says step asideon the card as a reminder and stores nothing about who sat out, because nothing scores differently.
Scored as a scramble: the same team handicap, the same strokes under par gross and net, the same board.
The week
Ryder Cup team scoring
Two sides, a point a match. Every finished side-against-side round between them goes on the board — match play, four-ball, a shamble, a mystery player, a Russian roulette — one for a win, half each for a half, and the running total is the number everybody asks for in the bar.
Bogey Boys lead by 1
4 of 5 points decided
Only finished matches score. One still out on the course shows its state and nothing else — no points move until it is closed out, marked complete, or every hole is in.
Two sides, and only two. A round that is not a clean side-against-side match is left off the board entirely: a player with no team set, or both pairs out of the same dressing room.
A shamble, a mystery player or a Russian roulette between the two sides is a match on this board as well: more points after the last hole is the win, level is a half each. Its tile reads +2 pts rather than 3&2, because a points game is never closed out early — the app will not tell a side to stop playing a match it could still win.
One up with four to play, and worth nothing yet. It is on the board so the group can see it, not so it can be counted.
The week, any number of teams
Team days, on points
Two to eight teams, and nobody plays anything special. Everyone goes out in whatever fourball they like and plays their own stableford off their full handicap; the team day reads those cards and, on every hole, counts the ones the rule you picked says count. Saturday can be best two, Sunday best three, and the trip's standings are the days added up.
The rule is yours, and there is no default: best one, two, three or four cards a hole, the 1-2-3 rotation by hole number, or every card. Every rule caps at the cards a team has, so a team of three and a team of four play the same day under the same rule — best two of three is still the best two — and the board says how many cards each team is playing.
Nothing changes about how a score goes in. A team's four cards can live in four different fourballs, and the same cards run the stableford and birdie boards as usual. A hole counts for the team once every member with a card has scored it, so the total arrives a hole late rather than lurching every time another phone catches up.
Set up where the day is set up: the team day sits at the top of Set Up the Day, on by default for a teams-on-points trip, and starting the rounds makes the day. On every phone the home screen carries the standings — team, points, thru — and the Teams board has the detail.
You switch it on from the Rounds page — a Ryder Cup, team days, skins — and every screen after that stops guessing: the teams are set up, the right board goes first on the leaderboard and the right strip on the home screen. The pairs, match play, scramble and gross boards switch themselves on with the first round of their kind. Any switch can be flipped mid-trip without losing anything.
- Just roundsStableford, match play, pairs — whatever you like each day. No trip-long team score.
- Ryder CupTwo teams. Every match play, pairs, shamble, mystery player or roulette round is a point for the side that wins it.
- Teams on pointsTwo to eight teams, each scored every day from its members’ own Stableford cards under a rule you pick.
Names out of a hat
Blind pairs
Everyone plays their own stableford card off their full handicap, and nobody knows who they are playing with. Afterwards the app draws the field into pairs and adds the two totals together.
- 1Taylor33Ellis3467
- 2Doyle27Pike3966
- 3Prior30Hartley3565
- 4Nolan28Quinn3664
Pike's thirty-nine, best card of the day off twenty-four, drags Doyle's twenty-seven up to second. Quinn's thirty-six is the second-best card there and his pair finishes last. That is the whole point of it.
The draw comes off the round itself, not out of a hat. Every phone shows the same pairs with no signal and no round trip, and there is no stored draw for anybody to pull again after seeing it. It is fixed by who is in the round, which is why the field is set when the round is made: add a player later and the whole draw changes. It needs an even number in, and the app says so before the round exists rather than leaving one man on his own.
Your contribution is exactly the points already against your name on the stableford board — the same full course handicap, no allowance — so the two competitions can never disagree about your card.
No handicaps
Lowest gross
Straight strokes, added up, no handicap anywhere on the card. Only a complete card counts: a round with a hole missing is not a low score, it is no score, because there is no net double bogey to fill the gap with.
- 1Rob Ellis18 holes78
- 2James Taylor18 holes82
- 3Micky Doyle18 holes89
- –Sam Hartley17 holes · no card–
Hartley walked in after seventeen, so he has a round played and no card to rank. He sits under the three who finished rather than vanishing. The board is in order of strokes and nothing else, so Ellis's 78 is top of it.
No shot dots on the card, no net column, and the allowance is nought rather than a hundred so nobody can read it as some shots. The gross board keeps every completed card across the trip and shows your best.
Your stableford and net birdies still run off the same round at the full handicap, so a gross day costs nobody their place in the order of merit.
The side board
Birdies, gross and net
Counted for you out of every round, whatever the round is being played for. Nobody has to remember on the last green who had what on the seventh.
Gross birdies order the board, net birdies break the ties.
- Birdie1
- Eagle2
- Albatross3
It is a weighted count rather than a head count: an eagle is worth two birdies and an albatross three, so the man who holed the second from a hundred and ten yards gets what he is owed.
Net birdies use your full course handicap, the same one the stableford uses, and not the reduced number a team match gives you.
A pound a hole
Skins, with carries
One pot per hole. Lowest net takes it outright; anyone matches it and nobody wins, so the hole carries on to the next one. Two tied in a row and the third green gets very quiet.
- 1James Taylorskins3
- 2Sam Hartleyskins2
- 3Rob Ellisskin1
- 4Micky Doyleskins0
Taylor's net three at the short third took the two riding on it as well as its own, so one putt was worth three skins. That is the whole game.
Four in at a fiver is a twenty pound pot, split evenly over eighteen holes, so a skin is £1.11. Anything nobody wins by the last is listed as unclaimed rather than quietly finding a pocket.
Nothing settles until every player in the group has a score on the hole. The run stops at the first gap and whatever has carried sits there waiting, which is exactly what happens on the course.
The bit people argue about
Handicaps, done properly
Shots are where a trip falls out. score70 works them the way the World Handicap System sets them out, off the course you are actually standing on, and shows its working on the way.
Course handicap = handicap index × (slope ÷ 113) + (course rating − par)
Rounded to the nearest whole shot. Your index travels; the course handicap is what that index is worth on this course off these tees. Enter the slope, the rating and the par once per course and it never has to be worked out again.
Carya: 15.2 × (140 ÷ 113) = 18.83, + 1.2 = 20.03, so Sam Hartley plays off 20.
The match is played off the lowest handicap in it
The lowest player in the match plays off scratch and everybody else gets a percentage of the gap up to him. One hundred per cent in singles, the standard ninety in a four-ball, and the organiser can move it on any round.
20 − 10 = 10. 90% of 10 = 9. They play as 0 and 9.
In the singles the same two play the same course off 0 and 10, because singles is the full difference.
Not on each player's handicap. Take ninety per cent of twenty and you get eighteen, which still has Sam nine clear of a man off ten and cuts the lowest player's shots to nothing he ever had. Taking it off the gap is what keeps the match the match.
Stableford and net birdies use all twenty of Sam's shots in the very round the four-ball gives him nine. The individual competition never inherits a team format's allowance, so the order of merit stays fair across a week of mixed rounds.
A points game is played off your own handicap
A shamble, a 1-2-3, a mystery player and a Russian roulette are scored in stableford points against par, not hole by hole against a man. So the percentage comes off each player's own course handicap and nobody is cut to the lowest in the group. Eighty-five as standard for a shamble, the full hundred for a 1-2-3, mystery player, Russian roulette and blind pairs, and the organiser can move it on any round.
In a match, taking the same shots off both sides changes nothing. In stableford it changes everything, because points are counted against par and stop at nought: score a shamble off the lowest man in it and the twenty-four handicapper posts almost nothing all day.
85% of 20 = 17. 85% of 10 = 8.5, so Ellis plays off 9.
Eighty-five is the recommended allowance for the best two of four cards, which is what a shamble is scored as. It is a convention for a game the handicap system has no row for, and the field is yours.
Mystery player: one card a side counts on each hole, but a random one, not the best one. The best of four cards is better than any single card and the allowance says so; a card drawn blind is just a card, and a single card is scored off the full handicap. Blind pairs is two full cards added, so it is the full number too. Russian roulette multiplies, and a cut to each partner is scaled by the other's score, so any reduction bites twice; start from the full number and type less if the day wants it. A 1-2-3 is four ordinary stableford cards with a counting rule on top and nobody to be fair to but the course.
Shots go on by stroke index
One at stroke index 1, then 2, on down until they run out. Nine shots is the nine hardest holes, and no guessing on the tee about whether this is one of yours.
Hole number above, stroke index in the cell. Butter is a shot.
Everyone gets one on every hole and the remainder starts again at stroke index 1. Off twenty that is two shots on stroke index 1 and 2 and one everywhere else — the pair of sixes on Sam's card that came back as net fours.
A player better than scratch gives shots back, starting at the easiest hole and working down. Off +2 you hand one back at stroke index 18 and one at 17, so a par there is a net bogey. It is written +2 on his card, the way a golfer writes it, and never −2.
Cuts and gifts, for the week only
Every group has one who is playing off a number he had three summers ago, and one who has not broken a hundred since. The organiser can take shots off a player or give them, in half-shot steps, for this trip and no other.
Eighteen at Carya rather than twenty, from the same stored index of 15.2.
The adjustment sits on top of the handicap index for this trip's rounds. The index itself is never touched, so the next trip starts clean and nobody has to remember to put it back.
It takes effect when the next round is set up. Rounds already built keep the handicaps they were built with, so a cut argued out on the Wednesday night cannot move Tuesday's result.
That is the whole of it. Every format on this page is in there now, every one of them scored off the same card, and none of them need a spreadsheet on the way home.
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