Competition structures
Parful runs thisCaptains and lineups in team cups
Also called Team captain, Cup lineup, Pairings, Session lineup.
In a team cup in the Ryder Cup® style each side has a captain who names the lineup for every session: which players go out in which match. On Parful the captain and an assistant must be on the team, the lineup is editable until the session locks, and every pairing is checked against the roster before it is accepted.
- Per side
- One captain and one assistant, both on the team
- A lineup
- The captain's own side of every match in one session
- Editable until
- The session locks: scoring open, a match started, or results locked
- Checks
- Right number per side, all on the roster, nobody in two matches
- Points to win
- Half the points available plus a half: 8.5 of 16
- Tied cup
- Shared
Captains and assistants
A team cup has two sides, and each side is run by a captain. The captain names the lineup for each session, decides who sits when the format does not use everyone, and in most clubs also handles the pairing order. An assistant captain shares the job. On Parful both are members of the club who are also on the team: a captain who is not in the team's player list is a blocking error when the cup is set up, and so is an assistant who is not.
There is no separate captain role in the club's permissions. The competition records who the captain is, and setting a lineup checks that the person acting is that captain. Managers can always edit any lineup.
Sessions and presets
A cup is played as sessions, each with one format: singles, four-ball, foursomes, greensomes, chapman, scramble match or a custom manually scored format. Each match in a session is worth a point, or half a point each when halved, and a session can be weighted by giving its matches a different value. The side that reaches half the points available plus a half wins the cup; with sixteen matches that is 8.5. A tied cup is shared.
Parful offers presets by player count so a club does not have to design the schedule. Eight players: two four-ball matches and four singles for 6 points, or the classic two four-ball, two foursomes and four singles for 8. Twelve players: three four-ball, three foursomes and six singles for 12. Sixteen players, the default: four four-ball, four foursomes and eight singles for 16 points, 8.5 to win. Twenty and twenty-four player presets follow the same pattern, up to the full three-day shape.
Setting and locking a lineup
A lineup is the captain's own side of every match in one session: match 1 gets these two players, match 2 these two, and so on. Parful validates it before it is saved. Every match must have exactly the players the format needs, one for singles and two for four-ball, foursomes, greensomes and chapman; scramble and custom sessions leave the number free. Every player named must be on the team's roster, no player may appear in two matches of the same session, and a match that has already been decided cannot be changed.
The lineup stays editable until the session locks. A session is locked when scoring has opened on it, when any of its matches has started or been decided, or when the competition's results have been locked. Until then a captain can swap a player who has gone lame on the morning of the match.
How Parful runs it
Once a session is lined up its matches are assigned to an outing. Singles and four-ball matches are per-player formats scored on the normal group scorecard, so they feed the outing's grouping: the players on each side must share a group, and committing the groups moves the match from planned to playing. Foursomes, greensomes, chapman and scramble matches score on a team card and are not grouped, so their assignments stay planned until scoring opens on the team card.
The cup board derives everything from the matches: session totals, the running team totals, the points still to play for, whether a side can still win, and the moment the cup is clinched. Session status is derived too: draft, ready, partially scheduled, scheduled, in progress, completed. Nothing about a session is typed in by hand.
Worked example
A worked example: the Blue captain's four-ball lineup
A sixteen-player cup on the default preset. Session 1 is four four-ball matches, so Blue's captain must name two players for each of the four matches from an eight-player roster. This is the first submission and what Parful said about it.
| Match | Blue pairing submitted | Check | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | Ana and Ben | Two players, both on roster, no repeats | Accepted |
| M2 | Cal and Dee | Two players, both on roster, no repeats | Accepted |
| M3 | Eve | Four-ball needs exactly 2 players | Rejected: M3 needs exactly 2 players |
| M4 | Ana and Fay | Ana is already in M1 | Rejected: a player is in two matches |
- A lineup is saved as a whole. One bad slot rejects the submission and the previous lineup stands.
- Had the session already started, every slot would have been rejected as locked and the captain would have needed a manager to make the change.
Common variants
- Non-playing captain
- Professional cups have a captain who does not play. Parful requires the captain to be on the team, so a club with a non-playing captain gives that person the manager role instead.
- Blind lineups
- Both captains submit sealed lineups and the order is revealed at once. Parful lets each captain see only their own side while editing; the club decides when to reveal.
- Sit-outs
- Presets for twenty and twenty-four players have team sessions where some players sit. The captain simply leaves them out of that session's lineup.
- Team-card formats scored live
- Foursomes, greensomes, chapman and scramble matches on Parful score on a team card that is opened when scoring opens; they do not enter the group scorecard or the grouping constraints the way singles and four-ball do.