Competition structures
Parful runs thisConcessions and pickups in match play
Also called Conceded hole, Conceded match, Pickup in match play, Giving a putt.
In match play a side may concede the opponent's next stroke, a hole or the whole match, and a concession cannot be withdrawn. On Parful a hole is conceded when every player on a side picks up, and a conceded match is recorded as conceded with the state at that moment, never as a made-up score.
- Can be conceded
- The next stroke, the hole, or the match
- Withdrawal
- Never; a concession stands once made
- Pickup rule
- Every player on a side picks up: hole conceded
- Both sides pick up
- Hole halved and counted as played
- Who may concede
- A club policy: admin only by default
- Recorded as
- Conceded, with the hole and the state, not a margin
What can be conceded
Match play allows a side to concede three things. A conceded stroke means the opponent is treated as having holed with the next stroke, which is how short putts are given. A conceded hole hands the hole to the opponent at any time before it is completed. A conceded match ends the match with the opponent as the winner, at any time before the result is decided. In every case the concession takes effect immediately and cannot be taken back, even if the opponent then makes a mess of the shot.
Concessions are the reason a match play card can carry blanks that are not errors. A player who was given a two-foot putt has no stroke to record for it, and a side that conceded the hole after a lost ball has no score on the hole at all. Match play scores holes, so none of that matters to the result; it only matters that the card says who won the hole.
Pickups concede the hole
On Parful a player who picks up marks the hole as a pickup rather than leaving it blank. One pickup on a two-player side changes nothing, because the partner's ball still counts. When every player on a side has picked up, that side has no ball in play and has conceded the hole: the opponent wins it if they completed it. When both sides pick up, the hole is halved and counts as played, so the match is "thru" it.
A blank with no pickup is treated as a hole not yet scored. That distinction is deliberate. A blank might be a card that has not caught up yet; a pickup is a decision. Only the decision moves the match.
Who may concede a match
Conceding a match is an act with consequences, so a club decides who is allowed to record it. Parful offers four policies. Admin only: a manager records every concession, which is the default. Either player, no confirmation: either side records it and it stands. Either player with confirmation: one side records it and the other confirms. Both players must agree: both sides record it before it takes effect.
The policy is set in the club's competition defaults and copied into each competition when it is created, so changing the club default later does not change a competition already under way. The same four options govern who may record a match result.
How Parful records it
A conceded match is not given a pretend margin. The record carries who conceded, who was conceded to, the hole at which it was recorded and the match state at that moment, for example Ben conceding on the twelfth while 3 down. The bracket shows Conceded, the winner advances, and the match status is conceded, which is terminal: it cannot be reopened. In a round robin a conceded fixture counts in the standings exactly like a completed one. In a team cup a concession is a completed match whose result source is the concession, worth the full point to the winner.
Conceded holes need no separate entry. The scorer marks the pickups and the engine derives the hole result; a later change to the pickups reruns the match from the first hole.
Worked example
A worked example: pickups in a four-ball match
Ana and Ben play Cal and Dee at four-ball match play, gross. Each side counts its better ball on every hole. A dash is a pickup; a blank is a hole not yet entered.
| Hole | Ana | Ben | Cal | Dee | Side A best | Side B best | Hole | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 4 | Halved | AS thru 1 |
| 2 | pickup | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | Cal and Dee | Cal and Dee 1 up thru 2 |
| 3 | pickup | pickup | 6 | 5 | none | 5 | Conceded by A | Cal and Dee 2 up thru 3 |
| 4 | 3 | 4 | pickup | pickup | 3 | none | Conceded by B | Cal and Dee 1 up thru 4 |
| 5 | pickup | pickup | pickup | pickup | none | none | Halved | Cal and Dee 1 up thru 5 |
| 6 | 4 | 5 | not yet | 4 | Pending | Cal and Dee 1 up thru 5 |
- Cal and Dee needed a completed score to win hole 3. Had they also picked up, the hole would have been halved as on hole 5.
- The match status does not advance past hole 6 until Ana or Ben enters a score or a pickup there.
Common variants
- Gimmes by agreement
- Friendly matches often agree that everything inside the leather is good. That is a stream of conceded strokes, and it needs no entry: the player records the score as if holed.
- Concession by default
- Some societies treat a side that has lost a ball as having conceded the hole automatically. On Parful a pickup does the same job, and it is the players who mark it.
- Conceded match scored as a margin
- A few clubs write a conceded match as 5&4 or the state at the time. Parful keeps the state in the record but prints Conceded, so a reader can tell the two apart.