Competition structures
Parful runs thisFlights and divisions
Also called Handicap divisions, Flighted competition, Championship flight, Handicap categories, A flight and B flight.
Flights, also called divisions, split a competition field into handicap groups that each compete for their own prizes. A championship flight takes the lowest handicaps, then an A flight, a B flight and so on, so a 20 handicap plays against 20 handicaps rather than the club champion.
- Also called
- Divisions, categories, handicap groups
- Flight count
- Up to 6 on Events; any number on a club knockout
- Default names
- Championship, A Flight, B Flight, C Flight, D Flight, E Flight
- Assignment
- Percentile, handicap range, snake, copied from a previous event, or manual
- No handicap
- Sorts last and lands in the highest flight
- Clubs
- A bracket and a podium per flight
How flights work
A flight is a slice of the field that competes among itself. A club championship with 60 entries might run a championship flight for handicaps under 10, an A flight for 10 to 18 and a B flight for 19 and over, each with its own winner, its own knockout bracket or its own podium. Net scoring already levels the field on paper; flights level it in practice, because a 24 handicap and a 2 handicap do not have the same day, and because three winners at a prize-giving is better than one.
The ratified word on Parful is division for a permanent handicap category and flight for the slice of a particular competition. The mechanics are the same.
Five ways to assign flights
On Events the field is assigned by the effective handicap, the Handicap Index® after any organizer adjustment, and every scheme sorts on it. Players with no handicap sort last so they land in the highest flight.
- Percentile: sort by handicap and cut into equal slices. Two flights is the top half and bottom half; four is quartiles. Ties on the boundary stay together in the better flight. Up to 6 flights.
- Handicap range: fixed bands such as Championship up to 9, A Flight 10 to 18, B Flight 19 to 54. A player outside every band is left unassigned for the organizer to place.
- Snake: sort by handicap and deal in a serpentine, A B C C B A A B C, so each flight has a similar average handicap. Used when the prize is gross.
- Copy from a previous event: the same player goes to the same flight as last time. Useful for a series.
- Manual: the organizer drags players into named flights and late entries wait in unassigned.
Prizes, tees and brackets per flight
Each flight has its own leaderboard and its own podium, and a flight can be bound to its own tee so the seniors flight plays forward tees with the right Slope Rating™ and Course Rating™ applied. A player's Course Handicap™ is worked out from the tee their flight plays. Grouping can be done within flights so a flight starts together.
On a club knockout each flight carries its own bracket. The championship flight and the A flight are separate draws with separate seeding, byes and deadlines, and starting one does not lock the other.
How Parful runs it
On Events the organizer chooses a scheme in the setup wizard, previews the split, and can move any player by hand afterwards. Flights recompute automatically when a handicap is adjusted until handicaps are frozen; after that the organizer confirms any change. The public leaderboard filters by flight and the results show a podium per flight.
On Clubs a competition can be split into flights that each get a bracket, generated and finalized independently in the Bracket Builder, or a leaderboard and podium per flight for a stroke play or Stableford competition. Flight names default to Championship, A Flight and so on and can be renamed.
Worked example
A worked example: 12 players into three flights
Twelve entrants sorted by Handicap Index. The percentile scheme cuts the sorted list into three slices of four. The snake scheme deals the same sorted list A, B, C, C, B, A, A, B, C, C, B, A. Pat has no handicap and sorts last.
| Sorted order | Player | Handicap Index | Percentile flight | Snake flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ana | 3.1 | Championship | Championship |
| 2 | Ben | 4.8 | Championship | A Flight |
| 3 | Cal | 6.0 | Championship | B Flight |
| 4 | Dee | 7.4 | Championship | B Flight |
| 5 | Eve | 10.4 | A Flight | A Flight |
| 6 | Fay | 11.2 | A Flight | Championship |
| 7 | Gil | 13.5 | A Flight | Championship |
| 8 | Hal | 15.0 | A Flight | A Flight |
| 9 | Ivy | 17.8 | B Flight | B Flight |
| 10 | Jon | 20.3 | B Flight | B Flight |
| 11 | Kim | 24.6 | B Flight | A Flight |
| 12 | Pat | None | B Flight | Championship |
- With 11 players the percentile scheme makes slices of 4, 4 and 3; the player on a boundary with an equal handicap stays in the better flight.
- A handicap-range scheme with bands up to 9, 10 to 18 and 19 to 54 would put Ana, Ben, Cal, Dee in Championship, Eve to Ivy in A Flight, Jon and Kim in B Flight, and leave Pat unassigned for the organizer.
Common variants
- Divisions with separate handicap allowances
- Some clubs give each division its own allowance, 95% for the low division and 85% for the high one. Parful applies one allowance per competition; divisions differ by membership and tee, not by allowance.
- Age or gender divisions
- Seniors, juniors, women. On Parful these are manual flights, with a tee per flight so the rating and slope are right.
- Overall winner plus flight winners
- A gross champion across the whole field and a net winner per flight. Parful gives each flight its podium and the outing keeps overall day prizes.
- Flights that reshuffle after round 1
- Re-flighting on first-round scores, as some pro-ams do. Parful assigns flights on handicap before play and does not re-flight on scores.