Competition structures
Parful runs thisMatch play scoring: holes up, all square, dormie
Also called Holes up, All square, Dormie, Match play rules.
In match play every hole is won, halved or lost, and the score is the margin in holes: 2 up, all square, 1 down. A match is decided the moment the margin is greater than the holes remaining. When the margin equals the holes remaining the leader is dormie and cannot lose in regulation.
- Unit of scoring
- The hole: won, halved or lost
- The score
- Holes up, never total strokes
- Decided when
- Margin is greater than holes remaining
- Dormie when
- Margin equals holes remaining
- Strokes
- On the difference between the two Course Handicap™ values, by stroke index
- Blank hole
- Skipped until both sides have scored it
How a match is scored
Match play compares two sides one hole at a time. The side with the lower score on a hole wins it and goes 1 up; equal scores halve the hole and nothing changes. The running score is the difference in holes won, so a side that has won five holes and lost three is 2 up, and the opponent is 2 down. Strokes on the card do not carry from hole to hole: a 9 on the third loses exactly one hole, the same as a bogey against a par.
The state of a match is described by two numbers, the margin and the holes remaining. A match is decided when the margin is greater than the holes remaining, because the trailing side can no longer catch up. Three up with two to play is over, and is written 3&2. A side that is exactly as many holes up as there are holes left is dormie: it cannot lose in regulation, and one more halved or won hole ends the match.
Parful plays on after dormie. The engine keeps scoring holes until the margin exceeds the holes remaining or the eighteenth is played, so a dormie side that loses every remaining hole finishes all square rather than being declared the winner early.
Handicap strokes in a match
A net match gives strokes on the difference between the two sides, not on each side's full handicap. Take each side's Playing Handicap™ (full Course Handicap in singles; 90% relative to the lowest in four-ball), subtract the lower from the higher, and the higher-handicap side receives that many strokes on the holes with the lowest stroke index. A player receiving 4 strokes gets one on stroke index 1, 2, 3 and 4 and plays the other fourteen holes level. A difference of 20 gives a stroke on every hole and a second stroke on stroke index 1 and 2.
The winner of each hole is the side with the lower net score on that hole. Parful allocates strokes off the tee the player actually played, so two members off different tees each receive strokes on their own tee's stroke index.
Blank holes, pickups and holes after the finish
A hole counts only when both sides have a score on it. If one side has entered a 4 and the other has nothing, the hole stays pending and the running score does not move. A blank score never manufactures a result, which matters when one card is behind the other.
A pickup is different from a blank. When every player on a side marks a pickup on a hole, that side has conceded it and the opponent wins it if they completed it. When both sides pick up the hole is halved and counts as played. Holes entered after the match has been decided are kept on the card but marked dead: the closing margin is the one at the moment the match was decided.
How Parful scores it
Every match on Parful is derived from the hole scores the sides have entered; nobody types "3&2" into a box while the match is live. As each score lands the status updates on the scorecard and the bracket: "Ana 2 UP thru 5", "AS thru 7", then "Ana 3 & 2" once the margin cannot be overturned. The scorer can look back at any hole and see where the match stood.
Singles and four-ball matches are scored live from the group scorecard, gross or net depending on the competition. Foursomes and greensomes matches score from a team card. When the eighteenth is halved and the match is all square, Parful does not pick a winner: in a knockout the admin records how the tie was settled, and in a team cup the halve is worth half a point.
Worked example
A worked example: Ana against Ben, net singles
Ana plays off a Course Handicap of 12 and Ben off 8, so Ana receives 4 strokes, on stroke index 1 to 4. Those fall on holes 3, 6, 11 and 13 of this course. The running state is shown after each hole.
| Hole | Stroke index | Ana gross | Ben gross | Ana net | Ben net | Hole | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | Ben | Ben 1 up thru 1 |
| 2 | 13 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Halved | Ben 1 up thru 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Halved | Ben 1 up thru 3 |
| 4 | 17 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Ana | AS thru 4 |
| 5 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | Halved | AS thru 5 |
| 6 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Ana | Ana 1 up thru 6 |
| 7 | 15 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | Ben | AS thru 7 |
| 8 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 4 | Ben | Ben 1 up thru 8 |
| 9 | 11 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Ana | AS thru 9 |
| 10 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Ana | Ana 1 up thru 10 |
| 11 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Halved | Ana 1 up thru 11 |
| 12 | 16 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Ana | Ana 2 up thru 12 |
| 13 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Ana | Ana 3 up thru 13 |
| 14 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Halved | Ana 3 up, 4 to play |
| 15 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | Halved | Ana 3 up, 3 to play: dormie |
| 16 | 18 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Halved | Ana wins 3&2 |
- Ana's stroke on hole 3 turned a lost hole into a half, and her stroke on hole 6 turned a half into a win. Her strokes on 11 and 13 did the same. The four strokes were worth two holes.
- If Ben had won the sixteenth Ana would have been 2 up with 2 to play, still dormie, and the match would have gone on to the seventeenth.
Common variants
- Match ends at dormie
- Some societies call a match over as soon as a side is dormie. Parful does not run it that way: the engine plays on until the margin exceeds the holes remaining, which is the Rules of Golf position.
- Gross match play
- No strokes at all; the lower gross score wins the hole. Available on Parful by scoring the competition gross.
- Full-handicap strokes
- Both players take their full handicap on the card instead of playing off the difference. It produces the same hole winners in singles and Parful uses the difference.
- Nine-hole matches
- The same rules over nine holes: decided when the margin exceeds the holes remaining, dormie when equal. Parful scores nine-hole matches; see the extra holes page for one caveat.