Reading a match result: 3&2, 1 up, AS

Margin and holes remaining

A match ends when one side is more holes up than there are holes left. The result records both numbers: 3&2 is read "three and two" and means the winner was 3 up when 2 holes remained, so the match finished on the sixteenth. 4&3 finished on the fifteenth, 5&4 on the fourteenth, 2&1 on the seventeenth. The biggest possible margin over eighteen holes is 10&8: ten holes won in a row, match over on the tenth tee.

The second number is always the holes remaining, not the hole the match finished on. A result of 3&2 tells you the match reached the sixteenth; subtract the second number from eighteen. It also tells you the winner was dormie or better before the last hole played, because a match cannot end on a hole where the two sides were level.

1 up, 2 up and AS

When a match reaches the eighteenth green with a winner, there are no holes remaining to write, so the result is just the margin: 1 up means the winner was one hole ahead after eighteen, 2 up means two ahead. A side that was dormie 2 up with two to play and halved both remaining holes wins 2 up, not 2&0.

A match with no winner after the last hole is all square, written AS or Halved. In a team cup that is half a point to each side. In a knockout a halve cannot stand, so the players go to extra holes or the committee settles it; a match won on the nineteenth is usually written "1 up at the 19th" or "won at the 19th", and Parful stores it as 1 up with the extra holes counted alongside.

Reading a live match

While a match is in progress the status carries the holes played instead of the holes remaining: "Ana 2 UP thru 5" means Ana leads by two holes after five have been played, with thirteen to go. "AS thru 7" means level after seven. When the leader is dormie the status shows it, and the moment the margin exceeds the holes remaining the status flips to the final form, "Ana 3 & 2".

A match can also end without a scored result, and the boards say so rather than inventing a margin. Conceded means one side gave up the match. Walkover means it was awarded without play because the other side did not appear or withdrew. Bye means a player advanced with nobody to play. Void means the match was removed from the competition and counts for nothing.

How Parful writes it

Parful derives the notation from the two numbers the engine already holds. A decided match with holes remaining prints as margin and holes remaining, "3&2". A match decided on the eighteenth prints as "1 up" or "2 up". A halved match prints as "AS" on cup boards and "Halved" on brackets. Cup boards print Walkover, Bye and Void for the terminal states that carry no score, and a conceded match shows Conceded with the state at the moment of concession kept in the record.

Live status strings come from the same derivation and are written from the leader's side: "Ana 2 UP thru 5", "AS thru 7", "Ana 4 UP thru 14 (dormie)". Because the result is derived, a later correction to any hole score rewrites the notation with it.

Worked example

A worked example: from match state to notation

Each row is a match state Parful can hold. Holes remaining is eighteen minus holes played, and the notation follows from the margin and the holes remaining.

• infoA dormie side that runs out of holes and wins by the full margin prints as "N up", the same as any other match decided on the eighteenth.
• infoThe margin and holes remaining are the ones at the moment the match was decided. Holes played afterwards for the card do not change 4&3 into 5&3.

Common variants

Finishing hole notation

Some clubs post "won on 16" or "won on the 15th" instead of 3&2 and 4&3. Parful stores the margin and holes remaining and prints the standard form.

Up with holes to play

Newspapers occasionally write "3 up with 2 to play". It is the same result as 3&2. Parful uses the ampersand form.

2&0

Sometimes written for a side dormie 2 that halved the eighteenth. The standard form, and the one Parful prints, is 2 up.