Competition structures
Parful runs thisWalkovers, voids and byes
Also called Walkover, W/O, Void match, Bye.
A walkover awards a match to one side without play, usually because the other side withdrew or did not appear. A void removes the match from the competition so it counts for nothing. A bye advances a player who has nobody to play in that round. None of the three is a scored result.
- Walkover
- Match awarded without play, reason required
- Void
- Match removed; nothing counted
- Bye
- Player advances with no match
- All three
- Terminal: the match never reopens
- Round robin
- Walkover and conceded count; void and bye do not
- Walkover offer
- Made at the deadline on an unanswered proposal; recorded 48 hours later
Three ways a match ends without a score
A walkover is a match awarded to one side because the other could not or would not play it: a withdrawal, a no-show, or a scheduling deadline missed. The winner advances as if they had won on the course, but no margin is recorded and no holes were played. A walkover always names the side it was awarded to and the reason.
A void is a match that is cancelled and struck from the competition. Both sides withdrew, the competition was abandoned, or the fixture should never have existed. Nobody advances from a void in the ordinary sense; in a knockout the admin decides what happens to the slot, and in a table the fixture counts for nothing.
A bye is not a match at all. When a bracket has more slots than players, or a round robin has an odd number of entrants, some players have no opponent in a round. They advance, or sit the round out, without playing. A bye is created by the draw, not by anything the players did.
How each counts
In a knockout bracket a walkover and a bye both advance a player; a void leaves the admin to rule on the next round. In a round robin or group table the distinction is about points. A walkover counts in the standings like a completed fixture: the winner takes the points for a win. A conceded fixture counts the same way. A void fixture is cleared from the table and neither side is credited with having played it, so the head-to-head record and the matches played column both ignore it. A bye scores whatever the competition's bye rule says: no points, the points for a win, or the points for a draw.
In a team cup a walkover is a match with a winner and it counts toward the cup total: the winning side gets the match's point. A void or a bye is excluded from both the tally and the total, which changes the number of points needed to win the cup. Sixteen matches need 8.5 points; void one of them and fifteen matches need 8.
When a walkover is offered
Deadlines on Parful nag and never block, so a walkover is never applied silently by the clock. There is one automatic path and it is deliberate. When two players are scheduling a match themselves and one proposal goes unanswered past the deadline, the player whose offer was ignored is the non-defaulting side. They are told the deadline has lapsed and may extend it once, seven days by default, if they would rather play. If they do not extend, the walkover offer stands for 48 hours, two nightly sweeps, and then the walkover is recorded to them. If nobody proposed anything, both sides defaulted and the admin decides.
Outside that path a walkover is an admin action with a required reason. A club can also set a maximum number of times a match may be deferred before a walkover is considered; the default is two deferrals.
How Parful records them
Walkover, conceded, completed and void are the four terminal statuses of a match. Once a match is in one of them it never transitions out; a mistaken walkover is corrected by the admin through the bracket, not by reopening the match. A walkover stores who it was awarded to, the reason, when it was recorded and that no score was entered. A void stores the same audit trail with no winner.
Brackets show a bye as a slot with one name and no opponent, and never offer a bye for scheduling. Cup boards print Walkover, Void and Bye in place of a margin, count walkovers in the session totals and drop voids and byes from the points available.
Worked example
A worked example: a group of four with a walkover and a void
Ana, Ben, Cal and Dee play a round robin group at 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. Dee withdraws after the first week. The six fixtures finish as follows.
| Fixture | Status | Result | Points | Counted as played? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ana v Ben | Completed | Ana 2&1 | Ana 3, Ben 0 | Yes |
| Cal v Dee | Walkover | Awarded to Cal: Dee withdrew | Cal 3, Dee 0 | Yes |
| Ana v Cal | Completed | AS | Ana 1, Cal 1 | Yes |
| Ben v Dee | Void | Ben injured, Dee withdrawn | None | No |
| Ana v Dee | Conceded | Dee conceded on the 12th, 3 down | Ana 3, Dee 0 | Yes |
| Ben v Cal | Completed | Cal 4&3 | Cal 3, Ben 0 | Yes |
- The walkover gave Cal the same 3 points as a match won on the course. Had the admin voided Cal v Dee instead, Cal would have 4 points from 2 fixtures and Ana would lead.
- Dee's concession against Ana is a result, not a walkover: the match was under way when Dee gave it up.
Common variants
- Walkover scored as a margin
- Some clubs record a walkover as 10&8 or 5&4 so the bracket looks complete. Parful records it as Walkover with a reason; a margin that was never played is not a result.
- Automatic walkover on the deadline
- Some leagues forfeit any match unplayed by the deadline. Parful does not: the deadline nags, the non-defaulting player gets a 48-hour walkover offer only when a proposal went unanswered, and everything else is the admin's call.
- Scratched player replaced
- A withdrawn player replaced by a reserve before the round is a draw change, not a walkover or a void. Parful treats it as an edit to the bracket.