Competition formats
Parful runs this30/40 (counted-score format)
Also called 30/40 format, Thirty forty, Best 30 of 54, Best 40 of 72.
30/40 is a team format in which every player plays their own ball and the team score is the sum of its best 30 player-hole net scores for a team of three, or its best 40 for a team of four. Each player receives 95% of their Course Handicap™. It is not the 30/40 Balls side game.
- Played as
- Own ball, own card, teams of exactly 3 or 4
- Team score
- The lowest 30 (three players) or 40 (four players) net hole scores from the whole round, added
- Pool
- 54 scores for three players, 72 for four
- Allowance
- 95% of Course Handicap™ per player
- Mixed team sizes
- Ranked on per-player average
- Runs on
- Parful Clubs competitions
How the 30/40 format works
Every player on the team plays their own ball on every hole and keeps a full card. Nothing is decided hole by hole. When the round is over, every player-hole net score on the team goes into one pool: 54 scores for a team of three, 72 for a team of four. The pool is sorted from lowest to highest and the team keeps the best 30 of a three-player pool or the best 40 of a four-player pool. Those are added, and the sum is the team score.
Because the count is over the round rather than per hole, the format has no "this hole did not count" moment. A player who makes three net birdies in a row has just placed three scores near the top of the pool; a player who makes a 9 has placed one score at the bottom where it will never be counted. Roughly 55% of the team's scores count, which means a little over half of each player's holes, on average, matter.
Handicaps and team size
Each player takes their own strokes at 95% of Course Handicap™, placed by the stroke index of their own tee. A 6 receives 6 (5.7 rounded), a 14 receives 13, a 22 receives 21. The allowance is higher than the 85% of the four-ball family because a round-counted format does not let the team pick the best of four attempts on every hole; more of everybody's scores count.
Team size must be exactly three or four. Parful refuses a 30/40 competition with any other team size, because the 30 and 40 are fixed counts and a team of five would have 90 scores to choose 40 from. When a field mixes three-player and four-player teams, the totals are not comparable (30 scores against 40), so the leaderboard ranks teams on the average per player: the team total divided by the number of players.
Not the same as 30/40 Balls
The 30/40 Balls side game shares the numbers and nothing else. In 30/40 Balls two groups of three or four compete against each other, and on each hole the group chooses how many of its scores to bank, with at least one per hole and exactly 30 or 40 in total by the end. The choosing is the game. In the 30/40 format there is no choosing: the engine takes the lowest 30 or 40 from the whole pool after the round. Parful scores both, as a competition format and as a side game respectively.
How Parful scores it
30/40 runs on Parful Clubs competitions. Every player scores their own ball on the group scorecard and the counted-scores engine keeps the team pool live: on every score it re-sorts the team's player-hole nets, keeps the best 30 or 40 depending on team size, and updates the team total and the leaderboard. Before the round is complete the total reflects the scores entered so far, and it settles when the last card is in.
Teams on the same total are separated by the lower gross total of the counted scores, then share the position. Where team sizes in the field differ, ranking switches to per-player average automatically. Because every player plays their own ball from the tee, every own-ball side game is available alongside the competition, including 30/40 Balls if the groups want to play both.
Worked example
A worked example: a team of three, all 18 holes
Ana, Ben and Cal play off Course Handicaps of 6, 14 and 22, receiving 6, 13 and 21 strokes at 95%. The table shows each player's net score on every hole. The pool holds 54 scores; the lowest 30 count.
| Hole | Par | Ana net | Ben net | Cal net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 9 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 11 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 12 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 13 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 14 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 15 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| 16 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 17 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| 18 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
- The individual nets were Ana 71, Ben 76 and Cal 82, a combined 229. The team score of 110 uses 30 of those 54 scores and throws away every five and six.
- Which twenty of the twenty-four fours count is irrelevant: any twenty add to 80. The engine keeps the first twenty in its sorted list.
- Ana supplied 14 of the counted scores, Ben 12 and Cal 4. Cal's four net threes on the par 3s were his contribution, and they were as good as anyone's.
Common variants
- 30/40 Balls (side game)
- Two groups, and each group chooses on every hole how many scores to bank, at least one per hole and exactly 30 or 40 over the round. Parful scores it as a side game, not with this format.
- Best 27 or 36
- Some clubs count half the pool, 27 of 54 or 36 of 72, rather than 30 and 40. Parful's 30/40 format counts 30 and 40; a different count is a variant Parful does not score.