Tournament scoring formats

Stroke

Lowest total wins. The default.

Players add up every stroke across the round; lowest total wins. Handicaps don't change the per-hole math — at most they're shown as a parallel "net" total for context. Use this for everyday medal play and any tournament where a familiar lowest-score-wins ranking is what your league expects.

Stableford

Points per hole. Higher total wins. A bad hole stops at zero.

Each hole earns points based on score-vs-par: eagle 5, birdie 4, par 3, bogey 2, double 1, triple-or-worse 0. Add the points across 18 holes; highest total wins. The killer feature: a blow-up hole costs you nothing past zero — once you're above triple bogey there's no further damage. Good for keeping high-handicap players in the round even after a wreck. Set hole pars on the tournament page so the math has something to compare to.

Modified Stableford

PGA Tour points table. Aggressive play pays; conservative play stings. Can go negative.

Same shape as Stableford but tuned to reward risk: eagle 5, birdie 2, par 0, bogey -1, double-or-worse -3. The "Reno-Tahoe Open" / Barracuda Championship table. Average rounds score near zero; standout rounds run positive. Bad rounds genuinely punish you. Use when you want a leaderboard that rewards going for it instead of grinding pars.

Chicago Quota

Each player has a target. Beat it to win.

Every player gets a target = 39 minus their league handicap (so a 12-handicap targets 27, a scratch player targets 39). Per-hole points are gross-vs-par: eagle 8, birdie 4, par 2, bogey 1, double-or-worse 0. The leaderboard ranks by points-vs-target, not raw points. The handicap is consumed by the target, not allocated per hole — Chicago is always per-hole gross. A 20-handicap who plays well above expectation can win outright over a low-handicap who plays to standard.

With handicaps (net)

For Stableford and Modified Stableford, each player's league handicap allocates strokes to the hardest holes via stroke index (SI). A course handicap of 12 gets one stroke on holes with SI 1–12; a course handicap of 24 gets two strokes on SI 1–6 and one on SI 7–18. The stroke is subtracted from the gross before the points table runs — so a bogey on a stroke hole becomes a net par worth 3 Stableford points. This is the club default. Pick this when your field has a wide handicap spread and you want everyone competing on equal footing.

Scratch (no handicaps)

Skip allocation entirely. Players score gross — a bogey is a bogey, regardless of handicap. Use this when the field is treated as all-scratch, for handicap-banded flights where everyone is in roughly the same skill tier, or for a scratch championship.

Why the toggle is hidden for Stroke + Chicago

Stroke play doesn't allocate per-hole — handicap shows up as a separate "net total" if at all. Chicago is always per-hole gross by design (the handicap is consumed by the target). The toggle would be a no-op there, so we hide it to avoid suggesting a control that does nothing.

Hole pars + stroke index

Every points format needs hole pars or it can't compute score-vs-par. Stroke index drives net allocation. Set both on the tournament page — or scan/configure the course up front so new tournaments at that course inherit them automatically. Without pars every hole scores zero. Without SI we fall back to a simplified "first-N-holes" allocation (handicap 12 gets a stroke on holes 1–12 by hole number rather than by difficulty) — fine for legacy tournaments but worth fixing once you have a scorecard handy.

Player handicaps

Players need a league handicap on file before the start gate opens for a net tournament. Owners and captains can edit member handicaps from the league members tab. The "Players missing handicap" banner on the tournament manage screen lists who still needs one.

Picking a format

Stableford for casual league nights with mixed handicaps. Modified Stableford when you want the leaderboard to reward someone who shoots a 67 (and to make grinders' rounds less interesting). Chicago when you want a points-based event without per-hole allocation drama. Stroke when nobody's going to argue and you just want a number.