What the 19th hole is really for
Golfers have called the bar after the round the 19th hole for as long as anyone can remember. It is where the groups come in one by one, compare cards, argue about a drop, buy the first round and replay the day. It is also where the results get announced, which is why, at an outing, the organizer is usually somewhere else: in the corner with a laptop, a stack of scorecards and a growing pile of crossed-out numbers.
We think that is backwards. The organizer should be at the bar. The promise we are building toward is simple: be at the bar, not the spreadsheet. By the time the last group walks in, the scores are already in and every game is already tallied. This guide explains how to get close to that today, with or without software.
Why tallying hurts
Tallying a day of golf is not hard arithmetic. It is a lot of small arithmetic, done under pressure, with an audience. A typical outing has a team score, flight winners, one or two contests, maybe a skins game, and maybe a few side games between friends. Each of those reads from the same scorecards but needs its own handicap strokes, its own tie-break and its own payout. A single mistake in one card ripples into every result that depends on it.
The usual causes of pain are the same everywhere: scores written illegibly, handicap strokes applied inconsistently, a rule nobody wrote down, and results typed into a spreadsheet by someone tired. None of these is a golf problem. They are data-entry problems, and they are solved by entering things once, in one place, as early as possible.
Principle 1: Enter once
Every number should be written down one time, as close to the moment it happened as you can manage. The gross score on each hole is the one piece of information everything else is calculated from. Net scores, Stableford points, skins, Nassau holes, flight standings and team scores are all derived. If you re-type them you create places for errors. If you calculate them from the gross scores you do not.
Principle 2: Write the rules down first
Most arguments at the 19th hole are about rules, not numbers: whether a skin carried, whether a press was accepted, whether strokes came off the low or from the full handicap. Put the rules on one page and hand it out. The answer to "what did we agree" should never depend on someone's memory.
Principle 3: Mark the strokes before the round
Handicap strokes are the most common source of arithmetic errors, because they differ by player, by hole and by format. Work them out in advance and mark them on the scorecards, with a dot or a number next to the hole where each player receives a stroke. Then net scores are simple subtraction, and nobody has to remember how many strokes they get on the seventh.
Principle 4: Tally in layers
Do the work in the same order every time.
- Check the cards. Make sure every card has the right players, a score on every hole and a signature or confirmation.
- Compute the primary result. Team scores and flight standings, using net scores.
- Compute contests. Closest to the pin, longest drive and any hole prizes, which are decided on the course.
- Compute side games. Skins, Nassau, points games and the like, each from the gross scores.
- Convert to balances. One number per person for everything they are owed or owe.
- Find the fewest payments. Use the who pays whom calculator on this site.
Principle 5: Keep the money out of the tool
A scorekeeper, whether paper, a calculator or an app, should only keep score. It should tell you who owes whom, and people should pay each other directly. Anything that holds or moves money brings in rules, licenses and risks that have nothing to do with a good day of golf. The tools on this site only do arithmetic and never touch money.
A worked example
Eight players, two foursomes, one round. They play a Nassau between pairs and a skins game among all eight, each at a 2 skin. After the round, the Nassau results are recorded as Mike pays Sam 10 and Ted pays Jo 5. The skins game produces three winners: Sam wins 4 skins, Jo wins 2 and Ann wins 1, with a value of 2 from each of the other seven players for every skin.
Sam collects 4 x 2 x 7 = 56 in skins, Jo 28 and Ann 14. Everyone else pays the winners in proportion. Putting the Nassau and the skins results together gives one balance per person, and the group finds that eight people who each owe several others can square up in a handful of payments. Doing this by hand is slow and easy to get wrong. With a clean card and the right calculator it is a matter of minutes.
A shorter evening
If you take only one thing from this guide, make it this: decide before the round how the results will be calculated and who will calculate them. Collect the cards as groups come in. Do the tally in the order above while the first round of drinks is still on the table. Announce the winners, hand out the prizes and then go back to being a golfer.
Where software fits
A good scorekeeping tool can take on the layers of the tally for you. That is the idea behind the app: set up the event once, have players enter scores on their phones, and let the games, the pools and the settle-up come from the one entry. Some of that exists today and some is still on the way, and the outings page lists which is which. Even if you never use it, the principles above work with a pencil.
Quick checklist for the 19th hole
- Rules written down and handed out.
- Strokes marked on the cards.
- One person collecting cards as groups finish.
- Gross scores entered once.
- Results calculated in the same order every time.
- Balances netted and the fewest payments found.
- Results announced, then you can sit down.