FAQ
ForumStableford! What’s the deal?
Hey there Swing by Swing user,
We’d like to implement Stableford scoring into the Swing by Swing system.
It will probably be a part of the Looper membership.
Stableford itself is pretty straight-forward. There is a different score based upon how you do on the hole.
When you start trying to adjust the “fixed score” and take handicaps into account, it starts getting more complex.
Please weigh in with your thoughts: If SbS does Stableford, what functionality do you want to see?
Thanks for your input!
Travis
PS. If you want to learn more about Looper, which includes Scorecard, Club Tracker, 3D flyovers, and a ton of other cool stuff designed to reduce your handicap and help you have more fun on the course – check it out here.
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YES, please add Stableford scoring.
I have played quite a bit of Stableford, both in the UK and in Australia. I have really enjoyed it, not only because of its lenient treatment of disaster holes, but also just because its different from straight stroke play.
In the UK we always played Stableford. In Australia we played a whole bunch of different scoring systems. A lot of fun.
I’d love Stableford in SbS.
The standard Nassau is approximation of Stableford because it limits the amount of damage you can do to yourself with a disaster hole.
Anker
It would be great to have stableford scoring on it, our club play it every sunday comp, also one for par rounds would be great
Stableford would be a great addition to SbS. I spend my year in two locations. Each of the four groups I am involved in use Stableford. Thjanks for considering.
Yes, you should add stableford scoring to the scorecard BUT please do not limit it to Looper members only. Many countries outside of the US use stableford system to speed up play. The system is especially prevalent in Australia, Asia and UK. I play most of my golf in Australia and Asia . We play stableford 90% of the time.
Stableford is great!! You know how many shots you have per hole and can pick up if you have a disaster. You know how many shots you get per hole from your handicap and then all you need is the hole rating.
We play it down here in Australia all the time and most non-Saturday comps are Stableford
Yes,please
Please, first make a version for Blackberry Torch. Long wait…
I think Stableford scoring would be great although if only for Looper then it won’t benefit me. I’d like to see it in the standard product. However given the current score cards that are emailed back to SBS users don’t have the Hole Indexing I am assuming you don’t have that data on hand for each course & that is understandable.
If a players handicap & hole index aren’t going to be used then its basicallly pointless. There aren’t many scratch players out there.
Heartily for it. It is the best scoring system especially for the friendly haggle
Stableford is the game most widely played here in Australia with many Clubs only playing Stroke once per month (The Monthly Medal). As you already have the index ratings for each hole, you would just need the user to manually provide their current handicap and after a little bit of sBs coding, voila! As handicaps change regularly the option to change your handicap for the round when you start a new game might be a place to get the input (with the default being the previous handicap)
Stableford scoring is essential for me. I am in Australia and play stableford rounds every second week. You do need to take handicap into account, bit given that each course is mapped with hole rankings I don’t see why that would be too difficult. I also use golfshot and it scores both stableford and modified stableford.
Yes Stableford would be good we play it every other week.
It appears that the Stableford scoring system is prevalent in the UK and Austrailia. Leave it there. I have played it and yes it does limit damage however the golf handicap system already helps the “golfer”.
Here in Houston, TX we play a lot of Stableford among the country clubs when we are competing against each other. I personally like the format myself.
Playing in Europe and Australia, any potential app gets discarded if it doesn’t have a good stableford scoring implementation, and there are a log out there that don’t.
It really needs to take into account the slope and handicap, even if it is something as simple as asking for the players playing handicap for the course at the start of the round if you don’t have the slope rating for the course.
Slope is something that is just being introduced in Australia, but is meant to be in place mid next year.
One feature that would set you apart would be the ability to edit the index of a given hole (holes obviously) during a round. On more than one occasion it has happened to me when, halfway through the round you realise the indexes of two holes have been swapped around on the (paper) scorecard due to a temporary green/tee. At this point it is too late to do anything about it on the app. Ideally the ability should exist to make a “this round only” change to the index of a given hole, where you would re-assign the index of any hole to the current hole you are scoring, and have the index of the current hole either be applied directly to the hole the new index was taken from, or not allocated to a hole at this time.
Travis, why would you not include stableford?
There is more to sales than just north america.
It appears to add more satisfaction to the game for less than professional players.
Yes please! I am a BB user waiting for all the great benefits of Looper. With stableford I no longer have to add an imaginary friend to keep my points. SBS get’s confused when my ‘friend’ gets 0 when I blow a hole…
We play stableford most Sunday’s at our our local Linlithgow golf club section we have low handicap and high handicap players of all ages this system works really well with the high handicapers as they can have some bad scores at some holes and still post a decent points score so all in all every player still has a chance in a stableford but have no chance in a normal handicap game and it keeps everybody coming back to this great game
could you PLEASE “run off crazy and start coding like madmen” on BB first?! You know there are alot of users for it!!
It is the most common scoring system in South Africa. You have 3 types of scoring. Medal-full handicap. Stableford 7/8 and Bogey 3/4. This takes you handicap and reduces it by 7/8 or 3/4 depending on what format you are playing. As explained in the blog it speeds up the game and does allow you to blow a hole and not effect your overall points to badly.
Yes please, need also to include handicap with respect to stroke index, and include whether full or partial handicaps…….lot of variables but would be great if you could get this working.
Hi Travis
The only reason it took me a while to sign up for the scorecard app was that it didn’t do stableford which is what 90% of my comps use.
If you’ve not taken off as fast in UK / Australia as you’d expect that may well be the reason. I agree with the earlier comments that you should include it with the basic scorecard package and not just Looper – even though I’m a Looper now!
Great App – doon to be even better with the Stableford?
Rather code Club Tracker for BB before putting time in for Stableford.
Yes please. Stableford is an essential part of golf both in New Zealand where I live, Australia where I play a fair bit of golf and South Africa a where I a from.
Stableford would be a great addition. You can get over the reduced handicap formats by just asking for the relevant handicap before each round as long as this info is then available on the page that records your scores for previous rounds. I.e it would read- course edgbaston , score 36 points off 18 handicap.
yes please.. like comments before mine, the users outside the USA all use the stableford system.. I think you will get a whole lot more poeple signing up if you upgrade the app. From Uk and Ireland
The simplest way of implementing the Stableford would be to let the user of the SbS type in the number of extra hits pr. round before the round starts.
You could also let the user that maps the course type in handicap tables and let the users of SbS type in there handicap…
The first simple solution would be fine for me…. I am not sure that people that maps the courses also want to type in handicap tables….
Stableford is often played in non-medal competitions in the UK, where I play the majority of my golf. Stableford allowances are often 7/8 or 3/4 of your handicap so it would be useful to have the facility to enter your adjusted handicap on a round by found basis. In addition it will be necessary to enter the ‘Stroke Index’ for each hole, preferably this should be an editable feature to allow any local changes that are made to courses.
You have come up with some great tips and ideas, this is the best one so far. Please have it available to the standard scorecard not just on looper
Yes Please, in the standard scorecard! I am in the UK and Stableford is used all the time, both amongst friends and many golf society’s use this format. I purchased the scorecard but do not use it much as it does not have Stableford scoring. It would definately need to take into account handicap and stroke index for each hole on each course, as most golfers are not scratch golfers it would not be much use without this.
Hi Travis,
I believe adding stableford would make this app more universal. Stableford is not only used in the UK or Australia but it’s widely spread in Europe as well.
.
Not only as a type of game to play with your friends but it’s the basis of the way the EGA (European Golf Association) calculates the European handicaps of the individual players. All scores made during a qualifying round in a strokeplay game will also be re-calculated into a stableford score to enable handicapping.
So it’s an important part of golf and handicapping in Europe (whether you like the type of game or not
If SbS considers to look at maintaining handicaps for European folk with the app (or in Looper) you’ll need to support stableford scoring.
In that case you need to look at the CSA (Competition Stableford Adjustment) also. This is a factor (-1 to +3 points) the committee may apply to your total stableford score after a match, just for handicapping purposes.
If you want to go this route and require more information, just let me know.
As a looper I must say it was the one thing I was dissapointed in when exploring the scorecard element of sbs, I’m not a scratch player and so all my golf with my friends is played using stableford, it’s what makes it competitive every week and levels us all.
Please add it!
Yes, Stableford scoring should be included in SbS (not just Looper); in the UK we tend to play this for friendly roll-ups and our winter competitions. It helps to speed up play and levels up the competition with handicaps included. Thanks.
Awsome Idea! I suppose you would need to be able to edit your handicap on your profile and on a scorecard for the other players. You would also need to know what stroke the hole is on the course to make a proper calculation.
I know the guys here in South Africa would definately use it!
Great idea and it would make looper even better.
If you are interested see – http://www.ruleshistory.com/scoring.html – for the history of Stableford
Yes I agree with all above comments. Stableford would be a great addition and I don’t think it would be too hard to program in, I think the most difficult part is to enter all the additional index info for each card. Perhaps the best way to do this would be for us as users to enter it for the courses we play. Then once we submit our score SbS would have this for next time. Stableford will not work without this. It ranks the holes from hardest to easiest. Once the SbS scorecard has this we would simply have to enter a handicap value for ourselves and each of the players.
The rest is just simple arithmetic to calculate the score. It would be Great! We play it all the time in Australia. But is has no value without the hole ranking (index) and the handicap.
Please include Stableford! This would make the app even greater than is, as it will calculate the score for you. No more fussing around with the pencil
Thanx in advance!
We play it regularly- as well as friendly comps, it’s necessary in the winter when fairway drives can just disappear!- otherwise there’d be a ton of n/rs. To be properly useful, would need to take into account friends handicaps in the scorecard module.
Please include Stableford. In SA it is the most commonly used scoring system and having that as part of this great app would really make golf scoring a breeze.
I have a excel spreadsheet that uses the stroke indecies, Handicap, and par to calculate the stable ford score for each hole. It is rather difficult to explain how the scoring adjustments are made for players with additional shots at certain holes but there is a method for doing it which you could extract from my spreadsheet.
Stableford is widely used all over Europe and should be part of the standard product if you want to achieve maximum penetration of the UK market. Individual Stableford is played off full Handicap in the UK as defined by CONGU rules, but there are parts of Europe that use 7/8th for the handicap.
To take it a step further you also need a 4 Ball Better Ball Stableford scoring as well. This is usually played of 3/4 handicap in the UK.
So an option to enter the players handicap and set the full, 7/8 or 3/4 adjustments so the revised additional shot holes can be calculated.
Get in touch if you would like a copy of my spreadsheet.
We use the calculations in our touchscreen competition system.
Good Luck – looking forward to seeing it in the basic product.
Would really enhance an already very good product. I play weekly at work and all handicaps are calculated using the stableford system. Please do it!
Hi, Stabbelford SSTB is very common in Belgium, this is the only way to cut your handicap when you are not Single mostly.
SSTB is a complex association of Course rating and Slope which give you Stroke Index. with this results some strokes are given on top of the PAR. Strokes are different on Hole HCp basis and differ on Male or Female on a per hole.
The aim is to have have above 36 sstB Points to cut handicap on 18 holes.
B.
Yes please add stableford. In the netherlands we use it often.
Yes, Stableford scoring would definitely be great !
But please do not reserve it for Looper only ! As I mentioned in your forum, I play golf in my homeland but also while abroad. Abroad means where I don’t have any cheap data transfer on my mobile, and since the answer received on the forum clearly indicates that Looper transfers data on the course during the round, then I have decided not to purchase it and keep the regular SbS.
In France, Stableford is widely used for handicap purposes and to speed up the play during week-end competitions.
To be able to use it easily, we should be able to review and change :
1/ each player’s index (to be rounded to the closest plain figure),
2/ the scorecard of the course (creation of the stroke index for each hole if SbS doesn’t know it, or modification of the indexes proposed. This for each player in the round, because very often the stroke index for each hole depends upon the tee used : stroke index for women’s tees are different from stroke index for men’s tees),
3/ if you want to be very precise, apply the general upgrade/downgrade of the SSS (Scratch Score Standard) which can adjust the whole score for all the players in the field from -1 to +3 (to be verified) and transform it in the SSD (Scratch Score of the Day). The determination of the SSD is the responsibility of the Committee which decides whether the actual course, due to weather or WIP, is “easier” or “harder” than the standard course.
Hope I haven’t been too long
Thanks !
Excellent idea. Stableford is the only I we play here in the UK, its much quicker than stroke play and is a great leveller for all handicaps to play. A 3/4 function would be essential though as most clubs adhere to this ruling. Kevin Reid (iBrowseSport) took the words right out of my mouth and that spreadsheet would be hand if he wouldn’t mind sending it on please? Cheers Chris – (BB user patiently waiting for club tracker)
I would love to see Stableford on the SbS. At the minute when my scores are sent to me on email I copy them across to spreadsheet I have devised which automatically does the Stableford scores, I even do my friends scores then email them on. If my handicap changes I just update the spreadsheet – done!
I play golf in Australia and SE Asia. Most of it is Stableford and it would be fantastic to be able to input stableford scores. Please don’t limit to looper. What I can’t understand is why you don’t have it already. Under the USGA handicapping system (which is now bing used in Australia) the scores are reverted to stableford before handicap calculations are made.
Yes please. In the UK and am loving SBS but someone in our group still using the pencil for scoring our Stableford scores.
Good luck and look forward to it!
Please add stableford. I would be more than happy to add the stroke index data for the courses I use.
There may be crossed wires on this topic. One part is for competitions, the other part is for handicap calculation purposes.
In South Africa the handicap system in any event requires player to hand in an adjusted gross, not medal score. Adjusted gross for people 1-18 basically says that max hole score is par+2 on holes that are rated your handicap or less. On holes rated above your handicap you can only hand in par+1. A 26 handicapper could go par+3 on holes rated 1-8 and par+2 on the other 10 holes.
BTW, if you run into a South African that’s a 12, he’s actually a lot better than a 12 in countries that do handicap on unadjusted gross score. (our handicap = best 10 differentials out of last 20 games times 95% where differential = adjusted gross minus course rating. A par 72 course could be rated anything from 68 to 75 depending on length, T position, weather, etc.
Many competitions use stableford scoring for COMPETITIONS – whether better ball or alliance. You get 1 point for bogey, 2 points for par, 3 for birdie, etc where you score = actual you got for the hole minus 1 if you stroke. If you shoot exactly your handicap you would have 36 points and have done quite well because of how our handicaps are calculated. It makes for shorter days as players pick up when they can’t score or when can’t improve on team mate score. I don’t think the competition part is that relevant for SBS, as you’d need to track several players’s scores to be useful during the round and in any event must hand in signed scorecards to the Club afterward.
Over here in Ireland a lot of the weekly open club competitions is played using stableford scoring. Its a great way of scoring points for higher handicappers, i.e. if you make a mess of one hole you just go to the next and try score on that one.
Stableford is a great equalizer for the intermediate to high handicap golfer as it allows you to still be competitive after having a couple of disasterous holes. Bring it on.
I play staplford all the time so bring it on!!
Yes stableford should be included. I play mostly in Ireland and stableford is used most of the time except for special ranked events. As mentioned in the blogs it speeds up play, if you loose a ball no deed to go back and replay the shot (may put you outside scoring limit), if you are not going to score you pick up. You may still have a decent score if you scratch a hole or two. There must be the facility for subtracting penalty of two points for faults i.e. playing wrong ball, double hits etc. The scoring system has already being mentioned in the blogs above.
Stableford would be a great addition to SbS. From a functional perspective I would suggest you simply enter your scratch score at the hole or maybe a zero in case you didn’t score it. Then, the system would do the math for you; i.e. it would score two points for a net par, one for a net bogey, 3 for a net birdie etc.
Good luck and thanks for all.
I think stapleford scoring is a great idea especially when playing a round with a mixed bunch of talent! Great idea.
Def bring in stableford !!! 90% of all games in England are played in this format.
Yes please, would love Stableford scoring but need British handicap system on there too – can’t wait for that to come on board. Loving the club tracker and scorecard. great job, thanks
Being in Australia I agree with the previous comments that we play a lot of stableford rounds.
Stableford scoring will be a great addition to SbS
I would think the most simple way for the SbS programming gurus to start would be to have a section where the player enters his/her handicap prior to the start of their round and let the program calculate the stableford score for each hole
This would only work however if the course being played has the correct hole rating/index.
Further down the track SbS may also be able to calculate handicaps
Also I would be happy to do Beta testing on this
Cheers
Matt
Yes please for stableford in the uk. It would be good to have full handicap, 7/8 and 3/4 options that apply to all players being recorded per game.
You would also need to be able to associate a handicap to yourself & friends (not currently available) that are being scored. Also at the moment I don’t think that the stroke index is know so this would need to be incorporated as well.
Can’t wait till it arrives!!
Stableford with handicap adjust would be awesome. Of course you would have to add section for information on friends to log handicap. While you are at it make get email for friends and auto send scorecard after round posted. Also would like to see matchplay option included.
Stableford is a must in continental Europe as well.
Please make it available with the standard package.
And don’t forget BB users
O.
As said Stableford is a must in europe and in the netherlands as your handicap is based on stableford score over your played rounds in a year.
Automatic adjustment for playing handicap would be very nice.
Hey Travis, Great news that you’re finally adding Stableford to SBS. I definitely feel though, that it ought to be part of the Scorecard module as it is essentially a ‘missing component’ at the moment, when compared with other GPS doo-hickeys.
All my comps and society games are played using Stableford (I’m in the UK BTW) and so this would really help. As far as missing the slope (or stroke index in the UK) information, I’m sure all the courses would be rapidly updated by your members if they had an option to enter the info the first time they used the stableford module on any given course with the info then available for all players thereafter. I’d certainly be more than happy to add my local courses much as I did entering the whole course in the beginning.
All in all though – great app and keep up the good work fellah!
Cheers, Andy
I would love to see stableford and medal scoring included in SbS. I don’t think we (sorry you!) should complicate things on the handicap front just give us to input our handicap in. Most club players are handicapped by their clubs so there will be no need to go too deep into handicaps. A facility to input our handicap on the front or back end and a net gross and score on the scorecard would be brill. Keep up the good work Travis
Yes please, but please don’t limit it to the looper membership.
I do not know what Stableford scoring is so I guess I do not see the point. I count all my strokes, all the way to the cup and take pleasure in real improvement, occasionally. I do not see the value.
I would, however appreciate being able to use the Looper on my BlackBerry. I would prefer to use it than my iPad.
My society of 30 every Sunday play stapleford. 10 of us have swing by swing since I introduced it to the boys but most have sky caddy (mugs) forked out and still paying. They have been rubbing our noses with there stapleford programme this could put the record straight. So yes please and soon as possible
Stableford is great, so please add it in. The only complication I see is the strocks recieved as this is not necesarly the same as your official handcap and it can be calculated in many different ways. So let the user work that out and enter it at the start. The other is the holes the handicap is on is based on the stroke index. If that is not available then it again should be easy for the user to indicate which holes strokes are recieved. In fact if you use this way it also means you do not have to input the strokes recieved or worry if the course strock index is changed.
Great tool
For me it’s simply a must. Playing by Stableford is a natural as using a cell phone. So please add it.
All Australian courses are currently being re-rated.
The majority of the rounds I play are Stableford.
My course has 36 holes with two courses each of Par = 72. The North course is rated 72 and the South is 74. This means that a Stableford score of 36 (i.e. played to my handicap) on the South course counts as 38 for handicap purposes (i.e. two under my handicap). I suppose this is something like the US slope system.
Will the tracking programs cope with this.
Thanks guys!
The response is overwhelming…
Thanks especially to you guys who provided excel sheets and external info. That’s what makes this community so damn cool!
I guess we’ll move forward with this. I’ll send more information when it’s available.
Travis
Yes, glad u have decided to do this, I welcome this whole heartedly.
When scoring the ‘paper way’ I always do strokeplay together with stableford scores for my group as we are not always the same level.
You will always have a blowup hole but with ‘stableford’ you move on & quickly from any disaster you may have had.
In the UK we play several competitions a year under Stableford rules. These count for handicap and a facility for tracking these would be very helpful
Definitely need to add it. I play in the UK and we have a medal at least a couple of times a month but most of the other comps and all friendly games are stableford. I hear all the time from my US friends that it is complicated but to me it is one of the easiest formats to play especially when playing with a mix of high an low handicappers.
I would definitely like to see stableford added. Three out of every four competitions we play in Australia are stableford. The biggest problem however from a stats point of view will be when you “wipe” a hole and don’t putt out. Whilst the stableford points will be zero, how many strokes will you put down for statistical purposes ? Also, it should just be part of the score card module not part of Looper.
I would love to see Stableford but only if you can get the stroke index info and so tie it in to handicap – that would also be useful for match play or stroke play matches between players and ‘friends’
Awesome idea travis, as you can already see we play plenty of it in australia, it would be a great bonus to have with the looper
Great Idea but get the BB uptodate first, please.
Willing to test if you need.
Love sbs,would be great if we could get stableford & par rounds included,as these are games we also play lots in Australia.Also like to see the number putts on score sheet as for percentage don’t undestand.Thank you glad I got SBS.
I would like to see stableford added. Would be best to be able to fill in or eddit S/E and be able to input friends handicaps. I’m an avid stableford player and would also like the option for stableford(plus) as you get penalised for bad hole.
P.S. I live in England and a 1984 grad of Rocky Mountain High Fort Collins (go Lobos!!!)
Yes please, it is such a convenient scoring system that works well and also keeps one working hard at keeping the handicap tracking downwards.
Hi Travis,
Just wondering whether you are going to add stableford in and if so do you have a timescale yet.
I’m also interested to see what else you have on the roadmap.
All the best
Julian
Yes, you should add stableford scoring to the scorecard BUT please do not limit it to Looper members only. I and most of my golf buddies play Stapleford 95% of the time. Many countries outside of the US use stableford system to speed up play. The system is especially prevalent in clubs in the UK. I play my golf all around the world and stapleford is used predominately. Other Golf GPS systems allow for stapleford but of course club handicaps will need to be included in the prosess! This is the one disappointment of the swing by swing system. Kind regards. Steve Dennis
S
I am also waiting patiently for Stableford (and Looper on my BlackBerry…) and found a way to keep my Stableford score. Just add a “friend”, his name is Score. After capturing your score and your Stableford score for your friend. It
Brilliant Reinier, well done I’ll try it out on Friday!!! Thanks. Steve Dennis
Hi Kevin,
If you would be so kind to forward your stableford calculation excel spreadsheet. I would be extremely grateful!
Kind Regards
David Smith
davidryansmith@sky.com
Hi Kevin,
lol – you forwarded me YOUR stableford spreadsheet a while back! I’m sending you a private message now with some extra info we gathered from the community.
Travis
Would love to have a Stableford scoring option on the looper.
Absolutely love the whole SbS experience. Playing more golf then I ever did and am improving as a result. Great looking back at the stats on previous rounds and being able to focus on weak areas.
Definitely think it should be part of the scorecard module. When playing we always play each other on Stableford as well as keeping our own scores. Would be easiest if the scorecard calculated it for you based on a handicap you enter otherwise would be easy just to have a box like penalty strokes for the stableford scores.
Hi Travis
Been using new stapleford system excellent easy to use and you can go back and change scores.
Jim
Thanks for the stableford,great to use, well Travis u got to get the par games going,as par games are also played lots in Australia I got myself an Iphone much better than the Blackberry.much easier to put & get the results.Thanks again SBS is better on iphone.
Felix