Society Handicap & Score Management

[WinstonsMyth]

Going to try and post this in chunks as the system keeps rejecting my posts as spam or inappropriate!

Hey there all!

Been reading for a while but finally need to actually post a question!

I started playing golf a year ago, almost to the day, and, needless to say, it is officially the most insatiable addiction that I have in my life!

Shortly after starting to play, I joined a local ex-pat society, TaTs (Tuesday and Thursday society - Yes, we played on a Wednesday once and the joke never seemed to get old!) here in Murcia, Spain. A great bunch of mainly guys and some gals with matches every Tuesday and Thursday and smaller ones on Saturdays. Most players have RFEG (the Spanish PGA) handicaps, based on the World Handicap System, although not all.

Just after I joined, the president of the society sadly passed away. I never had the pleasure of playing with him, but his legend status and the stories that I have heard speak to a person who was, amongst many other things, extremely organised and devoted to the running of the society.

As part of his duties, he managed the handicaps of the members, however, after his passing another member took over this role and, as the software being used was on a laptop and was not transferable, he has spent the past year struggling with this dinosaur. It requires completely manual entry of all scorecards, uses the older handicap system and is not integrated with the RFEG or WHI system in any way. This has resulted in our members having different society handicaps than their official WHI handicaps.

Fast forward to today and we took the leap into the future of using the Golf Directo app for each match, offering the convenience of online and, more importantly, live scorecards. It really is excellent fun being able to see the leaderboard while competing and has led to some rather dramatic moments on the balcony overlooking the 18th green!

So, what is my question (finally you rambling old fool!)...

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Ok, I understand the issue now. Due to the fact that I am trying to post a list of features that I would like the system to include, the system is seeing this as an ad for something

So, let's try this. I will post each feature that I need in a separate post (required marked with a *)!

1. Automatically updated WHI handicaps (preferably with some kind of transmission of same to the RFEG to keep everything aligned)*.

 

[WinstonsMyth]

2. Live online scorecards for multiple 4 ball competitions*.

 

[WinstonsMyth]

3. The ability to "print" match reports and handicap updates to PDF files to share within the group's WhatsApp channel.

4. The ability to also include non-RFEG members and maintain their handicaps based solely on their TaTs matches*.

5. The ability to allow more than one user to manage the system (essentially 3 or 4 administrators would be perfect).

And I think that is everything!

 

[WinstonsMyth]

I have done a bunch of hunting around and, while apps like ParUp and The Grint appear, at least on the surface, to be great options, all of them appear to fall over in some way, usually either online scorecards or, more importantly, the manner in which the "auto-handicap" feature functions.

So,the question (didn't he promise that we were here ages ago?!)...

Does anybody here have a solution for the above? I would really appreciate any help and insight that you may be able to offer. I really want to help the society as best as I can, but I don't really have a huge amount of time for lots of manual work.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[Imurg]

Welcome
Can't help you but huge kudos for the perseverance

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Welcome
Can't help you but huge kudos for the perseverance

Haha! Thank you

 

[clubchamp98]

Haha! Thank you

Might be better to ask in the handicapping thread.
The rules boffins don’t read all the threads.

 

[Bdill93]

Sounds like you need howdidido, not sure if they have a society offering though.

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Might be better to ask in the handicapping thread.
The rules boffins don’t read all the threads.

This forum area is labelled "Rules of Golf & Handicapping"?!

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Sounds like you need howdidido, not sure if they have a society offering though.

I looked at this but, yes, it doesn't have any society features so no use

 

[jim8flog]

The simple answer is to get everybody signed up to the WHS.

I see you are abroad so I do not know if players without an official handicap can sign up for England Golf 'I golf' or 'I play' or if the Spanish authorities offer something similar

 

[rosecott]

I looked at this but, yes, it doesn't have any society features so no use

Handicapmaster has a Society version.

 

[WinstonsMyth]

The simple answer is to get everybody signed up to the WHS.

I see you are abroad so I do not know if players without an official handicap can sign up for England Golf 'I golf' or 'I play' or if the Spanish authorities offer something similar

Sadly, that requires forcing a group of 50+ players, many of which are 65+ years old and some of which only play when they are here in Spain (sometimes only for a couple of weeks per year) to pay the RFEG membership fees each year. It is just not feasible.

It took us weeks of debate and infighting to even get people to accept the Golf Directo live scoring cards!

 

[rulefan]

Handicapmaster has a Society version.

Ditto that

HandicapMaster Golf Software Products Information

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Handicapmaster has a Society version.

Installing the 45 day trial as we speak. Thank you so much

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Ditto that

HandicapMaster Golf Software Products Information

Amazing and thank you

 

[The_Tech_Golfer11]

Hi to all who posted in this thread, we're working on trying to solve this problem with a much more modern solution and would welcome any feedback to help inform some of our decision making.

If anyone has time to complete this very short survey that would be super!

Survey Link: Golf Society and Groups App Feedback

 

[WinstonsMyth]

Hi to all who posted in this thread, we're working on trying to solve this problem with a much more modern solution and would welcome any feedback to help inform some of our decision making.

If anyone has time to complete this very short survey that would be super!

Survey Link: Golf Society and Groups App Feedback

I filled out the survey and left my contact details in the final response. I hope to hear from you soon!

 

[WinstonsMyth]

So, Handicap Master feedback...

In general a solid platform but it misses 3 out of the 5 key features that we are looking for and there is a lot of redundancy in the features that are there that I simply cannot see a good use for without those that are missing, for example, players can enter their scores, but only at the end of the round, which makes the live leader boards somewhat pointless. Were scores entered during the round, a leader board would make sense.

There are a few others which are even less appealing, although Riddy Golf, a new and soon to be released app, may resolve some or all of this.

I have to say, I am shocked that a sport the size of golf with the number of societies currently active all over the world is being catered to so poorly in this regard. It isn't as though people aren't spending large sums of money to play, so why are developers not interested in tapping into those funds by bringing a comprehensive system to market?