Free Golf scoreboard

Why score Golf with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Golf
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Golf scoring works

In stroke play, you add up all strokes (and penalties) taken on each hole and then over the whole course; the lowest total wins. A hole's score is named relative to par: birdie (-1), bogey (+1), eagle (-2). In match play, total strokes are not counted, only holes won. A handicap may be subtracted from the gross score to obtain a net score.

Match format

A standard round is played over 18 holes; some competitions are played over 9 holes or several rounds (for example 4 rounds in a professional tournament). The format (stroke play, match play, Stableford, etc.) varies by competition.

How to win

In stroke play, the player with the lowest total number of strokes wins. In match play, the player who wins the most holes wins, the match ending as soon as it can no longer be tied.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

Set up golf in a "low cumulative" score mode: tap +1 or +2 to add the strokes played, and the lowest total wins. ScoreZen offers no preset and no setting for the number of holes; track the 18 holes yourself and end the round manually once the course is finished.

How a golf score is actually built, hole by hole

Your score for a hole is an addition: strokes made plus penalty strokes. A ball lost or out of bounds costs one penalty stroke and you replay from where you played the last one — stroke-and-distance relief (Rule 18.2b, which sends you to Rule 18.1); taking relief from a penalty area, or declaring a ball unplayable, costs one penalty stroke too. And the hole ends only when the ball is holed: in stroke play, failing to hole out and not correcting it before making a stroke to begin another hole — or, on the last hole, before returning the scorecard — is disqualification (Rule 3.3c).

Par is a reference, not the score: one under is a birdie, one over a bogey, and “+3” on a par-72 course means 75 strokes. Match play ignores that total. The hole goes to whoever takes fewer strokes (Rule 3.2a(1)), and the match is won the moment a player leads by more holes than remain to be played (Rule 3.2a(3)) — that is what “3&2” means. A concession — of the opponent's next stroke, of the hole or of the match — is final and cannot be declined or withdrawn (Rule 3.2b).

Club competitions are very often Stableford, points counted against a fixed target score, which is par unless the Committee sets a different one (Rule 21.1b): more than one over the target, or no score returned, 0 points; one over, 1; the target, 2; one under, 3; two under, 4; three under, 5; four under, 6. Highest total wins, and you may pick up once a hole can no longer earn a point — a player who does not hole out simply gets zero points for that hole (Rule 21.1b(2)), which is why the field comes back on time. Net play adds handicap strokes by stroke index, using the allowances recommended by the Rules of Handicapping: 95% of Course Handicap in individual stroke play, Stableford included, 85% in Four-Ball stroke play and 90% in Four-Ball match play. What you never do is add up: Rule 3.3b(4) states there is no requirement for a player's handicap to be shown on the scorecard or for players to add up their own scores, and a mistake in either carries no penalty.

(R&A and USGA, Rules of Golf, 2023 edition, still the edition in force: Rules 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 5.3, 5.6, 18.2, 18.3, 20.1, 21.1 and 23.2, plus Appendix C, Handicap Allowances, of the Rules of Handicapping; French translation published by the ffgolf.)

The scorecard mistakes that end a round early

You never fill in your own card. On the first tee you swap: your marker enters your gross score hole by hole and confirms it with you as you leave the green (Rule 3.3b(1)). Two markers rebuilding nine holes from memory in the car park is how wrong figures get certified.

Then the asymmetry that catches everyone. A score returned higher than the one you made stands and you carry it; a score returned lower — or no score at all for a hole — is disqualification (Rule 3.3b(3)). One relief valve: if it was too low only because of a penalty you did not know about before returning the card, and the mistake is found before the competition closes, the Committee adds the strokes instead.

Certifying is not totalling. Check the marker's figures, change none without the marker's agreement or the Committee's approval, then certify and return the card promptly (Rule 3.3b(2)); skip a step and it is disqualification. Two more traps: in Four-Ball stroke play, the score that counts for the side must be clearly identified as the score of the partner who made it, or the side is disqualified (Rule 23.2b); and when you do not know the right procedure, you may finish the hole with two balls under Rule 20.1c(3) — announce to your marker or another player which ball you want to count before playing on, then report the facts to the Committee before returning the card, because failing to report is itself disqualification.

Competition day, from the first tee to the recording table

Count your clubs in the car park: fourteen is the maximum (Rule 4.1b(1)), and the penalty is two strokes for each hole where the breach happened, four at most for the round, or one hole deducted for each hole of breach with a maximum of two holes in match play. Your starting time is exact too — nine o'clock means 9:00:00, not any time up to 9:01 — though arriving ready to play no more than five minutes late costs the general penalty on your first hole rather than disqualification (Rule 5.3a).

A field usually goes out one of two ways: tee times, groups of three or four every ten minutes or so; or a shotgun start, everybody teeing off at once from a different hole, when the club wants the whole field back together.

On the course, pace is as much your job as scoring: the Rules recommend making the stroke in no more than 40 seconds once you are able to play without interference, and they allow “ready golf” in stroke play when it is safe and responsible (Rule 5.6b). Announce a provisional before you hit it if your ball may be lost outside a penalty area or out of bounds (Rule 18.3a), and say the word “provisional” — “I'll play another” is not enough (Rule 18.3b). The search lasts three minutes from the moment you or your caddie start looking (Rule 18.2a(1)). In match play your opponent may ask your stroke count, and a wrong number costs the hole unless corrected in time (Rule 3.2d(1)).

What ScoreZen changes for golf

ScoreZen keeps a golf match the way a golfer reads one: the hole you are on out of eighteen with its par, and a big number that is your score against par — E, +1, -2. Every stroke is one thumb: +1, +2, a separate button for a penalty stroke, “next hole” to move on. Tap something wrong and you take it back.

Finished holes drop into a strip you read at a glance — hole, par, birdie or par or bogey — while each player's running total in strokes sits just under their score against par. Share the round with a link or a QR code and the people at home follow it shot by shot; spectators are free, unlimited, and never need an account. Lose signal between the sixth and the ninth and it carries on counting without a network, then resynchronises.

For an interclub match or a society day it runs the whole competition: knockout, home-and-away championship, pools then a final bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series, rotating teams. One QR code covers the entire tournament and each player finds their own match inside it. TV mode fills a clubhouse screen, the Replay and the vertical Story make the round shareable, fixtures export to CSV, and the read-only public API needs no key.

Thirty-four sports, twenty-five languages. Three trial matches are free for life, then one payment of €1.99for life. One honest limit: the card that counts is still the one your marker certifies and you return to the Committee.

Frequently asked questions