Stroke play, every stroke counts.

Overview

Stroke Play (also called medal play) is the most fundamental scoring format in golf: count every shot, lowest total wins. Unlike Match Play, every stroke matters — a triple bogey damages your score the same on hole 1 as it does on hole 18. Duck Hook Golf tracks the front nine, back nine, and overall 18 separately, with handicap support for any group that wants net scoring.

How Stroke Play Works

1. Play 18 holes. Each player records their score on every hole.
2. Add up the strokes. The player's total score is the sum of all 18 hole scores.
3. Lowest total wins. Whichever player — or team — finished with the fewest strokes wins the round.
4. Optional segment scoring. Front nine, back nine, and overall 18 are each tracked separately, so you can see who played best in each segment of the round.

Detailed Rules

Every stroke counts. Penalty strokes, missed putts, blowups — everything adds to the total. There's no "you only lose this hole" forgiveness like there is in Match Play.

Front 9, Back 9, Overall. Duck Hook Golf surfaces three separate leaderboards: the front-nine total, the back-nine total, and the overall 18-hole total. The overall winner is whichever player has the lowest 18-hole total.

Single round. Duck Hook Golf scores stroke play as a single 18-hole round. Multi-round tournaments and cuts are not part of the standard stroke-play scoring — for events that need them, run multiple separate games and aggregate manually.

Ties. If two players finish with the same total, the round shows a tie. There's no built-in countback or sudden-death tiebreaker; settle ties however your group prefers (split the pot, share the title, or play a one-hole playoff).

Variants & Handicap

Gross or net. Gross stroke play is what the pros play — raw scores, no adjustments. Net stroke play subtracts handicap strokes from the total, making mixed-handicap groups competitive. Net strokes are applied per-hole based on the course's stroke index, then summed. Use net for any casual group with a handicap range wider than ~5 strokes.

Individual or team. Run it as a standard individual stroke play, or aggregate team totals from multiple players. Most team stroke-play formats (Best Ball, Scramble, Alternating Shot) have their own pages with specific scoring rules.

USGA or relative handicaps. USGA-style handicapping is the default; relative is available.

Strategy

• Avoid the big number. Triples and worse are what wreck stroke-play rounds. When you're in trouble, take the safe shot and accept bogey — the round is 18 holes long.
• Course management beats hero shots. Stroke play rewards the player who consistently finds the fat side of the green and two-putts. The 18-handicap who plays smart will beat the 5-handicap who plays reckless.
• Don't chase a bad start. A bogey on hole 1 is one stroke. A double trying to make it back on hole 2 is two more. Settle in and play your game.
• Net stroke play is the great equalizer. If your group is mixed-handicap, gross is unfair. Always net.

Presses and side bets. Play for a stake per stroke and the app scores a 2x press: each stroke of difference from the next unscored hole is worth double. It also tracks side bets like closest to the pin and long drive on top, and settles them with the rest of the round.

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