Matchplay, the 90% rule, and how shots actually drop

Matchplay is the oldest scoring format in golf, and still the most fun if your group likes head-to-head drama. Instead of adding up a long number at the end, you settle each hole one at a time. Win a hole, you're 1 UP. Lose it, you're 1 DOWN. Halve it, nothing changes. The match is over the moment one of you is ahead by more holes than there are left to play.

It's simple on the face of it. The part that sends people into the car-park arguments is the handicap allocation — specifically the 90% rule and how strokes drop hole by hole. Here's matchplay the way the group actually plays it.

The result language (halved, won, lost, "3&2")

On each hole, three things can happen:

• Won: you took fewer net strokes than your opponent. Hole to you, match moves a point in your favour.
• Lost: you took more net strokes. Point against.
• Halved: same net score. Match unchanged.

The running state is the score line — "1 UP", "2 DOWN", "all square" (AS). A match finishes as soon as the deficit is bigger than the holes remaining. If you're 3 UP with 2 to play, you've won "3&2" — you can't be caught. The last two holes are a formality, and most groups play them anyway for pride.

A few other terms you'll hear on the course:

• Dormie: one side is UP by exactly the number of holes remaining. The trailing side has to win every remaining hole just to tie.
• Conceded putt: your opponent picks up your ball and says "that's good." Perfectly legal, entirely up to them, and a standard courtesy inside 18 inches.
• Conceded hole: you can give the hole away at any point if the writing's on the wall — useful on a blow-up where you've already clearly lost the net score.

The app's 90% handling — and the official competition rule

In a singles matchplay match with two players of different handicaps, the higher-handicap player gets strokes to level things up. Current WHS guidance recommends 100% of the Course Handicap difference for singles match play. The 90% recommendation applies to four-ball match play.

Yardages currently uses 90% of the difference in its friendly head-to-head scoring engine. That is product behaviour, not a replacement for competition terms. If you are playing an organised knockout or club match, use the allowance published by the committee.

Say you're off a course handicap of 10 and your mate is off 20:

Handicap difference:  20 − 10 = 10
90% of the difference: 10 × 0.9 = 9
Strokes received: 9

Your mate gets 9 strokes over 18 holes in Yardages' current friendly-match flow. You get zero because you are the lower handicap. Under a competition using the WHS singles recommendation, the same 10-shot difference would give 10 strokes instead. Four-ball and foursomes use different allowances, so always check the event sheet.

Where the strokes actually drop

Once you know how many strokes the higher-handicap player receives, the next question is which holes. The answer is the stroke index — the 1 to 18 ranking printed on every scorecard for how difficult each hole plays.

Strokes drop on the lowest-numbered stroke indices first:

• 9 strokes: you get a shot on holes ranked stroke index 1 through 9.
• 12 strokes: stroke index 1 through 12.
• 18 strokes: one shot on every hole.
• 24 strokes: one shot on every hole, plus a second shot on stroke index 1 through 6.

So in the worked example above, your mate getting 9 strokes means he gets a shot on every hole ranked SI 1–9. On those holes he plays a net score of gross minus 1. On SI 10–18, he plays his raw gross.

If you want a deeper read on how WHS works out course handicap in the first place (Slope, Course Rating, the full formula), we covered it in WHS handicaps without the rulebook.

Worked example on three holes

You're off 10. Your mate is off 20. He gets 9 shots on SI 1–9. You reach the turn all square — match is alive. Three holes tell the story.

Hole 10 — par 4, stroke index 3

Your mate gets a shot here. He scores gross 5, you score gross 4.

• Your net: 4
• His net: 5 − 1 = 4
• Result: halved. Match stays AS.

That's the handicap working. On raw scores you'd have won the hole. The stroke off SI 3 kept it level.

Hole 11 — par 3, stroke index 15

No shot here — 15 is outside his 9-stroke allocation. He scores gross 4, you score gross 3.

• Your net: 3
• His net: 4
• Result: hole to you. Match goes 1 UP.

No handicap help on easy holes. This is the other side of the rule.

Hole 12 — par 5, stroke index 1

Your mate's hardest stroke. He scores gross 6, you score gross 6.

• Your net: 6
• His net: 6 − 1 = 5
• Result: hole to him. Match back to AS.

A halved hole gross becomes a won hole net on the hardest-ranked hole. That's what matchplay handicaps are designed to do.

Three holes, two swings of momentum, and the match is still alive. That's why people keep playing this format.

Picking the right format for the group

Matchplay is the one to pick when:

• You're playing head-to-head and want the round to feel like a match, not a scorecard.
• The group has meaningfully different handicaps and you want a competitive outcome. Confirm the allowance first; Yardages currently uses 90% for its friendly flow.
• You want a format where a blown hole costs you one hole, not six strokes of scorecard.
• You fancy the courtesies — conceded putts, handshakes on the green, the occasional generous half.

Skip it if:

• The group has four players of similar ability and wants a single round result. Strokeplay or stableford does that job better. We compared those two in strokeplay vs stableford.
• You're running a society day with many players. Matchplay is a pairs format; it doesn't aggregate cleanly.

The bits that catch people out

Course Handicap, not Handicap Index. The playing allowance is applied after the course adjustment, not to your portable WHS index. On a course with an unusual Slope or Course Rating relative to par, the difference can shift from what the raw indices suggest.

Concessions are final. Once you've said "that's good" and picked up the ball, the stroke is conceded — even if your opponent hadn't actually putted yet. Don't concede an eight-footer you wanted to make him grind over.

Stroke index allocation is per course. The hardest hole on one course isn't necessarily the hardest on another. Always check the card — SI 1 is wherever the course has decided, not whatever you remember from last time.

You don't get to change the rule mid-round. The event terms set the allowance. Current WHS guidance recommends 100% for singles and 90% for four-ball match play; Yardages' friendly head-to-head engine currently uses 90%.

Running the maths

If you want to check the net scores on a stableford-adjacent format at the same time, our Stableford calculator lets you plug in pars, stroke indices and gross scores and see net scores per hole. It doesn't compute matchplay states directly (that's a live-scoring job — exactly what the app is for), but the net-per-hole view tells you how the shots are dropping.

Most golf rivalries end up running on matchplay. It's built for the two of you, it respects the handicap difference fairly, and it's the one format where a holed putt on the last green still means something after an otherwise ropey round. That's a lot of format in one set of simple rules.