Of all the potential casualties coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the most surprising might be that of the paper scorecard.
In the year in which the oldest scorecard still in circulation turns 200 – that marked by James Cundell at Musselburgh Race Track in Scotland on December 2, 1820 – 2020 may yet be remembered in golf terms as the death knell for the traditional way in which scores are recorded.
With the exception of Victoria’s extended lockdown, golf participation has boomed across the country during COVID-19 albeit in a hands-free fashion. No touching flagsticks, no using bunker rakes and no swapping scorecards. It’s been a dramatic shift thrust upon the game, but one that has been quickly adopted by club golfers throughout Australia no longer fearful of taking their phone out of their pocket while on-course.
Prestigious clubs right across the country such as Royal Melbourne, Royal Queensland, Yarra Yarra, Kooyonga and Lake Karrinyup have gone digital and seen take-up of the MiScore app within their membership exceed 75 per cent.
One of the largest providers of golf software solutions in Australia, MiClub’s forward thinking gave Aussie golfers a scoring solution when they needed it most and raised the question: are we witnessing the death of the scorecard?
Royalty’s digital decree
The re-imagined Rules of Golf released by the R&A and the USGA on January 1, 2019, included a significant amendment that went largely unnoticed at the time.
As golfers squabbled over how to drop from knee height, having only three minutes to find their missing golf ball and the ability to leave the flagstick in the hole at all times, golf’s governing bodies opened the door to the digital age.
The scorecard may be in any paper or electronic form approved by the committee that allows:
• The player’s score to be entered for each hole,
• The player’s handicap to be entered, if it is a handicap competition, and
• The marker and the player to certify the scores, and the player to certify his or her handicap in a handicap competition, either by physical signature or by a method of electronic certification approved by the committee.
“It probably didn’t get a lot of visibility at that time, people doubting whether anyone would put their score down on a phone,” concedes Simon Magdulski, Golf Australia’s senior manager of play management and regulations.
“It slipped under the radar, but 18 months later and things have changed significantly. It’s now become quite a significant one. It was only January 1, 2019 that you could completely do away with the paper scorecard and submit your score over the phone.”
The Rules of Golf do not currently allow for a player to mark their own score on their device, Golf Australia instituting an R&A-approved local rule during COVID that permitted those using the MiScore app to mark their score on their own phone and have their marker add a digital signature at the completion of the round. It’s an amendment that Golf Australia would like to see adopted in the Rules of Golf.
“The Golf Australia position is that a player scoring their own score which is verified by the marker at the end of the round should be acceptable,” Magdulski added. “We’re proposing a further evolution to the rules that would enable some of these COVID-related relaxations to remain permanently in place.”
Tech-tonic shift
If the majority of the golf world went to sleep on golf’s electronic evolution, Peter Maddison caught a glimpse of the future.
The managing director of MiClub – the software solutions company that services more than 500 Australian golf clubs – immediately went to work on developing a digital score submission solution. Beta programs were rolled out at Royal Melbourne and Mt Lawley during 2019 so when the coronavirus emerged earlier this year, clubs were granted a free six-month trial in order to quickly transition their members to scoring on their mobile phone.
“If it had been normal circumstances it would have taken some time to get the numbers that we’re getting now,” explained Maddison, reporting some 150,000 app downloads to date and in use at some 300 golf clubs.
“It has forced clubs to come on board and what it has shown them is that it wasn’t only a solution for COVID, it’s something they can commit to moving forward.”
There will soon be a second alternative in the Australian market with MSL Solutions close to releasing a digital scoring solution to the 230 golf clubs using its golf management software, general manager of golf and strategic partnerships Nick Thornton recognising the sudden need to make it available.
“It was on our radar, but there’s nothing like a pandemic to change focus in this instance,” Thornton agreed. “It’s not urgent from a club perspective but it’s certainly on their radar. It’s something that clubs are now thinking in relation to their plans moving forward as to how they would like to put protection measures in place for their staff and their members.
“There can be a lag in getting new technology in and adopted in any industry, but certainly over the past three months there has been a more heightened interest, especially as people are playing more golf.”
One such club that was ahead of the game in transitioning members to the digital way of doing things was Headland Golf Club on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Renowned as a haven for retirees, the average age of members at Headland is 63, but that didn’t stop golf and operations manager Clay Williams moving the membership online.
The club developed its own app where they communicated local rules and course updates and were among the first to make the MiScore app available as a scoring method in club competitions, including the club championships in October. A three-month trial pre-COVID saw a gradual rise in usage at Headland, but now the club is reporting about 95 per cent of scores being submitted digitally.
“Upon start-up, the percentage of users was less than 10. Two months later they were around 20 per cent across the board and then right before COVID it was up around 30 per cent,” Williams said. More recently, only two players in the field on Thursday, October 8 submitted a paper scorecard.
“It would have been a continued slog to get members to adopt it without COVID. There was certainly resistance from that older demographic initially as they transitioned over, but we helped them with any issues they had and now we’re running at around 95 per cent.”
Interconnected
Beyond the digital submission of scores becoming more commonplace, the scope of broader use of mobile phones opens the door to food and beverage delivery, monitoring of pace of play and live scoring for club competitions. But more than that, Magdulski is excited by what removing the stigma associated with mobile phones on the golf course will do for the game as a whole.
“Think back five years and so, many clubs were resistant to people using phones on the golf course,” Magdulski says. “The culture has shifted very quickly to where now having the phone in the hand is just a part of the golf experience. That can enrich the golf experience and rebrands golf to an extent from being a sport that was technology-resistant to one that embraces technology.”
A place will remain for the paper scorecard for the foreseeable future, but those leading the digital revolution are hearing first-hand the direction golf clubs are heading.
“There’s no doubt about it, clubs would really love to get rid of scorecards. That’s come through very strongly from a lot of clubs,” Maddison says. “The app was put in for COVID reasons initially to keep golf going, but clubs have come back to us in great numbers saying that it has made their golf operations so much easier and that they are pushing people to use the app.”
“Golf always has some traditions that it likes to hold close, but we’ve also got to be cognisant that we are in a different era now,” adds Thornton. “The people who are coming into the game from a younger age group expect to be able to access their device. Golf clubs and golf administrators need to be ready to take the leap and use this period as a way to change the paradigm. There will be massive amounts of change over the next 10 years. We just need to be accepting that technology is becoming part of the experience.”
