FerdaCup is a season-long, FedEx Cup-style golf tournament. Compete with your friends no matter where you are or when you play — your local muni, a road trip course, a destination resort, on a Tuesday afternoon or a Sunday morning. Every round earns points based on how you finished against the rest of the field for that scoring period. Points stack all season. The top finishers advance to the playoffs, and the lowest net score in the final playoff round wins the Cup.

Built around the fact that golfers can’t always line up the same tee time. So they don’t have to.

Every FerdaCup season runs in two phases:

• Regular season. Players post rounds during each scoring period, on whatever schedule the tournament was set up to use. Each period produces a leaderboard and awards points to the top finishers. Points accumulate all season long.
• Playoffs. The top finishers by season points advance to live, in-person play. The lowest net score in the final round wins the FerdaCup.

The rest of this document explains how each piece works — and, just as importantly, what can be customized when a tournament is set up.

When a tournament is created, the commissioner sets the rules of the season. Once locked in, they don’t change mid-season. You choose:

• Season length. How many weeks the regular season runs. Typical seasons are 8 to 14 weeks. Longer means more chances to earn points; shorter means a tighter race.
• Scoring period length. How often must players submit a round. Weekly, biweekly, or longer.
• Minimum holes per period. Default is 18 (one round per period). Can also allow two 9s to pair into one period score, or set the minimum at 9.
• Playoff field size. How many players qualify for the playoffs.
• Championship field size. How many players from the first playoff round advance to the final round. Default is 4.
• Maximum Handicap Index. A cap on how high a handicap can play for scoring purposes. Default is 36.0 — anyone above that plays to 36. Keeps newer players competitive without letting an inflated handicap distort results.
• Starting strokes for top seeds. How much of a head start the top seeds get in the final round. Defaults: −4 / −3 / −2 / −1 for seeds 1 through 4.
• Handicap cutoff date. The day each player’s playoff handicap locks in. Typically set 1 to 2 weeks before the regular season ends, so a hot streak in the final period can’t bump someone’s handicap right before the playoffs. The handicap you carry into the playoffs is the one you held on cutoff day.
• Playoff dates. Target dates for the playoff rounds. Real, on-the-calendar, everybody-shows-up rounds.

Gross score is the number on your scorecard — every stroke, top to bottom.

Handicap Index is a measure of how good a golfer you are, calculated from your recent rounds. A 7 means you’re expected to shoot roughly 7 over par at a course of average difficulty. A 22 means roughly 22 over.

Course Handicap adjusts your Handicap Index for the specific course you’re playing. Harder courses give out more strokes; easier courses give out fewer. The formula uses the course’s slope rating and course rating:

Net score is your gross minus your course handicap:

The handicap system also keeps itself honest. Every round you post — good or bad — updates your handicap. Sandbag a round to set up an easier points-grab later, and your handicap rises right along with the bad score, costing you the points you were trying to earn.

Each scoring period, the rounds submitted are scored against each other by net. That ranking is the period leaderboard. Points are awarded by finish position using the FedEx Cup distribution:

Points scale down through 65th place. Ties share the average of the positions they cover (two players tied for 2nd each receive the average of 2nd- and 3rd-place points). Season points are the sum of every period’s points earned, and the leaderboard is visible to everyone at all times.

If you don’t submit a round during a scoring period, you earn zero points for that period.

Season points also determine playoff seeding, and the top seeds get a head start in the final round (see Section 6). Every period finish can move you up the seed line, so there’s reason to keep posting even after you’ve qualified.

The top players by season points qualify for the playoffs. The playoffs are live, in-person rounds — same course, same day. Lowest net score in the final round wins the FerdaCup.

The number of playoff rounds, the size of the playoff field, and how the field narrows between rounds are all set when the tournament is created.

Starting strokes. The top seeds enter the final round with strokes already taken off their net score. Standard spread:

The spread can be customized when the tournament is created.

Handicap cutoff. Your playoff Handicap Index is locked on a date set when the tournament is created — typically 1 to 2 weeks before the regular season ends. You can keep posting rounds after the cutoff and they still update your true handicap going forward, but the number you play to in the playoff rounds is the one you held on cutoff day.

Invite code. Every tournament has a short invite code (e.g. FERDA-X7K2) shared by the commissioner. Enter it from your dashboard.

Establishing your handicap. To compete in a FerdaCup tournament, you need an established Handicap Index on the platform. Per USGA rules, that takes a minimum of three counted rounds. Until your handicap is established, you can join a tournament and post rounds, but you don’t appear on the leaderboard yet — your rounds feed the calculation that establishes your HI. The moment your HI is established, you’re added to the leaderboard and become eligible to earn points in the next period.

Once established, your handicap carries forward on the platform. You don’t have to re-qualify next season.

Maximum Handicap Index. Each tournament has a maximum Handicap Index for play, set when the tournament is created. Players whose computed Handicap Index exceeds the cap play to the cap. Plus handicaps (negative numbers) are supported and uncapped.

Two handicaps: profile and tournament. Every player has a profile handicap — your overall Handicap Index on FerdaCup, updated by every counted round you post (casual or tournament). Each tournament you’re in also has its own tournament handicap, seeded from your profile handicap when you join, then updated by rounds you submit to that tournament. The tournament handicap is what’s used for scoring in that tournament. This keeps sandbagging out of competition — only rounds you’ve actually competed in can shape your tournament handicap going forward.

Tournament rounds vs. casual rounds.

• Tournament round. Counts toward the period’s score in whichever tournaments you submit it to, earns points, and updates both your profile handicap and the tournament handicap in each tournament you submit it to.
• Casual round. Doesn’t earn points and doesn’t affect any tournament handicap. It does update your profile handicap.

Submitting one round to multiple tournaments. If you’re in more than one tournament, a round you played can be submitted to all of them at once, as long as it qualifies under each tournament’s rules. The two submission rules below apply per tournament.

What counts as a tournament round. A tournament round must satisfy the period’s minimum hole requirement. A single 18 always satisfies an 18-hole minimum. Two 9-hole rounds played in the same period can be paired — your combined net is the sum of the two 9-hole nets. The first 9 sits “pending pair” until you post the second. If the period ends with a single unpaired 9, that 9 is downgraded to DNF for the period (the round still updates your profile handicap). You can’t pair a 9 from one period with a 9 from another.

You can play tournament rounds at any course. There’s no requirement that everyone play the same course.

Post your round the day you played it. When you finish a round, log it the same day. The play date on a round should match the day it was actually played.

The two submission rules.

1. Most-recent only. If you play more than one tournament round during a period, only the latest one is eligible to submit. You can’t submit an earlier round after a more recent one exists.
2. Once submitted, locked. A submitted round can’t be replaced, even if you play another round afterward.

When you finish a round, you have a real choice: submit it now and lock it in, or play again — but if you play again, the new round becomes the only one you can submit. You can’t keep old rounds in reserve.

Deadlines. Tournament rounds must be submitted by the end of the period. Late submissions require commissioner approval.

Pickup rule. Per USGA handicap rules, you may pick up on any hole once you’ve reached your Net Double Bogey for that hole — par + 2 + strokes received. Just record your max and move on. The score-entry page shows your per-hole maximums before you start and beneath each hole’s input as you go. If you forget and play out the hole, enter what you actually shot — handicap math caps each hole at Net Double Bogey anyway, so an honest mistake never inflates your handicap.

FerdaCup uses the World Handicap System — the same handicap structure used at every USGA-affiliated course in the country. The only difference is that FerdaCup doesn’t apply the Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC), a minor daily adjustment based on how the field as a whole scored on a given day at a given course. Everything else — the differential math, the rolling 20-round window, the soft and hard caps — works exactly the way the WHS specifies.

Establishing a profile handicap. A profile handicap is established once you’ve posted at least three counted rounds, subject to the variance-adjusted calculation the WHS uses for the first several rounds. Until then, your course handicap is treated as zero — you receive no strokes. Once established, it carries forward on the platform; you don’t have to re-qualify next season.

How tournament handicaps work. When you join a tournament, your tournament handicap is seeded from your profile handicap at that moment — same number of rounds, same value. From there, each tournament’s handicap evolves on its own. Only rounds you submit to that specific tournament get added to that tournament’s pool. Casual rounds and rounds submitted to other tournaments don’t affect it.

Course Handicap. When you play a specific course from a specific set of tees, your Course Handicap is calculated from your Handicap Index, the course’s slope rating, and the course rating:

Soft and hard caps. Once you’ve posted at least five counted rounds, your Handicap Index is subject to soft and hard caps that limit how quickly it can rise over a rolling 12-month window. The caps engage only on the way up — a great round always lowers your HI without restriction.

Net Double Bogey and pickup math. The Net Double Bogey on a hole is par + 2 + strokes received on that hole. It’s both the pickup max (you can stop playing the hole once you’ve reached it) and the cap that handicap math silently applies to each hole’s score, even if you played out the hole and shot higher. This is what keeps a single blow-up hole from blowing up your handicap.

Because your profile and tournament handicaps can differ, your strokes-received on each hole — and therefore your Net Double Bogey — can differ too. For pickup decisions on the course, use whichever course handicap is higher (most generous to you). When the round is scored, each tournament uses its own course handicap to compute your net and to cap any holes where you played out past your max.

Handicap during the playoffs. Your tournament handicap keeps updating from rounds you post, but the number you play to in the playoff rounds is the one locked at the cutoff (see Section 6). Rounds posted after cutoff still feed your tournament handicap going forward — they just don’t change your playoff handicap.