GolfScore – User Guide
Enter
or change system options
Enter
a course the easy way (Importing)
Format
of a golf course record
Introduction
GolfScore is an application that will run on a PDA or Java enabled mobile phone. It makes it easy to record your golf score as you go without having to scrabble for a pencil and scorecard. You can score up to six players at a time.
Entering the score for each player is as simple as pressing the stroke count for each player after each hole. At the end of the game you can view a table of results immediately. It is then possible to transfer the data to a PC giving a full report.
Overview
Before the game, you can either enter or download the golf course details. You then select or enter the players names, gender and handicap. Then you enter the score. It is as simple as that.
The program will calculate the allowed strokes for each hole based on the player’s handicap and stroke index for that hole and will determine each player’s relative position in the game so that you can see how you are going during the game.
At the end of the game, the program will display a summary table showing;
the player’s name,
the par,
the number of strokes played,
the player’s handicap and
the final result.
Because the result is calculated for each hole, a valid score can be calculated even if any of the players were not able to play every hole.
These details are available for each hole by scrolling through them one by one or, alternatively, it is possible to upload the game to your PC and view it with Microsoft Excel.
When you first download GolfScore, you will need to install it onto the device that you intend to run it on. You will need to refer to the device’s user guide to find out how to do that but if you need help you can e-mail us on: Support@A-Wizard.com.au.
Once the program is installed, you will need to enter the system information. You only need to do this once when you first set the program up. To do this see Enter or change system options.
Using the program
Enter or change system options
Select System setup from the first menu.
Enter your name in the “Registered to” field and the registration number (provided by us) in the “Registration Number” field. You have about 30 days to do that so it is not important at this stage.
If you want to export your games to your PC you will need to enter a mail server address in the Export to field.
If you want to download course information rather than enter the course manually, you will need to enter the web address for your course in the Import from field. As an example, you could enter http://www.A-Wizard.com.au/GolfCourses/index.txt.
Then you only need to select whether you want to use Metres or Yards for measurements.
From this screen you can reset the program to remove all courses, games and players. (It won’t reset the setup data.) To do this choose reset from the menu.
Enter a course the hard way
To enter a course, choose Course from the first menu. The program will display a listing of all the courses that you have entered before. (Of course, the first time it will be empty but next time you will be able to choose one.)
Select Add from the menu.
Enter the course name and enter a rating if you want to. The rating can be any single number but isn’t really necessary.
Select holes and the program will display the first hole for men ready for you to enter distance, par and stroke index.
Enter these then select next hole, previous hole or switch gender to enter more details for other holes. You continue like this until you have entered all the holes for both genders.
When you have finished press the back button and a summary of the course will be displayed. You should compare the totals with the golf course score card to verify that the data is probably correct. Of course, compensating errors will not show up.
At the bottom of the summary the program will display a message if you have made a non-compensating error in either the ladies or the men’s stroke index.
This method is convenient if you don’t have access to a web site as required below.
Enter a course the easy way (Importing)
A much easier way to enter a course is to create a text file, in the format shown in the appendices, with all the information and post it to a site on the web.
Make sure that the “Import from” field in System setup has the site address where you posted the text file.
Select Course from the first menu so that you go to the Course list screen.
Then select Import from the menu and the program will download the course and add it to your list.
If you want to store several courses on your website you can create an index for them in the format also shown in the appendices. The program will first download the list and present it in a list display. From there you can choose the course that you want and select Accept from the menu. Then the program will download that course and add it to your list.
To save space in your device you might need to occasionally delete a course or two, but you can easily add them again once you have them posted to the web. However, you cannot delete a course that has been used in a game. You will need to delete that game first.
Enter a player
To enter a player choose Player from the first menu. The program will display a listing of any players that you have entered before.
Select Add from the menu then enter the player’s name and handicap and select the player’s gender.
You can then choose Add again to add another player or simply back out of the screen to show the list of players.
Enter a game
To enter a game you simply; choose the course, choose the players then enter the score.
First, choose Game from the first menu. The program will display the Game screen with the current date and time filled in. You can change this if you want to.
Next, choose Select Course from the menu. The program will display a list of courses. If the course that you are playing at is not yet in the system you can add it now. If you don’t have time to enter all the data now you can do it later but, of course, the program won’t be able to calculate handicaps correctly until that information is entered.
Choose Accept from the menu after highlighting the course that you are playing. The program will enter this course into the game.
Choose Select Players from the menu. The program will display a list of players. You can add more players to this list now if you want to.
Mark each player that you want to keep the scores for then choose Accept from the menu. The program will add the marked players to the game.
Finally, choose score from the menu. The program will display the first hole for one player. After all the players have finished the hole you can enter the score by entering the number of strokes for each player and then choosing Next Player from the menu.
The best thing about
this is that you can do it with one hand whilst pulling your buggy to the next
tee with the other hand and you don’t have to search
for a pencil.
The sequence of players will always be the same and will always start from the same player when you go to the next hole. If you select redisplay, after entering a score, the system will give comments on the score.
If you scroll through the players again after entering all the scores for any hole, the system will display add the cumulative position to the comments. For example, “Winning”, “Second”, “Third”. Etc.
When you are ready, choose Next Hole from the menu. The program will display the next hole for the player in the same sequence that it did for the first hole. This is to make it easier to enter the scores without having to look carefully at the screen to see which player you are entering the score for.
If you want to review all the scores for one player then choosing Next Hole each time would be a problem if the player wasn’t the first in the sequence. Therefore it is better to choose Previous Hole from the menu because then the player stays the same. It is not automatically changed to the first player in the sequence as it is when you select Next Hole.
If you want to miss a hole just choose next hole twice. The program will still be able to calculate the score on the holes played.
At the end of the game choose Back and the program will display a summary of the results showing:-
the player’s name,
the par,
the number of strokes played,
the player’s handicap and
the final result.
You can now choose Export Game from the menu if you want to upload the game to your PC. (See exporting games.)
Other options to delete games, Courses and Players are available on the menus and are obvious. However, the program will not allow you to delete a player if that player is featured in any of the games on the system. Nor will it let you delete any courses in use. If you want to delete those items you will first need to delete the appropriate games.
Exporting games
The program has been written to run on as many different devices as possible so it doesn’t use any features which may not be available on some devices. Because of this data can only be imported or exported using HTTP.
This is fine for downloading (importing). You can attempt to download anything you like into your own phone, but in uploading (exporting) there are some security issues involved.
If you are technically proficient with HTTP and servers such as Tomcat then you could set up your own HTTP server on you own PC. Alternatively, you could set up an e-mail server such as TFmail at your ISP which will accept the file from your device and then e-mail it to you.
If you don’t have this ability you can register with us for a small annual charge and we will set up the e-mail server for you.
We welcome any ideas that you may want to contribute to
improve the program.
Installation
To install the program
you should unzip it into a separate directory (folder) and then use the
installation program that came with your mobile device. If you need any help
with this, please e-mail us at Support@A-Wizard.com.au.
Appendix 1
Format of a golf course record
Each field must be separated by a TAB character (ASCII 09). This is easily done by saving a Microsoft Excel file as tab delimited.
Appendix II
Format of a golf course list.
Again, each field must be separated by a TAB character (ASCII 09).
