What's new
Everything we've built, freshest first. Updated as it ships.
Next up
On the bench right now, from the clubs and organisers using it. Not live yet - it moves into the list below the day it ships.
- Setting the handicap allowance is getting a bigger, clearer box, so 100% can never be mistaken for 10%.
- Take a photo moves above Add card photos, and the camera stays open so you can shoot one card after another without going back.
- Scanning a batch will show honest progress for every card, so a long read never looks like it has stalled.
- The checked, locked and still-checking counts on the results screen become buttons that take you straight to those cards.
16 October 2026
Every card says where it is: Uploading, To be reviewed or Checked
- Every card shows one of three stages, the same whether it was scanned in the app or sent to the ScribbleScore team: Uploading in soft red, To be reviewed in amber, and Checked in green.
- Uploading means the photo is in and still being checked. On the rounds the ScribbleScore team runs with you, a card stays Uploading until we have checked it against the photo, and anything we fixed or want you to look at shows under From us on the card.
- To be reviewed means the card is ready for you. Checked means someone at the club has marked it as checked, and only checked cards count on the leaderboard, as before.
- Scan/check scorecards counts the cards at each stage. Tap a count to list just those cards. The list updates by itself every 10 seconds.
- A checked card shows who checked it and when.
- A second photo of a card that is already in is held back with a question: delete the copy, or keep both if it really is a different card.
9 October 2026
Reply to everyone on an email, copy people in, and add an emoji
- When an email in the club inbox went to other people too, choose Reply all. The box names everyone before you send.
- An incoming email now shows who else received it.
- New message has a Cc line for people you want to copy in.
- A row of emoji sits under the reply and New message boxes. Tap one to drop it in where you are typing.
9 October 2026
Send one email to several people, with files attached
- In the club inbox, add as many addresses as you need in To. Each one locks in as you type it.
- Attach documents and pictures to a new message, up to 4 MB in total.
- The sent copy shows everyone it went to and the files that went with it.
8 October 2026
The ScribbleScore S in your browser tab
- Every browser now shows the ScribbleScore S on the tab and in your bookmarks.
- Any ScribbleScore page you add to your phone's home screen, a results page included, is called ScribbleScore and carries the S.
7 October 2026
ScribbleScore on your home screen looks like ScribbleScore
- Add ScribbleScore to your phone's home screen and it is called ScribbleScore, with the ScribbleScore S as its icon, white to the edge, with no dark corners on an iPhone.
- On Android the icon fills the phone's own icon shape, with the S kept whole inside it.
7 October 2026
Every round on a card counts, names can be added by hand, and a handicap to check shows red
- Every row of scores on a card now becomes a round, even when the name cannot be read or matched to the draw. The row is scored and shows "Name needed" until you type the name or pick the player, and the card cannot be checked until it has one.
- Under each card, Players on this card lets you add a name, change a name, or add a player to an empty row. A name written exactly as it is on the draw is matched straight away, even when another player on the draw is one letter away.
- A name you type or change under a card stays as you typed it when the card is checked.
- Handicaps follow the club's rule wherever they are written on the card. The figure with a decimal (the index) is ignored. With two whole numbers, the higher is the course handicap and the lower is the playing handicap, which is played off as written. With only one, it is the course handicap, and the playing handicap is worked out at the day's allowance with a half going up, and shown: 85% of 16 is 13.6, plays off 14.
- When a written playing handicap does not match the allowance of the course handicap beside it, it is kept as written and shown in red with the sum, for example: Check: 85% of 16 is 13.6, plays off 14. The card says 13. Nothing is changed for you.
- If a card shows more than two whole-number handicaps for a player, you are asked which one they played off.
26 September 2026
Nine-hole rounds keep the stroke indexes on the course card
- A nine-hole competition is scored off each hole's stroke index as the eighteen-hole card prints it, so a back nine can be 2, 4, 6 and so on up to 18. A 13 handicap strokes on the holes indexed 1 to 13 wherever they are: seven holes on Westlake's front nine and six on its back nine.
- Before, a nine set up that way could not be scored at all, and one numbered 1 to 9 gave a 9 handicap a stroke on every hole.
- Loading a nine from a course saved as eighteen brings every hole's place in the course's plus order, so a plus handicap gives strokes back on a nine exactly where it would over eighteen.
- A nine can be saved for next time with its real stroke indexes, and the course editor's stroke index boxes go up to 18 on a nine.
26 September 2026
Plus handicaps give their strokes back where the card says
- A course can now carry the plus order printed on its card. Westlake's card says "Plus Strokes: +1 Hole 16, +2 Hole 07, +3 Hole 14, +4 Hole 08", so a +1 player gives his stroke back on the 16th, a +2 on the 16th and the 7th, and so on.
- Set it in the course editor, in the new Plus column beside each hole's stroke index. A course saved for next time keeps it, and a competition set up from that saved course brings it along. A competition whose holes are left on the default and filled in from its first card brings it along only when its course name is the saved course's name ("Westlake Golf Course", not "Westlake") and the par and stroke index read off the card match the saved course on every hole. A card that does not match leaves the saved course and its plus order as they are. Otherwise set it in the course editor.
- A plus handicap bigger than the places the card lists takes the card's holes first, then carries on from stroke index 18 down, so a +5 at Westlake gives back on the 16th, 7th, 14th and 8th and then the 15th.
- Over nine holes, a stroke the card puts on the other nine stays there. A nine-hole competition gets its plus places from its own course editor, or from the saved eighteen it is loaded from, so on a Westlake front nine with the 7th set as +2 and the 8th as +4, a +1 gives nothing back and a +2 gives back on the 7th.
- A course with no plus order gives strokes back from stroke index 18 down, exactly as before.
24 September 2026
What reading a competition's cards cost, for admins
- A competition's Results screen now shows admins what reading its cards cost: the total, the cost a player, how many cards were read, and how many reads that took, second looks included.
- It is an estimate at list prices, in US dollars. Cards deleted from the competition are not in it, because once a card is gone, what it cost to read can no longer be tied to a competition.
- Only admins see it. Scorers, the public results page and the clubhouse screen never show it.
24 September 2026
Handicaps on a reduced day, plus handicaps, and scores that follow the card's total
- Handicaps on a reduced-allowance day are read more reliably. The reduced figure written over the printed PH box is now picked up, a player with no handicap read gets a second look, and when the reduced figure looks to be missing you are asked, rather than the full handicap quietly being used.
- Plus handicaps can be entered. The handicap keypad on the card screen and in the checks has a + key, and so does adding a new player, so a +1 player is saved as +1, and a plus handicap shows as +1 wherever it appears, the clubhouse screen included. A plus figure read off a card is always checked with you, in case the + was a stray mark.
- When the two looks at a card disagree about a score, the card's own total now decides which reading comes first: the one that makes the row add up to the total the golfer wrote. You are still asked to confirm it.
24 September 2026
Cards in fourball order, names on the board, and clearer tie-breaks
- The scanned cards now list in fourball order, Fourball 1 first, the way the tee sheet reads, instead of in the order they were scanned. A card not yet matched to a group waits at the bottom.
- The leaderboard, the clubhouse screen and the shared results page show each team by the names of the players who played for it, instead of its fourball number. The card screen still says which fourball a card belongs to, for checking it against the draw.
- The ways to settle a tie on points now say what they do: last 9, then last 6, last 3 and the last hole; the same from the first hole; or the hardest holes first, by stroke index. A new competition starts on the rule we hold for its club, and it can still be changed for that round until the result is published. The leaderboard and the results page name the rule under any board where two finished level on points.
- Moving a card to another fourball now updates the leaderboard straight away.
23 September 2026
A bigger card photo, and the clubhouse screen in four pages
- When you check a card, the menu steps aside so the photo is bigger. Scorecards takes you back.
- The draw for 23 Sep was entered from the club's new tee sheet, so its fourballs are numbered 1 onwards in tee time order and the first group out is 1.
- The clubhouse screen now shows four pages, each for 5 seconds: the leaderboard 1 to 10, then 11 to 20, Two clubs, and the sponsor.
- The sponsor page can show a sponsor of the club's choosing, with their logo. Set it on the competition, under Sponsor on the clubhouse screen.
23 September 2026
Combined betterball alliance, a card that reads like the paper, and sharper handicaps
- New format on the list: Combined betterball alliance. A plays with B and C plays with D. On every hole the group scores the better of A and B plus the better of C and D, so A 2, B 1, C 3 and D 0 is 5. The pairs are the card's own rows, A with B and C with D, and the draw stands in for a card that has not been read yet.
- The card screen now reads like a scorecard. The holes run left to right from 1 to 18 with OUT, IN and TOTAL, player A sits above B, C above D, and the team's score for each hole sits underneath D. On a wide screen the photo stays on the left and the scoring on the right; on a narrower one the photo sits above.
- Handicaps on a reduced-allowance day: most players write their full handicap and the 85% one beside it, and we play off the lower one, never working one out ourselves. When only one figure is read, the card now gets a second look for the other, and when the two looks disagree about a handicap you are asked rather than left guessing.
- Cards are now read by Claude Opus 5.5, the newest reader, which is sharper on handwriting. If it is ever unavailable the previous reader takes over on its own.
- The sponsor tab and the clubhouse screen show the sponsor named in the competition's title, so each round shows its own sponsor.
18 September 2026
Keep card reading running, from Settings
- Reading a card runs on a paid key behind the scenes, and when its credit ran out the reading stopped until we sorted it out for you. Admins can now do that themselves: Settings has a new Card reading key card, where a fresh key can be saved and the very next card uses it.
- A key is tried before it is saved, so a mistyped or empty one can never replace one that works. If it is turned away you are told why: not accepted, or out of credit.
- Test keys tells you, at any time, whether card reading is ready to go. Worth a press the evening before a big day.
- Only admins see the card, and a saved key is never shown again: just its last four characters, who saved it and when.
1 September 2026
The leaderboard is four tabs, ready for the clubhouse screen
- The competition leaderboard is now four tabs: the team board (Four ball alliance on an alliance day), Individual stableford, Two clubs, and the competition sponsor.
- On the team board each group reads with its players beside it (Front 1, then the four names in draw order), and the groups still out on the course are listed underneath as “Still to come”, so the board looks like one list that fills in rather than one that is short.
- Two clubs is the twos club: it lists everyone who has holed a gross 2, with the hole they made it on (their actual score on the hole, not the net of it). A player who makes two of them in a round is on the list twice. Before anyone has one it says so rather than looking broken. The sponsor tab shows the competition sponsor, Infiniti.
- Switching is by tap for now. The boards rotating on their own comes once we know how long each should hold on screen.
31 August 2026
Every club keeps its own member list
- Members now belong to a club or society rather than to one shared list. Add a club on the Members screen, import its people, and nothing you do there touches another club's roster: no shared names, no cross-over in the draw.
- A competition says which club is playing it. The draw offers that club's members, and names read off the cards are matched against them and nobody else.
- Two clubs can now both have a John Smith. Until today the system allowed exactly one, anywhere.
- Short and misspelled names on a card are matched instead of asked about: Steven finds Stephen, Llew finds Llewellyn, and inside a drawn fourball even a two-letter scribble finds the one person it can be. Where two people genuinely fit, it still asks.
- Tell it once who a name is and it remembers for the rest of the competition. The same handwriting on a later card is linked without asking you again.
31 August 2026
The handicap on the card is the one you are playing off
- Under each player's initials the card now shows the handicap the competition is actually scored off. In a competition set to an 85% allowance that box reads the 85% figure, not the full handicap, so it matches the points on the holes below it. The full handicap and the allowance are on the tooltip, and tapping the box still edits the handicap read off the card.
- The points figure is back on every hole. It went away on 29 August, which left the amber mark standing on its own, and a mark that means “we read this differently to you” only reads that way while the holes it is not on are visible beside it.
- So the yellow background now means one thing and one thing only: on this hole, the points the golfer wrote are not the points the scores work out to. Everywhere else the figure sits there plain, and agreeing.
29 August 2026
The points come off the card
- The little green points figure that sat on every hole of the card is hidden. Checking a card is now about what the golfer wrote, with nothing on the cells that is not on the paper.
- Where the points the golfer wrote disagree with what the scores work out to, that hole still gets its amber mark, because catching those slips is the audit.
- The totals have not moved: OUT, IN and TOTAL with their points rows still sit at the foot of the card, with COMP PTS last.
26 August 2026
The club has an email address, and it answers from inside ScribbleScore
- Mail to iain@scribblescore.co.za now lands in an Inbox inside the admin. Read it, reply to it, or write a new message without leaving ScribbleScore. Replies go out as the club, and thread properly in the other person's mail client.
- Replies and new mail can carry the club signature automatically, with a switch to leave it off for a quick note.
- Every message also forwards a copy to a backup mailbox, so nothing depends on any one system being up.
- There is a brochure for club visits at scribblescore.co.za/brochure. Open it on a phone across the counter, send it after a meeting, or download it as a PDF.
12 August 2026
A new website, and a demo you can actually play with
- scribblescore.co.za is now a proper site: pages for how it works, what it costs, every competition format we score, and how your club's data is handled.
- There is an interactive demo you can run end to end without signing up. Read a card, settle the three exceptions on it, switch the format and the handicap allowance, and publish the leaderboard.
- The demo is not a video. The points, playing handicaps and countback figures in it are worked out by the same scoring engine that scores a real competition, on invented players, so the tie you see is separated on the back nine because the product decided it was.
- Every capability on the site says whether it runs today or is set up for your club during implementation, so nothing reads as available when it is not.
- The privacy, terms and support pages are reachable again. They had been linked from the footer while returning a not-found page.
11 August 2026
Cards come back quicker
- A four ball card now takes about 45 seconds to read instead of about 70. On a field of 30 cards that is roughly twelve minutes back.
- We moved the reading onto a different engine and checked it against every card we have already verified by hand. It got 357 of 360 scores right, against 356 for the engine it replaced. We moved back on 20 August: the two are a single cell apart on that sample, and the older engine turned out to be better at knowing when it was unsure, which matters more than the cell.
- A very busy card used to be able to run out of room part way through and come back as a failure you had to retry. That has stopped happening.
- Nothing changes in how you use it. Same photo, same review screen, same leaderboard.
9 August 2026
Scanning no longer gets stuck on the last step
- A card could sit on "Adding up the points" and never move on, even though it had been read properly and was waiting for you.
- Reading a card happens on our side and takes about a minute. If your phone locked, your signal dipped, or you switched apps while it worked, the answer could go missing on the way back, and the screen had no way of finding out.
- The scan screen now checks with us rather than waiting to be told, so a card that has finished shows up as finished within a few seconds. No more reloading the page to see where you got to.
- It also fixes the version of this where it told you the upload had failed, offered you a retry, and the retry left it spinning. Neither of those was ever costing you a card, only the ability to see it.
8 August 2026
A team competition tells you when it can't produce a team board
- Pick a team format (four ball alliance, two ball alliance, combined stableford) and it needs a draw behind it. Without one there are no teams, so the team leaderboard can only ever be empty.
- It used to be empty with no explanation, which you'd discover at prize giving. Now the competition screen and the leaderboard both say so, and link straight to the draw.
- Playing better ball and someone isn't in a pair? We name them, because their scores are counting towards nothing.
- Choosing the format now tells you up front that the draw is part of the setup.
8 August 2026
Far fewer questions on a card we read properly
- We were asking you to check scores we had actually read correctly. On one real card that meant eight questions where one was warranted. That's fixed.
- The cause: when the second look came back with nothing to add, we treated the silence as a disagreement and marked a perfectly clear score as doubtful. Silence now counts as nothing learned, and the first reading stands.
- We've also separated two different judgements. Looking at a square again is cheap, so we still do it readily. Stopping you to ask is expensive, so it now happens only when the reading is genuinely uncertain rather than merely less than perfect.
- Anything the card itself makes doubtful still comes to you: a crossed-out score, a total that doesn't add up, a missing number. Those checks are untouched.
- On the website, the explainer no longer prints subtitles on top of the words already in the video, and going full screen no longer crops the edges off.
7 August 2026
The explainer is a real video now
- The 50-second explainer on the homepage is proper footage of the app doing the job, start to finish: set up the competition, play, photograph the cards, check the exceptions, publish the leaderboard.
- It has sound, so it waits for you to press play rather than starting on its own, and it downloads nothing until you do.
- Captions are on by default, and the full script is still written out underneath for anyone who would rather read it.
7 August 2026
Your member list, and a draw that matches itself to the cards
- New Members screen: import your club or society list straight from your own system's CSV export. We look for names and handicaps, and if you import the same file again next month we update people rather than duplicate them.
- New draw screen on every competition: pick who's playing from your member list, tap Deal into fours, and move anyone who's in the wrong group. Nothing is saved until you say so, so you can shuffle the fourballs as much as you like.
- Each group gets a number. Write it on that group's scorecard and we read it off the photo and file the card under the right players.
- The scan screen now tells you which groups you're still waiting on, by number, so you know exactly how many cards are still out on the course.
- Missed the number, or the pen went through it? Pick the group by hand on the card screen.
- Handicaps come off the member list every week, so nobody plays off last season's number.
- On a phone you can now swipe up through a scorecard screen with your finger anywhere on the photo. Tap the expand button for the photo on its own, full screen, where pinch and double-tap zoom belong.
- The review screen gives the question far more room on a phone, with a tap to trade height between the photo and the question.
- Undo a check and the card no longer sends you into an empty review screen that says everything is already checked. It takes you to the card, ready to check again.
5 August 2026
The website now says who ScribbleScore is for
- The homepage leads with who we serve: golf clubs, societies and golf-day organisers. Golfers never need a second app.
- Pricing is public. Society and golf day tiers from R550, club tiers from R1,750 a month, and every recurring tier has an annual option at 12 months for the price of 10.
- A 60-second explainer walks the whole journey from handwritten card to published leaderboard, with on-screen captions and a written transcript.
- A new section explains how ScribbleScore sits alongside the official handicap system rather than replacing it.
- Every example screen on the site now uses clearly labelled demo data.
- You can book a founding pilot straight from the homepage.
2 August 2026
Fewer questions, and the points are on the card
- Your points are now written on the card itself: every hole shows what it scored, and the total sits under the grid. No need to go looking for them.
- The card also shows the handicap each player is actually playing off, so a round off 85% adds up in front of you.
- If you haven't set the course up, we now take the par and stroke index straight off the card instead of asking. We only ask when you did set a course and the card disagrees.
- Players written on the card get added to the competition automatically, handicap and all. You only get asked when a name is genuinely unclear or could be two different people.
- Once a card is checked there's a button straight to the leaderboard.
1 August 2026
Alliances by name, and a course that knows its stroke indexes
- The format list now says what you actually play: Four ball alliance and Two ball alliance (better ball), alongside individual and combined stableford.
- Playing off 85%? Tap it. Handicap allowance has one-tap buttons for 100%, 95%, 90% and 85%, and every point is worked out off the cut handicap.
- Know the course? Load the Pearl Valley layout in one tap and every hole arrives with its real par and stroke index, instead of a card full of par 4s.
- Change the format, the allowance or the holes after cards are already in, and the leaderboard now redoes itself straight away.
- Scan scorecards has moved to the top of the competition screen, where your thumb already is.
- A fresh coat of paint: ScribbleScore is now tournament green from the website through to the scoring screens.
9 July 2026
The card knows its course
- ScribbleScore now reads the printed par and stroke index rows off every card, not just the handwriting.
- If they don't match your course setup, you get one quick question at review time: use the card's layout, or keep yours.
- One tap fixes the whole course and every point is worked out again on the spot.
- Handy when a competition was set up in a hurry and the card knows the course better than the setup does.
9 July 2026
Settings, invites and one-tap sharing
- New Settings page: tell us your name and the app greets you properly.
- Set a 6-digit PIN in Settings and skip the emailed code next time you sign in.
- Prefer scoring in the evening? Dark mode is in Settings too. The app stays light unless you switch it.
- Invite fellow organisers and scorers by email, straight from the Users page.
- Add ScribbleScore to your phone's home screen and it opens like a proper app, with its own icon.
- One-tap sharing: send the final results to WhatsApp or anywhere else, right from the leaderboard.
- First time in? A friendly nudge asks what to call you, once, and never again.
- Friendlier signposts if you ever follow a link to a page that isn't there.
9 July 2026
Sharper on your phone
- No more surprise zoom: tapping any field on your phone keeps the page exactly where it was.
- Leaderboard now lives in the menu - one tap from anywhere, straight to the current round's standings.
- The big camera button sits front and centre on your phone: scan a card from wherever you are.
- Past rounds has its own home - every published leaderboard, newest first.
- Sign-in and invitation emails now carry the ScribbleScore mark.
- Share the site anywhere and a proper preview card shows up, scribbles and all.
8 July 2026
ScribbleScore is born
- Sign in with a 6-digit email code - no passwords to remember.
- Create a competition in under a minute: name, date, course, 9 or 18 holes, and your format (individual Stableford, better ball, alliance or combined).
- Set up the course card: par, stroke index and distance for every hole, with a check that stops two holes sharing a stroke index.
- Add your players and fourballs, with handicaps - or leave them out and let the scorecards introduce them.
- The reading engine: photograph a handwritten scorecard and ScribbleScore reads the names, handicaps and hole-by-hole scores itself.
- It works out all the Stableford points from the gross scores - the handwriting is only ever cross-checked, never trusted for arithmetic.
- Anything it isn't sure about gets flagged for a quick check - you only ever look at the scribbles, not every number.
- Live leaderboard with proper countback (back 9, back 6, back 3, last hole) and a public results page you can share.
- Scan button front and centre on your phone - straight from the 18th green to the leaderboard.