Play a casual round on your own

Quick answer. Press Play in the bar at the bottom of your screen, then Start a Round. Search for your course, or press "Can’t find your course? Start a quick round" and type a name. For each hole, press "Tap to enter your score", tap a number and press Save / Done. On the last hole press Finish round and your card appears.

Who can do this: any golfer who is signed in. No event, league or club is needed.

Before you start

You need to be signed in. Signing in, and what to do if you cannot covers that. We walked this on a phone-sized screen. We did not walk anything in the phone app.

We walked two ways to start: a round at a course from the list, and a quick round where you type your own course name. The page says a quick round "won’t update your handicap (no course rating)". The handicap itself, which the page says starts after 54 holes, we did not walk.

The steps

1. Open Play. Press Play in the bar at the bottom. The page is headed "Play". It shows "YOUR BACK9OPS HANDICAP" and, until you have played enough, a dash and these words: "Play 54 holes at a rated course to get your handicap — three 18-hole rounds, or six 9-hole rounds." Under it are My stats & trends, Games with friends and Start a Round. A new golfer sees "No rounds yet. Tap Start a Round to track your first one."
2. Press Start a Round. The page asks "Where are you playing?" and gives you a box that says "Search for a course…" with a Search button.
3. Find the course. Type part of the name and press Search. A list of courses appears, each with its city. Press yours. A TEE list opens, with lines such as "Red, White, Blue · 69.2/127", and under HOLES the buttons 18, Front 9 and Back 9, then Start Round. Pick a tee and the holes you are playing, then press Start Round. If your search finds nothing, the page says "We don't have that course yet. Search every course or start a quick round."
4. Or start a quick round. Press "Can’t find your course? Start a quick round". Type a name in the box under COURSE NAME, for example "Saturday muni". Under HOLES press 18 or 9. Press Start Round. (Back to course search takes you back.)
5. Score the first hole. You see the course name, "Hole 1" and a line such as "Par 4 · SI 7 · 310 yds" at a course from the list, or "Par 4 · SI 1" in a quick round. Press "Tap to enter your score". A number pad opens with 1 to 9 and 0, Clear, Cancel and Save / Done. Tap your number, then press Save / Done.
6. Check it. The hole now shows your number, and how far over or under par it is, for example "5" and "+1". Under it is "Tap to change". A line near the bottom, such as "Thru 1 · 5", keeps your running total.
7. Add more detail if you like. Press "Add putts / fairway / GIR". A panel opens with Putts (a minus and a plus), Fairway (Missed left, Hit fairway, Missed right), Green in regulation and a row of clubs from Driver to Putter. Press Hide details to close it. You can skip all of this.
8. Go to the next hole. Press Next hole. There is also a Previous hole button, which we did not press. Under a score the page says "Tap to change". We did not change a score.
9. Pick up a hole. If you did not finish a hole, press I picked up. The hole shows "Max" and "picked up", and the page says "Picked up — counts as your max".
10. Finish. On the last hole the button is Finish round. Press it.

What you should see

Your card. It says "NICE ROUND", then the course name, the date and "Front 9", then your total and how it compares with par, for example "41" and "+5 vs par". A table shows each hole's PAR and YOU, with an "Out" total at the end. Under it the page says "Birdie is circled, bogey-or-worse is boxed. Blank holes weren’t played." You also see counts for Putts, Fairways and Greens.

For a quick round the page adds: "This course has no rating, so it doesn't change your handicap." For a nine-hole round at a course from the list it said instead: "Play 45 more holes to get your Back9Ops handicap — it starts after 54 holes (three 18-hole rounds, or six 9-hole rounds)." At the bottom are Send to friends, Done and Delete this round. Friends, and sending a round to them is the next article.

Press Done and you are back on Play. The round is under RECENT ROUNDS with the course, the date, "9 holes" and your total. A quick round also carries the words "Not in your handicap · Not rated". My stats & trends opens "My stats", which showed "1" for Rounds logged, your scoring average and your best round compared with par.

If it goes wrong

• You left in the middle of a round. Press Play. A card headed ROUND IN PROGRESS shows the course name with Continue and Discard. Press Continue to go back to your holes.
• You want to throw away a round you have not finished. Press Discard. The page asks "Discard this in-progress round? This can't be undone." Press Discard round to do it, or Never mind to keep it.
• You want to remove a finished round. Open it from RECENT ROUNDS and press Delete this round. The page asks "Delete this round? This can't be undone and will update your Back9Ops handicap." Press Delete round. We did that and Play said "No rounds yet" again. Press Never mind to keep it.
• The page says Par 4 on every hole. In our quick rounds every hole showed Par 4, and the card’s PAR row was 4 all the way across. We could not find a place to change it. If your course has other pars, the plus and minus figures will not match your real card. At a course from the list the holes showed their own pars, 3, 4 and 5.
• The stats page shows a dash. "Putts / round" showed a dash for us. We did not find out what it needs before it shows a number.
• You want your handicap to move. The page says a quick round does not change it. Start your rounds from the course list instead. We walked one nine-hole round that way and the page counted it toward the 54 holes it asks for.
• Distance to green and Mark shot. We did not walk this one.

Director's tip

This one is our advice, not a rule of the app. Put each hole’s score in before you walk to the next tee. It is much easier than trying to remember nine holes at the end.

Related

• Friends, and sending a round to them
• Your inbox: messages from your club and your events
• Signing in, and what to do if you cannot

Still stuck?

Email support@back9ops.com and tell us what the page said and what you pressed last.