Features

One toggle sets your round up for competition

Competition Mode gets ParPath ready for a counting round in one tap. Your GPS distances, hole map and game plan keep working, while the condition-based extras that Rule 4.3 does not allow switch off. Whether your event permits a device is your Committee's call, and this page shows you how to check.

What it switches off, and what it leaves

Competition Mode is a single toggle in the round setup screen, under Advanced. Turn it on before you tee off and the round is flagged for its whole life. It is part of ParPath Pro.

Flipping it splits the app in two.

That split is not arbitrary. It maps onto the distinction the Rules of Golf draw between getting a distance, which is generally allowed, and getting a reading on conditions or a recommendation about the shot, which is not. The toggle exists so you do not have to remember to avoid tapping four different things for four hours.

What Rule 4.3a(1) actually says

This is the part that a lot of published writing gets backwards, so it is worth being precise.

Under Rule 4.3a(1), using a device to get distance or direction information is permitted by default. A Committee that wants to ban distance-measuring devices in its competition has to adopt a Local Rule to prohibit them. You will find plenty of articles describing the opposite, a Local Rule that must be adopted to allow devices. That was the position before the 2019 rules modernization, and it has not been true for years.

What is not permitted, with or without any Local Rule, is using a device during a round to gauge or measure conditions that might affect your play, or to get a recommendation on club selection or line of play. Elevation change and wind fall on that side of the line. So does a feature that tells you to hit a 7-iron.

What the round looks like with it on

The mode announces itself rather than working quietly, which is deliberate: you should be able to hand your phone to a marker and have the state be obvious.

• On the scorecard header, the word COMPETITION sits beside the round.
• On the hole map, the wind widget is replaced by a shield badge marked R4.3, and a banner across the top reads that slope, wind and club recommendations are off.
• The yardage stack shows the raw number only. No PLAYS LIKE badge, no adjusted figure, and tapping it no longer opens the breakdown sheet.
• Waypoint pills show actual yards. Drop a target and you still get the carry and the distance on to the green, with no adjustment and no club attached.
• The dispersion circle and the strokes gained read are skipped entirely, not hidden. The calculation does not run.
• Round settings shows it as on for that round, with a line explaining what was disabled.

The flag is stored on the round itself, so weeks later the record still says that round was played in Competition Mode. That matters more than it sounds: a scoring round played with adjusted numbers and a scoring round played without them are not the same round, and your own history should say which one it was.

Playing without the adjustments

The first Competition Mode round is a small shock if you have got used to a number that already had the hill and the breeze in it. Three habits cover most of the gap.

• Use the front and back numbers deliberately. They are still there, and the spread between them is still the depth of the green. A middle number plus a known green depth tells you most of what a plays-like figure was telling you about how much club is enough.
• Do the elevation once, in advance. The holes that play noticeably up or down are the same holes every week. Note them on a practice round, in a yardage book or in your own head, and you are not gauging anything during the round because you already know.
• Take the wind off the flags and the trees. This is the skill the adjustment was quietly doing for you, and it is worth having anyway. Playing partners who have never had a wind number are not at a disadvantage, they are just reading it themselves.

None of that is a workaround. Information you gathered before the round and carry in your head or on paper is a different thing from a device gauging conditions while you play, and it is how every golfer managed before any of this existed.

Why ParPath and the hole map stay

The two things people expect to lose and do not are the map and the plan.

The map stays because a map is distance and direction information, which is the category Rule 4.3a(1) permits by default. You keep the overhead view, the hazards, the front, middle and back numbers and the carry to the bunker. What you lose is the layer of interpretation on top of those numbers.

ParPath stays because it is a plan built for the course before your round starts, not a live reading of the shot in front of you. Your colors, your target on each hole and the note that goes with them are the same in a counting round as they are on a Tuesday evening, and they are the part of the app most worth having when a card matters. That said, if you are in any doubt about whether a particular aid is permitted in your event, ask before you tee off rather than after you sign.

What it does, and what to check

Competition Mode does one job, and does it cleanly: it keeps its condition-based features off so the app stays within Rule 4.3 for a counting round. Your distances, the hole map and your game plan all keep working. That is a statement about the software, and we stand behind it.

The one thing to check yourself is whether your event allows a device at all, which is set by your Committee's Local Rules rather than by the app. Give them a read before you tee off, and once you know devices are allowed, turn Competition Mode on and you are set for the round.

Getting it right on the day

A few things to keep in mind so a counting round goes smoothly.

• Check the Local Rules first. If your Committee has banned distance-measuring devices for the event, that stands over any setting, so leave the phone in the bag and play from the yardage book.
• Keep other apps closed. Competition Mode governs ParPath, and the Rule is about what you use during the round, so a wind app open in the background is still on you.
• Keep the Committee's card. Score in ParPath if it helps you, and keep the official card marked and signed as the event requires. The basic rules of golf covers what a marker is doing.
• Post scores the usual way. Competition scores go through your club or association as normal, and your ParPath handicap stays your own progress estimate alongside your official Index.

Turn it on at setup rather than mid-round, in the same pass as the rest of the setup for a tournament round, so the whole round is played under those conditions from the first tee.