An honest comparison
HowDidiDo is built around the golf club: your official handicap and your club's competitions. ParClub does a different job. We build your society's scoring to its own rules, and it runs every meeting in a portal for the secretary and a free app for every member.
Written by ParClub. Updated 30 September 2026.
Side by side
They do different jobs. If your club uses HowDidiDo and it does what you need, keep it. ParClub picks up the part a club system was never set up for: your society's own competitions.
HowDidiDo
For golfers who are members of a club that uses it. It is where the official side of your golf lives.
Best for: a club member keeping track of the official number.
ParClub
For a society whose competitions have their own rules. We build the scoring to match, and it runs every meeting.
Best for: a society with a committee, a fixture card and rules of its own. How it works for societies →
Where they differ
Software made for golf clubs has to suit every club that uses it, so it comes with settings. A society's rules grew up one committee meeting at a time, and they rarely match anybody's settings.
A shot taken off last year's winner. A second table that only counts some meetings. Divisions split on whoever turns up, not a fixed line. With no setting for any of it, somebody works it out by hand after every meeting. That is the job a build does.
Win or finish runner-up and you lose shots for the rest of the season and all of the next. Then they drop off by themselves.
Its own run of meetings, worked from the same cards. No card is entered twice.
Whoever turns up, the field splits by handicap, and each half gets its own winner and runner-up.
Set how many rounds count (say, the best two of four), so a player who misses a round isn't out of it.
Row by row
The HowDidiDo column says what it is built around, not everything it does.
| Question | HowDidiDo | ParClub |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Golf clubs and their members | Golf societies, one build at a time |
| Your official WHS handicap | Yes, through your home club | No. That number comes through your club |
| Your club's competitions | Yes, where your club uses it | No. They stay with the club |
| Your society's own rulesPenalties, divisions, best-of tables, weight for age | Built for club competitions | Built to your rules and checked against your own results |
| A portal for the society's secretary | Built for the club, not the society | Start sheets, handicap labels, results, email to the field |
| An app for members | Its own app, for club golfers | Free for every member on iPhone and Android |
Got something wrong about HowDidiDo? Email us and we'll put it right.
ParClub uses the handicap index your members already have and works out the shots for each course. The official number comes through your club.
Booking stays between you and the course. The start sheet is yours to set.
Match play is scored hole by hole, net of handicap, and reads the way you'd write it: 3 and 2. The draw is yours to make.
The portal records who has paid their subs. The money never goes through ParClub.
You don't need a build. The ParClub app works on its own, with over 2,900 UK courses already loaded.
More about the app →No. Your official handicap and your club's competitions stay with your club, and with HowDidiDo if your club uses it. ParClub scores your society's own competitions. They do different jobs, and you can have both on your phone.
No. ParClub uses the handicap index your members already have from their club. The build then works out the shots for the course and for each competition, with its own allowance built in.
If it scores everything your society plays, keep it. A build is for the rules it has no setting for: a shot off last year's winner that lasts into next season, a second table over a different run of meetings, divisions split on the day, weight for age. Here's how a society build works.
No. The secretary can enter any card in the portal, hole by hole or just the totals, and members without the app still appear on the start sheet, in the results and in the tables. Those who want the app get it free.
The matches, yes. Each one is scored hole by hole, net of handicap, and the result reads the way you'd write it: 3 and 2. The draw is yours to make.
No. A build is for a society with rules of its own. For a game with your mates, use the ParClub app on its own, on iPhone and Android. Get the app.
Tell us about your most awkward competition. We'll tell you straight whether we can build it.
Still on a spreadsheet? Read ParClub vs a spreadsheet.
ParClub