How to Use Open Challenge on SimCap

Open Challenge is a public 1v1 stroke-play match — post one and any signed-in SimCap player can accept it. Here's exactly how it works.

Where to Find It

Go to Social → Head-to-Head → Create Match → Open Challenge. The Head-to-Head hub has four tabs: Incoming & Active, Open Now, Scheduled, and Recent. Open Challenge posts show up in Open Now until someone accepts them. (Direct challenges — private invites to one specific person — live in this same hub but work separately.)

Posting a Challenge

Choose Now (live immediately) or Later (scheduled up to 30 days out).
Set your sim platform, course, and tee.
Set conditions: putting, pins, wind, mulligans.
Choose 18 holes, Front 9, or Back 9.
Optionally turn on scorecard verification — if it's on, both players upload a final scorecard photo and the match won't close until those photos match the scores entered. It's off by default.

If you're posting a live 18-hole match from your phone, you'll also need to upload a photo of your sim settings screen. This isn't required on the web app or for any 9-hole post, and you won't be asked for it while scheduling a Later post — only when it goes live.

You can have up to 3 unclaimed Open Challenge posts up at once (Direct challenges have their own separate cap of 3).

How Someone Accepts

Anyone signed in can browse the Open Now feed and filter by handicap bucket, course, or sim. First to accept gets the match — you can't accept your own post. Heads up: if you have multiple posts up and someone claims one, your other unclaimed posts come down automatically.

The person accepting picks their own tee and uploads their own settings photo. From there it plays out as a normal 1v1 — each player logs their own holes, no shared scorecard.

How Scoring Works

Lower net score wins. A tie is halved. Strokes are based on the difference between the two players' course handicaps, calculated from each player's GHIN index on their profile, their own chosen tee rating and slope, and the holes being played. If you don't have a GHIN index set, you play off scratch.

Timing Details Worth Knowing

A Now post stays open indefinitely until someone accepts it — it doesn't expire on its own.
A Later post goes live at its scheduled time, and you then have 2 hours to upload your settings photo. If you miss that window, the post expires. If you're scheduling one, set a reminder for your go-live time so you don't lose the spot.
After an 18-hole match finishes, either player can save the round to their SimCap index. 9-hole results aren't saveable from the results screen.

That's the whole flow — post it, someone takes it, play your round, see who won. No group required.

Why it's worth posting one: The SimCap feature almost nobody's used yet. Ready to try it? Open SimCap and post an Open Challenge from Head-to-Head.

More guides: How to Start a Group Challenge, How-to hub.