How to Use Side Games on SimCap
Side games add Skins, Nassau, and Stableford scoring on top of a tournament's main result. They're optional, they never change who actually wins the tournament, and no real money moves through the app — SimCap just keeps score on who's winning each one.
Where to Turn Them On
When you create a tournament, there's a Side games step right after you pick the format and before you pick players. You can turn on more than one at a time. What's available depends on the format:
| Format | Skins | Nassau | Stableford |
|---|---|---|---|
| Match Play | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scramble | Yes | — | Yes |
| Best Ball | Yes | — | Yes |
| Stroke Play | — | — | — |
Group Challenges always run as Stroke Play, so they can't have side games either.
One thing worth knowing before you create the tournament: you can't add or remove a side game afterward. Once it's created, Manage only lets you change the name, end date, and status. Decide upfront.
How Skins Works
Lowest net score on a hole wins that skin. If two or more players tie for the low, the hole doesn't void — the skin (plus anything already sitting in the pot) carries to the next hole, so pots can build up over several holes before someone wins outright. If the pot's still unclaimed after the last hole, nobody gets those skins.
A hole only counts once every player in the game has posted a net score for it. If someone's missing a score on a hole, that hole — and every hole after it — stays "carrying to the next hole" until it's filled in. You need at least two players for Skins to run at all.
How Nassau Works
Nassau is Match Play only, and it's not a separate game — it's your existing match, split into bets. On an 18-hole match that's three segments: front nine, back nine, and overall. On a 9-hole match it's just one overall bet.
Each segment goes to whoever won more holes within it; if the hole count is tied, that segment is halved. There are no presses and no dollar amounts — it's purely tracking who's up in each segment, using the same stroke allocation already being used for the match itself. A segment shows as Pending until every hole in it has a result.
How Stableford Works
Each hole earns points based on your net score against par:
| Net score vs. par | Points |
|---|---|
| Albatross or better | 5 |
| Eagle | 4 |
| Birdie | 3 |
| Par | 2 |
| Bogey | 1 |
| Double bogey or worse | 0 |
Highest total points leads. Unlike Skins, one missing hole doesn't hold up the rest — points post hole by hole as scores come in, so the leaderboard updates continuously instead of waiting for everyone to finish. If a course doesn't have par data loaded, every hole defaults to par 4 for this calculation.
How This Plays Out By Format
- Best Ball — nothing posts for a team until every player on that team has fully submitted their round. One teammate still playing leaves that team's whole card blank for side games — no skin, no Stableford points — until everyone's in.
- Scramble — no Nassau option here. Skins and Stableford use your team's single submitted score (from whoever's the designated scorer) — teammates who aren't the scorer don't need to post anything separately. A hole resolves once every team's scorer has submitted it.
- Match Play — Nassau is per-match and resolves once both players in that match post full cards. Skins and Stableford work differently here: they're shared across everyone in the tournament, not split per match. Anyone who's posted a card is in the running; anyone who hasn't posted at all just isn't counted yet and doesn't hold things up. But someone who's posted a partial card (missing a hole) does hold up that hole for everyone else — and for Skins, every hole after it too.
Where to See Results
On the tournament screen, under the main standings, there's a Side games card:
- Skins shows each player's name and skin count, plus a note when a pot's still carrying.
- Stableford shows each player's name and point total.
- Nassau only shows a pointer to go check the match — the actual front/back/overall result and hole record live on that match's own screen.
Everything recalculates live every time you open the tournament — nothing is "locked in" early, so editing a score updates the board from that hole forward.
One Thing Worth Knowing About Handicaps
Best Ball and Scramble side games use the same handicap the app already uses for your regular score: your SimCap index once you've logged 3 counting rounds, your GHIN before that.
Match Play's Skins, Nassau, and Stableford work a little differently. They use the SimCap index you had at the moment you logged that specific round — not a live GHIN fallback. If you don't have a SimCap index yet (even one prior counting round is enough to have one), you'll play those side games at scratch, with no strokes, until you do.
If you turn the handicap toggle off for the tournament, every side game runs gross for everyone — no index needed at all.
Why they're worth turning on: Your tournaments just got more interesting. Ready to try it? Open SimCap and turn on side games when you create a tournament.
More guides: How to Run a Tournament in SimCap, How-to hub.