The SimCap Feature Almost Nobody's Used Yet (And Why You Should Be the First)
If you've been using SimCap to track your handicap or run a league tournament, there's a decent chance you've never noticed Open Challenge. It's been live the whole time, sitting one tab over from where most people spend their time in the app — which is exactly why we're writing this.
What It Actually Is
Open Challenge is a public 1v1 stroke-play callout. You post a match — your sim, the course, the tee, the conditions — and literally any signed-in SimCap player can see it and accept it. No group invite, no scheduling back-and-forth in a group chat, no need to already know your opponent. You post, someone takes it, you play.
It's easy to mix this up with SimCap's other multiplayer features, so here's the quick version of how it's different:
- A tournament (Match Play, Scramble, Best Ball, Stroke Play) lives inside a group, with a roster and a bracket or standings.
- Group Challenges / Facility Cup pit two whole groups against each other, 5v5, net stroke play.
- Open Challenge is just you, one other person, no group required — the simplest possible way to put a round on the line.
How It Works
Posting one is quick: pick your sim platform, course, tee, and conditions (putting, pins, wind, mulligans), choose 18 holes or a 9-hole round, and decide whether you want it live right now or scheduled for later. From there it sits in the Open Now feed until someone claims it.
Scoring is simple and fair regardless of skill gap: it's net stroke play, lower total wins, ties are halved. The higher-handicap player gets strokes on the hardest holes based on both players' course handicaps — pulled from each player's GHIN index on their profile, their own chosen tee, and the holes being played. So you're not just hoping for a blowout against a scratch player; the math evens it out the same way a real handicap system would.
Why This Is Worth Trying
Most of the multiplayer features in SimCap assume you've already got a group — teammates, a league, people you play with regularly. Open Challenge doesn't. It's the one feature built for the moment you just want a real match, right now, against someone you've never met, with real stakes on the scorecard.
It's also, candidly, the most underused thing we've built. We'd rather tell you that straight than pretend otherwise — which is exactly why it's worth being one of the first to actually use it. Right now the Open Now feed is basically empty. The next person who posts one gets picked up immediately.
Head to Social → Head-to-Head → Create Match → Open Challenge and put one up. Full step-by-step is in the how-to guide if you want the details before you post.