Simulating a 12-Player match on Birdie Board
Before running Birdie Board with real players (see this blog post), I wanted to know exactly how it would behave under pressure…not just one round or a couple golfers, but a full-blown, multi-round match with live scoring flying in from every direction.
So I built a simulator.
It’s a simple concept: twelve players, three rounds, and a fake “game clock” that posts new hole scores every 250 milliseconds. But in practice, this test gave me a rare view of Birdie Board’s core logic: how it balances teams, calculates strokes, and updates everything in real time without missing a beat.
Building for Scale and Realism
This first step wasn’t just about testing; it was about mimicking reality. When twelve golfers are playing, you want team balancing to feel fair, competition formats to flow naturally, and the UI to stay responsive even as the data piles up.
The simulator let me rehearse that flow before anyone ever teed off.
I built the test around three unique rounds, each with its own structure:
Round 1: Stableford — team vs. team play
Round 2: Best Ball — three 2v2 competitions
Round 3: Stroke Play — six 1v1 matchups with full handicap integration
This setup allowed me to stress every rule Birdie Board supports, team scoring, pairing logic, and individual handicaps, all in one event. When I clicked Auto Balance, Birdie Board evenly distributed the players based on handicaps. Then I refined the matchups manually, just like a real captain might before a weekend match.
That mix of automation and flexibility has become a core design philosophy of Birdie Board: powerful tools that still feel human.
Watching the System Come Alive
Once the structure was in place, I dove into the match interface itself, the hub where everything comes together.
At first glance, it looks like a clean scoreboard. But under the surface, there’s a lot happening. Birdie Board automatically calculates strokes received based on each course’s rating and slope. Every time a round changes, the app recalculates handicaps and adjusts matchups accordingly.
I built this system to eliminate manual math, so golfers can focus on playing, not spreadsheets.
Even in this older version, you can see the foundation of what Birdie Board is today. The horizontal score tables have since evolved into vertical ones for better readability, but the spirit is the same: clarity, automation, and a live sense of competition.
Bringing the Match to Life
Then came the fun part: starting the simulation.
Instantly, Birdie Board lit up. Scores began pouring in every quarter of a second. Leaderboards shifted, Feathered Feats updated dynamically, and rounds began stacking results in real time.
Watching it felt like seeing the app breathe. Each data point told a story…birdies, comebacks, late-round collapses…all simulated but grounded in how real matches unfold.
By the end, the Blue Team edged out Red 92.5 to 87.5. The final result wasn’t what mattered; it was watching Birdie Board handle the chaos of golf scoring with grace.
That test gave me confidence that the platform could scale beyond a friendly foursome and into full-team matches, a key step toward what Birdie Board is becoming.
The Takeaway
This simulation wasn’t just technical validation, it was philosophical validation.
Golf is unpredictable, dynamic, and emotional. I wanted Birdie Board to reflect that energy while still feeling organized and reliable. The simulator proved it could.
