02 — Building a Card

Who's on your card.
Choose carefully. They'll remember.

Course selection, real players, ghost opponents, formats, and divisions. Everything that happens before hole 1.

Picking a course

Ghost Card has 7,008 US courses in its database, sourced and community-corrected via Supabase. Search by course name, city, or zip code from the Home screen. Results populate as you type.

Each course in the picker shows one of two badges:

If you find a wrong par during your round, you can submit a correction afterward. See Community Par Corrections.

Real players

To add a real player to your card, search by their Ghost Card username. They need a Ghost Card account — you can't add someone by email or full name, only by username. This is intentional. The ghosts value specificity.

Real players score manually: you (or they, in multiplayer) enter scores hole-by-hole. Real players appear on the live leaderboard alongside ghost opponents and update every hole like everyone else.

Multiplayer

When real players are on your card, they receive a round invite. They can follow along and enter their own scores from their device. The host controls the card. Everyone watches the leaderboard deteriorate together.

Ghost opponents

Ghost opponents are pro disc golfers who play alongside you based on real PDGA rating data. They don't cancel. They don't explain their bad throws. They simply score and haunt.

The pro field includes 80 MPO players and an FPO field. Ghost scores are calculated from each player's actual PDGA rating, adjusted for course difficulty and format. Notable ghosts:

Ghost Rating Personality
Ricky Wysocki1044Doesn't sleep. Simply haunts. Will beat you by 11.
Paul McBeth1041Methodical. Silent. Your dad thinks he's great. He is.
Calvin Heimburg1036Powerful. Consistent. Will birdie hole 7 when you make a 6.
Adam Hammes1029Shoots 47s without expression. Makes eye contact. Classic villain.

Each ghost is represented by a colored FlatGhost SVG icon on the scorecard. No generic emoji. The ghosts have standards.

Ghost scores vary slightly each round based on statistical modeling — they don't shoot the exact same round every time. Ricky has bad days. Not many. But some.

Formats

Ghost Card supports two scoring formats:

Stroke Play

Standard

Every throw counts. Running +/- from par. The default. The classic. The format that documents every mistake with clinical precision.

Best Disc Scramble

Scramble

All players throw from the same spot — the best lie from the previous throw. Good for groups, good for fun, good for the card member who had a rough back nine.

Scramble mode activates the DoublesScorecard view — a side-by-side grid layout showing both players' scores per hole. Ghost opponents adapt to scramble format automatically.

Divisions

Choose MPO (Mixed Pro Open) or FPO (Female Pro Open). Division affects which ghost field you draw from and how ghost scores are modeled. FPO ghost ratings are sourced from the women's pro tour field.

Your division choice doesn't lock you out of anything. It calibrates the competition. Choosing MPO doesn't mean you need a 1000-rated game — it means you're playing against the men's pro field. They'll still beat you. Respectfully.

Mixed cards

You can mix real players and ghost opponents on the same card freely. Your dad and a ghost Paul McBeth. You, a friend, and Ricky Wysocki. Whatever configuration makes sense for the round. The leaderboard handles all of them together.

The only requirement: at least one player on the card before you can start. A card of only ghost opponents is valid. A card of only real players is valid. A card with no one on it is not a card — it's an empty form, which is a different kind of horror.

Field presets

When selecting ghost opponents, Ghost Card offers six field presets that determine which pros from the division's field appear on your card:

Field difficulty

Field difficulty controls how the ghost pro scores are modeled — it adjusts the course's Scratch Scoring Average (SSA), which shifts the score distribution for the entire field. It does not change which pros are on the card.

Rookie

Friendly ghosts

The field plays like a casual round. Good for learning how the scoring system works without the ghosts being oppressive.

Amateur

Means business

The default. A real challenge. Ghost scores reflect what a competitive field would actually shoot on a typical course setup.

Pro Tour

Only the brave

Tour-level course conditions. The field plays tight. Beating a ghost is a genuine accomplishment at this difficulty.

Ghost King

Maximum haunting

You asked for this. The field plays like a championship event on a championship setup. The ghosts are merciless. You were warned.