The archive

What if we’d always
played golf rules?

Every prediction card in the house workbook, 2010-11 to 2025-26, rescored under the current system. Old rules: points, highest wins. Golf: strokes minus deductions, lowest wins.

9of 14 seasons would have had a different winner

131cards replayed, 1440 individual picks

104/122of the workbook’s own recorded scores reproduced exactly

Season by season

Any column header sorts. Select a season for the full standings.

Season▲	Winner, old rules⇅	Pts⇅	Winner, golf rules⇅	Score⇅	Verdict⇅
▸ 2010-11	Spence	17	Spence	−49	same
▸ 2011-12	Barn, Sowerby	7	Sowerby	−13	changed
▸ 2012-13	Guy	15	Guy	−24	same
▸ 2013-14	Sowerby	8	JdB	−3	changed
▸ 2014-15	GOB, Sowerby	14	Sowerby	−33	changed
▸ 2015-16	GWJ, Spence	6	GWJ	−3	changed
▸ 2016-17	Ernie	10	Ernie	−27	same
▸ 2017-18	Guy	11	Guy	−17	same
▸ 2018-19	Guy	14	Ernie	−28	changed
▸ 2021-22	Logan	11	Barn	−22	changed
▸ 2022-23	Logan	6	Logan	−3	same
▸ 2023-24	Barn, JdB, Spence	11	Barn, JdB	−21	changed
▸ 2024-25	GOB, Sowerby, JdB	7	JdB	−1	changed
▸ 2025-26	Huge	7	Logan	+7	changed

Career record

Fourteen seasons. JdB joined in 2012-13, Logan in 2021-22, Huwj and Spank in 2025-26, so they have played fewer.

Player⇅	Szn⇅	Old pts⇅	per szn⇅	Old titles⇅	Golf total▲	per szn⇅	Golf titles⇅	Title swing⇅
Spence	14	106	7.57	1.83	−89	-6.36	1.00	-0.83
Sowerby	14	102	7.29	2.33	−63	-4.50	2.00	-0.33
GOB	14	94	6.71	0.83	−56	-4.00	0.00	-0.83
Barn	14	94	6.71	0.83	−51	-3.64	1.50	+0.67
JdB	12	81	6.75	0.67	−44	-3.67	2.50	+1.83
Guy	14	98	7.00	3.00	−36	-2.57	2.00	-1.00
Ernie	14	88	6.29	1.00	−25	-1.79	2.00	+1.00
GWJ	14	85	6.07	0.50	−23	-1.64	1.00	+0.50
Huge	14	86	6.14	1.00	−13	-0.93	0.00	-1.00
Logan	5	34	6.80	2.00	−5	-1.00	2.00	–
Huwj	1	4	4.00	0.00	+23	23.00	0.00	–
Spank	1	4	4.00	0.00	+23	23.00	0.00	–

Titles are shared equally when a season finished tied, so they run in fractions. Golf totals are negative because a good card scores under par.

Why the results move

Almost all of the change comes from one place: what a relegation call is worth. The old rules paid 1 point for naming a relegated club, the same as being one place out on a top-eight pick. Golf pays −5, because thirteen seasons of history say naming the drop is close to a coin flip while a top-eight call is close to routine. Anyone good at spotting relegation was quietly under-rewarded for a decade.

Player⇅	Relegation names⇅	Hit rate▼	Bullseyes⇅	Strokes / season⇅	Title swing⇅
Logan	9/15	60%	5	23.2	–
Spence	19/42	45%	24	18.5	-0.83
JdB	16/36	44%	15	19.4	+1.83
Barn	18/42	43%	21	20.0	+0.67
Ernie	17/42	40%	15	20.1	+1.00
GOB	16/42	38%	24	19.5	-0.83
GWJ	15/42	36%	18	20.4	+0.50
Huge	15/42	36%	15	20.6	-1.00
Sowerby	14/42	33%	26	18.7	-0.33
Huwj	1/3	33%	0	36.0	–
Spank	1/3	33%	0	36.0	–
Guy	13/42	31%	21	18.8	-1.00

How this was worked out, and what it doesn’t settle

Checks that passed

The old scores were recomputed from the extracted picks rather than read off the sheet, then compared against the totals the workbook recorded at the time: 104 of 122 matched exactly.
All eighteen differences were traced, and every one is the workbook under-awarding rather than an extraction error. Nine are a slot-8 pick that finished 9th, which most sheets cannot see because their FINAL column stops at 8th. Seven are 2024-25, where the FINAL cell for 6th reads Aston Vila, so every correct Villa call failed the sheet’s exact string match. One is 2018-19 (Fuham for Fulham) and one is 2015-16 (ManU against Man U).
The house rules changed. In 2010-11 and 2011-12 the sheets state the scheme outright — spot on 2, one place off 1, relegation 1 — with no extra weight on the title. From 2012-13 the champion slot became worth 3. Old scores here use the rules as they stood each season; all sixteen player-seasons in the two early years reconcile exactly under 2, and none under 3.

Assumptions worth knowing

Relegation picks are treated as unordered, because that is how the competition has always worked and the workbook records no order. Each correct name pays −5; no strokes and no bullseye are applied. The current season’s cards do order them 18th/19th/20th, so these historical scores are slightly more conservative and are not directly comparable to a live one.
2019-20 and 2020-21 are missing from the workbook and are absent here. The full final tables for every season replayed come from the ESPN standings API, and for 2010-11 and 2011-12 they were cross-checked against the workbook’s own FINAL column, which matched on the top eight and the relegated three.
The 2010-11 sheet uses single-letter shorthand. All of it decodes unambiguously except two entries: GOB’s 8th pick S (Sunderland 10th or Stoke 13th) and Huge’s relegation pick W (Wigan or Wolves). W is moot — neither club went down. S moves GOB’s 2010-11 score by 3 strokes and changes nothing else: Spence wins that season at −49 under either reading.
The insight bonus is included, computed against the field that actually entered each season.
Said out loud: this replay flatters JdB, who goes from 0.67 titles to 2.5 and from mid-table to the best score per season. That is the arithmetic of a system he commissioned, applied to data extracted for him. The mechanism is in the table above and is checkable — he names the drop 45% of the time against a 39% field average — but treat it with due scepticism.