Create a scalable database schema for storing golf scores

Question

I am trying to design a database to store all my friends and my golf scores. As you probably know, a golf score is comprised of 18 hole individual scores. I can think of two ways to design the schema:

1. Create a table that has one column for each hole (e.g. h1 to h18), the table has FK player_id, round_id and course_id that referenced other tables. It has a total column, which is the sum of columns h1 to h18. If I change a hole score, I will need to manually update total column.

2. Create a table that has a column for hole score, a column for hole index, a column for player_id, course_id, and round_id. To get the total score for a round, I will need to do a SUM query on round_id, player_id.

For now, the database would probably store scores from less than 20 people, so either approach should be fine. But what if I want to store scores for 20,000 people, which approach is more scalable?

I am using MySQL 5, with PHP5. Thanks.

Update> Examples of queries: 1. Reading the 9/18 scores from all players for a round and building a scorecard. 2. Basic stats like finding the lowest/average/highest total scores for a player for the last X rounds. 3. More advanced stats like average score of any hole for the last X rounds.

Answer 1

What was my average, highest and lowest score?

Scenario 1.

select (h1+h2+h3+h4+h5+h6+h7+h8+h9+h10+h11+h13+h14+h15+h16+h17+h18) / 18 as avg_score
      ,greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h7,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) as highest
      ,least(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) as lowest
  from scores
 where player_id = 1;

vs.

select avg(score) as avg_score
      ,max(score) as highest
      ,min(score) as lowest
  from scores
 where player_id = 1;

Which hole was my worst?

Scenario 2.

select case when h1 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H1'
            when h2 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H2'
            when h3 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H3'
            when h4 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H4'
            when h5 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H5'
            when h6 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H6'
            when h7 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H7'
            when h8 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H8'
            when h9 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18)  then 'H9'
            when h10 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H10'
            when h11 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H11'
            when h12 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H12'
            when h13 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H13'
            when h14 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H14'
            when h15 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H15'
            when h16 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H16'
            when h17 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H17'
            when h18 = greatest(h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h8,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13,h14,h16,h17,h18) then 'H18'
        end as hole_highest_score      
  from scores
 where player_id = 1;

vs.

select hole, score
  from scores s1
 where player_id = 1
   and score = (select max(score)
                  from scores s2
                 where s2.player_id = s1.player_id)

I would go with scenario 2 any day :)