A golf team is individual golfers assembled for a format. The format is the load-bearing variable.
A golf team is not a continuous roster of interdependent roles. It is a set of individual golfers, and the format's scoring rule, the count-best-of, turns their individual KRs into a team value, not by a sum or an average. The engine builds the count-best-of-five Team KR, prices a roster move by its delta against cost, builds for the courses the program plays, and projects the contention window. It consumes the locked individual KRs and never recomputes them.
Not a sum. Not an average. The counting rule.
The stroke-play Team KR is the counting-team read. In college golf the team score counts the best N of M individual scores each round, commonly the best four or five of five or six, so the engine aggregates the individual KRs through that counting rule, not by a simple sum or average. Depth and stars both matter, and the format sets how. Switch the counting rule and watch the team change.
The counting rule rewards a deep, reliable top of the roster, fewer blow-up counting scores because the worst is dropped, and a star who posts low counting numbers. So the same six golfers produce a different Team KR under best four of five than under best five of six, and the read shows the weak-link and strong-link balance the specific format rewards. It never sums the grades. The counting rule, not the sum of the grades, turns individual KRs into a team.
Illustrative engine read on the real count-best-of Team KR structure (individual KRs aggregated through the counting rule, the depth insurance, the weak-link and strong-link balance). Composite roster, demonstration figures, built on locked individual KRs.
The move is the answer. And fit is the lever.
The roster is built to the fully-fundable limit, and a move is priced by its delta: add, swap, or cut a golfer, re-run the count-best-of Team KR, and read the change against the scholarship-and-NIL cost. A high-KR golfer who would not crack the counting five moves the team less than a lesser one who would, and the team course-fit read is the lever: a roster is built for the courses the program actually plays.
His raw KR is lower, but his elite fit to the courses the program actually plays lifts his on-schedule value into the counting five, so he moves the team far more, for a moderate package.
The move is the answer, not the grade. A high raw KR with poor fit to the schedule's course types is worth less than a lower KR with elite fit, because the team is built for the courses it plays, so a golfer strong on the wrong tests moves the counting team little. The engine prices the Team KR delta against the real cost, and the fit is what flips the two candidates. Price the move by its Team KR delta against its cost, and build for the courses the program plays.
Illustrative engine read on the real roster-construction structure (the move priced by its count-best-of delta against cost, the team course-fit read flipping raw KR). Composite candidates, demonstration figures, costs v0.
A window, not a number. With widening bands.
The engine projects the team forward: the returning golfers aged one year on the development curve, minus the departures, graduations and golfers turning professional on the eligibility clock, plus the incoming recruiting class at their projected reads and the portal in and out. It states the contention window, the seasons the program projects to contend, with widening confidence the further out it runs.
The window is stated with widening bands, because a multi-year projection is not a present-tense read: next season is nearly as tight as this one, but three seasons out, after the stars graduate and a young core matures, the band is wide and honest about it. The engine never presents a multi-year projection at present-tense confidence, and it never re-grades a golfer to build the team. State the contention window with widening bands, never at present-tense confidence.
Illustrative engine read on the real multi-year team-projection structure (returners aged on the curve, departures and incoming class, the contention window with widening bands). Composite projection, demonstration figures.
The engine turns individual KRs into a team through the count-best-of rule, prices a roster move by the delta it makes to that team against its cost, builds for the courses the program plays, and projects the window with widening bands, because the counting rule, not the sum of the grades, is what a college team actually is. And it consumes the locked individual reads without ever re-grading a golfer to build the team.
The team is the counting rule applied to the roster. See what it consumes and feeds.
The team read is built on the locked individual KRs and the funding limit, and it feeds the recruiting and portal boards and the program-operator read.