A Guide to a Successful Golf Tournament or Event

Successful golf events start with a dedicated team and solid planning. Many golf courses are reserved nine to twelve months in advance. Setup your team and start planning early.

Your first task is to select a tournament committee. The committee chair person should be someone who is well organized, detail-oriented, and committed to a successful event. The chair person need not be an excellent golfer. However, the committee should have members that play and understand the game of golf. Once the committee has been formed, they will need to establish a tournament budget. Even if you choose to use a professional tournament manager, you will still need a small committed to work with outside professionals.

There are many costs to consider when you develop your tournament budget. Green fees, giveaways, prizes, and food and beverage will be your major expenses. You may have a fixed budget and will plan accordingly. Perhaps there will be tournament sponsors or entry fees to help support the cost of your tournament. Employee events often get prizes or funding from their company's best vendors. If this is a Marketing event to demonstrate customer appreciation or attract new customers, it will probably be funded by your corporation.

Select the course, date, and time. Customer and charity events are typically held during business hours. Employee and church events are generally held during the evening or on weekends. It may be more difficult to find courses willing to book events on weekends especially for events early in the day with "shotgun starts". However, the recent overbuilding of golf course in many areas may give you lots of options for weekend afternoons. When selecting the course, talk with the staff to find out what role they are willing to play in planning your event. The manager or head pro at many courses will help you organize your tournament. Meet with them to understand their experience and responsibilities. Make sure you follow-up periodically to assure they are completing their tasks on schedule.

Plan the day. Set your tournament schedule for event volunteers, golfer registration, tournament play, meals, prize ceremony and clean-up. Raffling door prizes is a good way to share the excitement of the event with everyone who participates. Arrange for beverage service on the course. Your golf course staff will be able to share their experience to help setup your tournament schedule. Give your volunteers and tournament organizers special hats and shirts so participants know who is running the event. Review banquet room facilities including microphone and speaker locations. Choose an experienced speaker for you prize ceremony. Remember to recognize the tournament volunteers, sponsors, golf course staff and all the participants. Take lots of pictures throughout the day and get pictures of all the prize winners.

Not every day is sunny and 72 degrees. Make sure you have a backup plan for a rainy day.

Order your prizes, signage, giveaways, and volunteer shirts and caps. A sleeve of golf balls with your corporate logo makes an excellent gift for every participant. Buy Hole-in-One insurance if you are using that type of contest. Meet with the provider of your food service if it is not the golf club.

Advertise the tournament, invite and sign-up the participants. For customer events, your sales or marketing staff will probably provide a list of customers and employees to invite. A formal invitation and follow-up telephone call is appropriate for customer events. Employee, Charity, and Church events will use a combination of advertising and invitations to sign-up participants. Make sure to cover the format of the tournament, contests, meals, and prizes. If giveaways include sized apparel, make sure this information is collected with participants sign-up.

Follow-up to make sure all tasks are being completed. Meet periodically to review the status of tasks assigned to your committee and volunteers. Keep in touch with the golf course staff regarding the status of their tasks. The last two - three weeks before the tournament can get very busy. Make sure everyone has enough resources to complete their tasks. Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up!!!!

On tournament day make sure all volunteers and staff arrive early enough to setup the event. Check with the golf club staff to make sure all contest preparation is completed. Setup banners, contests, registration table, and scoreboard. Display trophies and prizes that will be given away. Put contest markers on the tee box of each contest. Put distance markers on fairways and greens where contests are being held. Final review of beverages, food service, and banquet room facility.

After the tournament, make sure you send thank you notes to all sponsors and vendors who contributed to your event. Meet with the tournament committee to document suggestions to improve future tournaments. Create a file of all vendor, sponsor, golf club, volunteer and supplier contact information that can be used next year. Post pictures on your web site or publish them in your news letter.

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