When scheduling your tee times, it’s important to know the energy level of your group. Even for shorter trips, 36-hole days can still be brutal depending on the weather. We suggest playing a “fun” afternoon round. Find a good par 3 course to play barefoot, include a drinking game on the scorecard, or play a 2- or 4-man scramble to mix up the afternoon rounds.

3. Include clusters of skill levels

You want to invite people who both fit in with the group and have comparable skill levels to at least two other members of the group. Handicapping is a great way to level the playing field, so don’t be afraid to invite some higher or lower handicappers if you feel they will be a good addition to the group. It is best to avoid non-golfers, no matter how well they get along with the group. You, they, nor the group behind you, will enjoy the trip.

4. Choose the right games

There are a lot of golf games out there. We typically play 9-hole matches and swap games after each nine. Each individual hole can be played as a point for your team (9 points per 9-holes) or each 9-hole match can be played as a point for your team (1 point per 9-holes). Choosing a point system typically depends on how many teams are involved and how many rounds will be played.

Here are a few of our favorite games for team events:

• Best Ball Match Play – best for opening rounds while high-handicappers dust off the cobwebs.
• Low Ball, Low Total (+1 birdies, +2 eagles) – a high-scoring format that involves both members of each pairing and incentivizes more aggressive play.
• Stableford or Quota – great for an afternoon round (because double bogey max) and pairs nicely with a drinking game.
• Singles Match Play – a group favorite- match players up with a bitter rival.
• Alternate Shot – great if you’re not playing a stroke play event at the same time.
• Dogfight – check out our Dogfight event here.

5. Pick captains and draft teams

I typically start organizing the competition by choosing the number of teams. For a group of 12, we typically play 6 vs 6. This year, however, we played 3 teams of 4. While a bit more work, I found 3 teams of 4 more enjoyable because each member has more impact on the outcome (1/4th of the team score as opposed to 1/6th). Once the number of teams is set, choose your captains. As the “game-maker,” you may think it would be best to set teams and match-ups. While this may be true, it is much more fun to pick captains and allow them to draft their own teams. This also allows you to do some arbitrary handicapping (estimating a handicap for someone who doesn’t play enough golf to have a handicap) without being accused of “rigging” the game. More on handicapping in the next section.

6. Take the pressure off of handicapping

Set handicaps for each player prior to the draft, then allow the captains to draft players based on the captain’s perceived value of each player. For example, if Captain A believes Jack is getting more strokes than he deserves, he is more likely to pick him in an earlier round. This takes all the pressure off of accurate handicapping. This is important because many weekend golfers don’t have official handicaps. View my article on how to calculate your official or unofficial handicap. What you’ll likely find is that captains will take the best golfers first regardless of handicap. In my experience, this is a mistake. Captains should seriously consider taking a higher-handicapped, more volatile player over the scratch golfer. While the handicapping of the draft pool of players doesn’t have to be perfect, try to make sure your captains have fairly accurate handicaps (relative to each other) to avoid any major difference in captain value. If you still want to improve your group’s handicap estimations, consider setting up a golf league with your friends!

7. Simplify the rules

If you have a group of die-hard competitive golfers in your group, skip this section. Otherwise, consider playing by alternate rules to make play more fun and to speed up the pace of play. Here are a few of the favorites that we always play by:

10. Include “extra stuff” for “extra fun”

Every year we mix up our games and add a little more flair to our event. Here are a few that have worked well:

• Prop Betting Pool – Use a Google Form to set up “prop bets.” One of the highlights of this year was “Will Player X top his first tee shot?” On the first tee (and the night before), he was sweating bullets thinking about his opening tee shot with all 11 others watching him. I wish I could tell you this is a feel-good story of overcoming his fear, but…his tee shot didn’t go 20 yards. Sorry X. Check out my post on Prop Bet ideas!
• Virtual Scorecard – This was a game-changer. Having a Google Sheet that automatically converted handicaps (no math!) and kept up with live scoring allowed everyone to know where they and their team stood in the standings as our team event came to a close. Knowing “we are trailing by 3 going into hole number 18” or “I need to birdie number 18 to win” was very exciting and much more efficient than trying to communicate the score through a stream of text messages. I will have future posts on how to set up a Virtual Scorecard with a Google Sheet, so please subscribe!
• Snakes – We play Snakes differently. It gets personal. In this game, you can choose to call “snake” on any player prior to him approaching his putt (defining “approach” is a gray area that has led to some minor conflict). If he three-putts or worse, he gives you $1. Otherwise, you pay him $2 for converting a difficult two-putt. There are many variations of Snake. While this one is easier on the wallet than most, it does allow for some gamesmanship about who, when, and how often to sound the dreaded “snake” call.

Conclusion

Teams are set. Smack talk is blowing up your iPhone and your 10-handicap friend is trying to convince the group he’s playing at a 4 (he won’t break 90). You’ve got a few sleeves of your favorite performance golf balls (my favorite is the Srixon Z-Star) all marked up and ready to go. The trip hasn’t even started yet and you already feel like the trip is a success. You’ve put in the time to organize everything and gone the extra mile to make things fun. Now it’s time to enjoy the spoils of your hard work! Hopefully, you didn’t forget to practice while planning your trip!