Don Elser | Tournament & Membership Director, Seascape Golf Club

Life moves fast and a great way to slow it down is to invite a group of friends and family together for an annual weekend road trip that includes golf and spending quality time together. But what goes into planning a road trip invitational golf tournament? Here are some helpful tips.

START SMALL

Start the annual event with 16 golfing buddies. This is a manageable group size that can grow over the years.

PICK THE PERFECT DATE

One of the most crucial items to successfully planning a road trip invitationalgolf tournament is to find a weekend date that works for everyone. This is not an easy task, but it can be done. It will take some time to figure out everyone’s schedule – you might want to use a Google doc or an online shared scheduling tool to help figure out a working date.

BOOK THE TOURNAMENT

Once the date is established, book the golf tournament on a Saturday. You may want to start after 12:00 p.m. in case some of the golfers are driving in that morning. Find a centrally-located course for everyone making the trip.

SECURE LODGING & LOGISTICS

The next step is to rent a house for everyone. Plan on checking in Friday after work and checking out sometime on Sunday. Make sure that you confirm all attendees’ schedules before you agree to any check-out times. Especially if you use a service such as AirB&B, you might need to tidy up a place after you leave, so you want to make sure that everyone can be out at the right time. The price for golf itself should include Green Fee, Cart Fee, lunch, and gift cards for merchandise and beverages. You can arrange this with your tournament coordinator and the golf course. All-inclusive packages such as these make the day less stressful for your players, and also let everyone plan accordingly in regards to food and finances.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT TOURNAMENT TYPE

Create a team format. I suggest trying foursome teams, such as two-person best ball with net scores to balance out the playing field. Also, if you have a group of better plays, everyone should have a handicap to make the event competitive and fun as well. The golf course can even create custom scorecards for your event with team names and golf holes individually marked for the team net scores. If you are playing two-person best ball with net scores, each team will take the two low net scores for each golf hole and add them together to calculate the total score for the hole.

DON’T FORGET FUN ADD-ONS!

When planning your day, don’t forget to add in some on-course contests or games. At the very least, you should incorporate one Longest Drive competition, and two Closest-to-the-Pin contests. You will also want to hand out team and contest awards following golf. The post-play awards ceremony and activities are important as they act as a time for your players to reflect on the day, enjoy each other’s company more, and unwind. If you follow these six easy tips for how to survive planning your first road trip invitational golf tournament, everyone will take home great memories of the time spent together and start looking forward to next year’s tournament.