Stay Away from the Dreaded 7 Hour Round

Golf Tournaments are a funny thing. They are a day away from work, kids, life and a day to simply let go and have fun all while supporting a charity. Golfers typically like this to be a “full day” experience but we have seen that as soon as the day because too long the tournament could lose key people for the silent auction and evening dinner. The key is to give the golfers a full experience but not to drag it out too much.

Most of this time spent is during the actual golf round. What should be a four or five hour round can quickly turn into a seven hour round if the committee is not mindful of this in the planning process.

Below are some areas to look at when playing with the timing of your tournament.

1. Format

The format to a charity event is key! As much fun as it can seem to switch up the format sometimes this can add a lot of time to your event. For timing straight four person scrambles are the way to go. Adding extra rules to this will take up more time as well as changing the format to individual play or shamble formats. One or two bad players in this mix could delay all the golfers.

2. Vendors on Course

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind for vendors is that every vendor on a hole will add about five minutes per group. If you have 18 vendors on the course, and a full field of golfers, this can take a round quickly from four hours to seven hours. Vendors are important, but make sure they are quality vendors helping the event and that the tournament isn’t just putting things on the course for the sake of having thing on the course. Vendors can seriously impact the overall event and dictate the timing of the event.

3. Games on Course

Make sure when selecting vendors you know what they are doing. Do not let all the vendors play a game with golfers, as this takes more time. To have a high class event that will be perceived well, the tournament does not need a vendor on every hole playing a game. Sometimes it is good to just give out a beverage. Games, just like the vendors, will take up more time. On some holes, it’s good to let the golfers simply play golf! After all they signed up for the event to play golf.

When being cautious over tournament round timing you are allowing more time to be spent in the silent auction area. Typically, a lot of money can be gained during a silent auction and so it’s important to get as many people as possible up to that.

When people feel that they are able to get through the round quickly, they are more likely to go to the silent auction with the intention to buy items, as opposed to being tired and wanting to leave the event.