For tournament directors

Run a Tournament

Set up stroke play, stableford, match play brackets, scrambles, member-guests and cups, then run the day from your phone.

Before you start

You need three things set up before the first tournament:

Tournament access for your club. Whoever created the club is its Super Admin. The tournament tools are turned on per club: the Super Admin sees a lock under Tournaments on Home with an Email us button (info@bigteamgolf.com). Once they're on, the Super Admin names assistant pros or anyone else as tournament directors from Manage club → Admins & directors → Add → Add tournament director. Directors see the Tournaments section on Home; club admins don't.
A course. Set your home course under Manage club → Course & schedule so every tournament starts with the right tees, ratings and hole handicaps. You can pick a different course per tournament for away events.
Your roster. Members join with the club passcode or your invite link. You can also add players to a tournament by name, including guests who never download the app.

The director tools work in the web app at app.bigteamgolf.com and on iPhone. Printing tee sheets, cart signs and scorecards is web only, so plan on a laptop for the night before.

How a tournament runs

Every tournament moves through the same four stages. The Overview tab shows where you are and what's left to do.

Draft. Only directors can see it. Add players, build flights, draft the tee sheet.
Registration. Tap Open Registration and the tournament shows up on every member's Tournaments tab with a Register button. Registration closes on its own at the cutoff date you set.
In progress. Tap Start Tournament on the morning of round one. The Scoring tab appears, flights get generated if you chose auto-balance, and the leaderboard goes live. For multi-day events, tap Advance to Round 2 once the day's scores are in. Rounds never advance on their own, so you can fix a card before the round closes.
Completed. Results lock and the leaderboard stays up for members. The app marks a tournament complete for you the morning after its end date if you forget.

Create a tournament

On Home, under Tournaments, tap + Tournament. The wizard has five steps for a stroke play event and fewer for brackets and cups. You can go back to any finished step, and everything is editable after you create it.

Type

Pick the card that matches what you'd call the event: Stroke Play, Stableford, Match Play (Bracket), Team Stroke Play, Four-Ball Match Play, Round Robin (Member-Guest) or Two-Sided Cup. The card sets sensible defaults for the rest of the wizard. There's also Start from a past tournament, which copies last year's settings so you only change the dates.

Basics

Name and course. Search for the course or pick your club's home course.
Schedule. Start date, rounds, end date and the registration cutoff. The cutoff has to be before the start date.
Round format. 18 holes, or 9 with a starting hole of 1 or 10.
Field size. Max players, or max teams for a team event.
Tee sheet. Tee Times with a first time and an interval, or Shotgun Start with a start time.
Description. Format notes, payouts, dress code, and a link to a rules sheet if you have one. Members see this on the tournament page.

Details

Scoring columns, stableford quota, team setup, flighting and skins. Each format section below says which of these matter for your event.

Flights

Name each flight, set its handicap range and tee, and choose gross or net per flight. Skip this step if you chose No Flights.

Review

A summary of every setting. Tap Create and the tournament opens in Draft on its manage page. Nothing is visible to members yet.

Set up each format

What to pick, and the settings that change the way the event scores.

Stroke play

Type step: Individual → Stroke Play

Use it for: Club championships, charity outings, one-day medal events, any multi-day individual event.

Details → Score columns. Turn on Gross, Net, or both. Net uses each player's Course Handicap off the tee they're playing.
Details → Flighting. Pick No Flights for a small field. Pick Pre-flight by handicap when you'll set the handicap range for each flight yourself, or Auto-balance by handicap and give it a target flight size. The app splits the field evenly when you start the tournament.
Flights step. Name each flight, set its handicap range, choose gross or net scoring per flight, and force a tee box if the flight plays one tee.
Add-ons. Turn on Skins and set a buy-in per round if the field plays skins. Closest to the pin and long drive holes are set on the Side Games tab after you create the tournament.

Multi-day: set Rounds to 2 or more on Basics. Each round gets its own tee sheet, and you move the field forward with Advance to Round 2 when day one's scores are in.

Stableford & dogfights

Type step: Individual → Stableford

Use it for: Points games, weekly dogfights, quota games.

Points per hole: bogey 1, par 2, birdie 4, eagle 8. The Details step asks one more question: where does each player's quota come from?

Handicap. Quota is 36 minus Course Handicap (18 on a nine). Use this for one-off events and new clubs with no history.
Rolling. Quota is the average of each player's last few stableford scores at your club. Set how many scores to average. This is the dogfight setting; quotas move with form.
None. No target. The board is raw points, high score wins.

With a quota on, the leaderboard ranks players by points over or under their number, and the Dogfight tab shows the running quotas.

Match play bracket

Type step: Individual → Match Play (Bracket)

Use it for: Club match play championship, single-elimination knockouts.

Bracket step. Choose Singles, pick the bracket size (4, 8, 16 or 32), and set the handicap allowance. The default is 100% of the Course Handicap difference, which is the standard singles allowance.
Players tab. Add the field. You can seed the first round yourself or let the app place players.
Bracket tab. Review the round-one matches before you start. Winners advance on their own as matches are scored.
Tee sheet. Round one usually goes on set tee times. For later rounds, switch the round to Players schedule their own and give it a play-by date. Each player sees their opponent and the deadline on their match card.

Strokes are given on the lowest-index holes equal to the handicap gap, so a 12 playing an 8 gets a stroke on the four hardest holes.

Scramble, best ball & alternate shot

Type step: Team → Team Stroke Play

Use it for: Two-man scrambles, four-man charity scrambles, member-member events, 6-6-6 mixed rounds.

Details → Team Setup. Pick how the team scores:
- One ball. One score per team per hole. Use this for a scramble, alternate shot, or any mixed round like nine holes scramble and nine holes best ball. The team's scorer enters one number per hole.
- Best ball. Every player keeps their own card and the team's score on the hole is the best net ball.
Team size. 2, 3 or 4. Max Players on Basics becomes Max Teams.
Team handicap. None for a gross-only scramble. Combined adds up the team's Course Handicaps. Percent-weighted lets you set a percentage per player, best player first, like 35/15 for a two-man scramble or 25/20/15/10 for a four-man.
Players tab. Add players, then build the teams on the Teams tab. Players can also register as a team.

Flights work the same as stroke play. Flight on combined handicap index so teams are grouped on a number that doesn't depend on which tee they end up on.

Four-ball match play bracket

Type step: Team → Four-Ball Match Play

Use it for: Two-man team knockouts where each player plays their own ball.

Same bracket as singles, but each slot is a pair and the better net ball wins the hole.

Bracket step. Choose Four-Ball or Alternate Shot. Bracket size counts pairs, not players. The default allowance is 90% for four-ball and 50% for alternate shot.
Players tab. Add the players and pair them up on the Teams tab before you start.
Run it like a singles bracket from there: tee times for round one, play-by dates for the rest.

Member-Guest round robin

Type step: Team → Round Robin (Member-Guest)

Use it for: Flighted member-guest with every team playing every other team in its flight.

Picking this card fills in the whole packet: two-man teams, net best ball, four 9-hole matches over two days, shotgun starts, flights set by handicap. Change anything you need on the later steps.

Round Robin tab. Teams per flight (4 is the usual), points for a hole won, points for a halved hole (0 means you only score by winning holes), and the most points one team can take from a match. Match 4 is seeded from the standings, first plays fourth and second plays third, with the cap lifted if you want all the points on the board.
Flights. Name the flights and give each one a tee. Flighting is on combined handicap index because a team's Course Handicap depends on the tee its flight plays.
Players tab. Members register and add their guest. Guests don't need an account.
Tee sheet. Each round's shotgun sheet is built from the flight's pairings. Print cart signs and scorecards from the Tee Sheet tab; scorecards show each player's strokes by hole.

Two-sided cup

Type step: Cup → Two-Sided Cup

Use it for: Ryder Cup style events: two named sides, several sessions, running points total.

Basics. Name, course, dates and the number of rounds. A cup with a morning and afternoon session on the same day is two rounds, and you set each round's date on the Cup tab.
Cup tab → Sides. Name the two sides, set the points to win (14.5 for 28 matches), points per win and per halve, and how strokes work between sides: none, the full handicap difference, or a percentage of it. Each round can override the cup default, so Friday can be alternate shot at 50% and Sunday singles at full difference.
Players tab. Add everyone, then assign each player a side.
Cup tab → Matches. Build each round's matches: singles, four-ball, alternate shot or a scramble. The points board updates as matches close out.

Players and registration

Let members register

Tap Open Registration. Members see the tournament on their Tournaments tab and tap Register for Tournament. They confirm their tee, their handicap, and whether they're in the skins. Registration closes at the cutoff. If you need to let a late entry in, tap Reopen registration; that clears the cutoff, so close it again when you're done.

Add players yourself

On the Players tab, tap + Add Player. Pick from your club roster, or check several and tap Import to add them in one go. For a guest, type their name and handicap. Guests don't need an account; their scores still count and they still print on the cart sign.

Fix a player's details

Tap a player's row to change their tee, handicap, flight, or skins entry, mark them withdrawn or disqualified, or remove them. For team events, the Teams tab is where you pair players and name teams. For a cup, you assign each player a side here.

Flights

Three ways to flight a field:

Pre-flight by handicap. You set the handicap range for each flight when you create the tournament. Players land in a flight as they register. Best for fields you know.
Auto-balance by handicap. You set a target flight size. When you start the tournament the app sorts the field by handicap and cuts it into even flights. Best for open fields where you don't know the turnout.
No flights. One leaderboard.

The Flights tab shows who's in each flight and lets you move anyone. Generate Flights re-runs the split, and the first flight is always called Championship. Flight on Handicap Index when flights play different tees; flight on Course Handicap when everybody plays the same tee.

Tee sheet and printing

The Tee Sheet tab builds one sheet per round.

Set players per group (or teams per group) and whether to group by flight.
Drag players into groups. Best scores tee off first or last is a one-tap sort for a final round. Tap + Add Group if you run out of slots.
Edit tee times to change the first time or interval for that round, or Edit starting holes for a shotgun. Apply flight times gives each flight its own block.
Players schedule their own. For bracket rounds after the first, switch the round to this and set a play-by date. The sheet becomes a pairings list and each player sees the deadline.
Save tee sheet. Members see their group and time on the tournament page as soon as you save.

Print and email

Print Tournament Info gives you the tee sheet, cart signs, and scorecards with each player's strokes marked by hole, in one pass. Add sponsor logos and a printed title and subtitle from the same place, so the cart signs carry the event's name and your sponsors. Email Tournament Info opens a message with the tee sheet attached as an image for the whole field. Printing is web only.

Tournament day

Start

Tap Start Tournament from the Overview tab. If you chose auto-balance, the flights are generated now. The leaderboard goes live for members and spectators.

Scoring

Players score their own group hole by hole from their phone, and the leaderboard updates as they go. The Scoring tab lists every group so you can enter or fix a card yourself. For a one-ball team event the team's scorer enters one score per hole; for best ball every player keeps their own card. A player who picks up on a hole marks an X and the hole scores as a no-score for that player.

Spectators

Share the spectator link, or hand out the spectator code. Anyone can follow the leaderboard at app.bigteamgolf.com/watch with the code, no account needed. Rotate the code any time.

Between rounds

When the day's cards are in, tap Advance to Round 2. The app warns you if anyone hasn't finished. Go back to the previous round if you need to fix a score. Brackets advance winners on their own as each match closes out.

Finish

Tap Complete when the last card is in. Results lock, and the leaderboard and contest winners stay on the tournament page for members.

Skins and contests

Skins. Turn skins on when you create the tournament and set a buy-in per round. Each player chooses in or out when they register, and you can flip anyone on the Players tab. The Side Games tab shows the pot, the skins won, and the payout per skin. Multi-day events run a fresh pot each round.

Contests. Set closest-to-the-pin holes, a longest drive hole, and a straightest drive hole on the Side Games tab. Once the tournament starts, enter the winners there and they show up on the tournament page.

Quick reference

Event	Type card	Settings that matter
Club championship	Stroke Play	Gross for Championship flight, net for the rest; 2+ rounds; pre-flight by handicap
Charity outing	Team Stroke Play	One ball, team size 4, percent-weighted handicap or none; shotgun; CTP and long drive
Weekly dogfight	Stableford	Rolling quota, average the last 5 scores; skins
Match play championship	Match Play (Bracket)	Singles, 16 or 32 bracket, 100% allowance; later rounds player-scheduled with play-by dates
Member-member 6-6-6	Team Stroke Play	One ball, team size 2, combined or percent-weighted handicap; describe the segments in the notes
Member-guest	Round Robin (Member-Guest)	4 teams per flight, 4 nine-hole matches, shotgun, cap 5 points per match, flight on index
Ryder Cup weekend	Two-Sided Cup	Name both sides, points to win, per-round handicap overrides, one round per session

Try the director demo Open the Web App

Running something this guide doesn't cover? Email info@bigteamgolf.com and we'll walk through it with you. The How To page covers the weekly game, teams and settling up.