To start your league you'll have to gather a number of players, and contact golf courses in your area to see what time slots they have available and for what price. Some courses have specials for league play, either with green's fees or perhaps food or drink specials if you socialize at the course after play.

Most golf leagues are based on a set schedule that the league plays each week at the same time. They reserve a block of time from the golf course, have a set roster of players, have a standard format and scoring rules, a set length usually between 12 and 24 weeks, and a league champion at the end of the year. Dues for the year are usually paid ahead of time to the course, so you pay whether you show up or not. Most leagues are 9 holes since most take place after normal work hours, but 18 hole leagues are available as well.

The courses my leagues play at require payment for the entire season up front. I give players deadlines to get the money to me and then I pay the course. For example, if we start on April 15, then I require payment to me by the end of March. If a player doesn't get their money to me on time, I make it known that their spot is now open and we will actively find players to replace them.

I recommend setting up a PayPal account, and create a "Money Pool" in paypal. This creates a separate link your players can use to send you money, and you can configure it for a set amount. All they have to do is click on the link you send them, and enter their credit card info.

Golf League Tracker makes it easy to track payments from players by entering money received into the "Player Payments" section of your league. This allows you and your players to see the status of all league payments. It makes it much easier to keep track of your books when the info is in one place.

The Players

A golf league consists of a set roster of regular players, typically 16-32, but I've seen some leagues with more than 100 players. Each player has a handicap which Golf League Tracker calculates, and a schedule of who they play against or with each week. Ideally you want to spread out the competitions so that everyone plays against or with everyone else an equal number of times, or at least as close as possible. Golf League Tracker takes the drudgery out of creating a schedule. Enter your players, set up your teams, and click one button to create the schedule for the year.

There are endless formats that you can set up for your golf league, but I'll talk about the most common formats. Golf League Tracker will support individual play and 2-person teams. With individual play, you play against another player each week for points. Take a look at some Two Player and Individual Player league ideas that are the most common format.

With team play, the team can be broken into "A" and "B" players if you're playing any kind of match play. Those designations are based on the player's handicap, the lower handicapped player being in the "A" player. The team plays against another team, with the "A" players matched up against each other, and the "B" players matched up against each other. They can play for points within their individual match or points with a number of team options such as best ball, high/low, stableford, or a number of combinations.  But with 2-man teams, you can also play formats such as best ball, where the best score of the teammates counts for the team, against the best ball of the other team. In this case, there are no flights, although Golf League Tracker still categorizes them by handicap.

If your league is 14 weeks or more, I recommend breaking the league into 2 halves. At the end of each half, the points the player or team has accumulated are reset to zero. This allows players who are at the bottom of the standings at the end of the first half to have a chance in the second half. This keeps everyone interested in the league throughout the season. After you have your two half winners, they would play a championship match at the end of the season to determine the league champion.

There is no right or wrong with how you set your league up for points, but I'll explain the typical league. Any of these settings can be adjusted in Golf League Tracker.

Match Play

Match play is where one player plays directly against his opponent on a hole by hole basis. It's a great way to organize your league because a player can have a bad hole without completely ruining his chances at winning his match.

2-Player Teams

If you have 2-player teams, you have additional point options.

Stableford Play

With Stableford, you're not playing directly against a single player, but playing against everyone else at the same time, called "The Field". In match play, your opponent's score directly influences whether you win points are not. But with Stableford, you're awarded points based on how you score relative to par on each hole. The number of points awarded are defined by the R&A and USGA, and can be found here on the USGA Rules Website. The concept is simple: the lower you shoot, the more points you win.

Those points are then accumulated each week for the players to determine the leaders. While there is a defined list of points, you can adjust those point values in Golf League Tracker if so desired.

If you have 2-player teams with Stableford, each player's points are added together for a team point total.

Other Point Options

This is just an overview of how you can configure your points with Golf League Tracker. We are adding new settings and point methods all the time, so be sure to check the latest settings list to see what's available. You can combine any point methods, although I recommend keeping it to no more than two different methods, otherwise it may confuse your players! If you don't see your point method listed, contact me and I should be able to clarify if there's an automated way of doing what you do, or I may add your format to the system. Many of these point formats were by customer request!

In Golf League Tracker, you can add as many subs as you wish to the player list. The sub's score counts for the player he's subbing for, and whatever points he wins are transferred to the regular player. There are settings in Golf League Tracker to limit the number of points a sub can win if so desired.

In an individual play league, if a player is absent, his opponent plays against “The course” by comparing his score to the par of the course. If you have team play, you have the choice of having the absent player's teammate play for him, or to have his opponent play against the course.

Often a league will collect a fee from subs, because the tee time is already paid for in advance by the regular player. I like the nice round number of $10 for 9 holes. This money can be placed into a separate fund for prizes or a year-end bash.

Requesting a Substitute

Golf League Tracker has a “Request a Sub” feature which allows your players to log in and request a sub for a date they know they won't be available. The system will send an e-mail to the players on your sub list, and the first to respond to the request by clicking a confirmation link in the e-mail will automatically be reserved, and the original player will be notified that a sub has been found.

A league secretary can also manually add a sub reservation to the system. This is useful because you can use the Print Scorecards feature on the site which will print your matchups with each player's name and handicap, including the sub's information if they have reserved a spot.

Let's face it, we're not all scratch golfers. The beauty of golf is that different skill levels can compete against each other using a handicap. A handicap tries to level the playing field by awarding strokes to players based on past performance.

There are an infinite ways to calculate handicaps, but with my experience, I've determine a good range of settings for the typical league that makes it fair to everyone. The basic formula is to take a rolling average of the player's scores compared to par. There are additional options that you can institute, which limit how many strokes a player can take on a hole to prevent them from artificially increasing their handicap, called "Sandbagging".

Typically a league will take the last 6 scores to use in their handicap calculation and drop the two highest. Many times a percentage is taken of that average, such as 90%, when calculating the player's handicap. This gives a slight advantage to the better players, and gives an incentive for a player to improve. Dropping the two highest out of six scores allows someone to have a bad round or two to prevent their handicap from skewing up too high.

If you have new players on your league, or are new to Golf League Tracker, there won't be a scoring history for the player in which to use to calculate his handicap. You have several options in Golf League Tracker to solve this problem:

You can add as many courses to Golf League Tracker as you wish, and you can enter multiple tee boxes for each course if you have players playing on different tee boxes. Just enter the information off the scorecard or from the course's website, paying special attention to the Par and Handicap of each hole, as those values may affect the scoring and handicap outcome depending on the format of your league.

In using Golf League Tracker, the time you spend on weekly maintenance is reduced dramatically.

Setting Your League Up

Setting up your league consists of signing up on Golf League Tracker to tell it some basic information. After your initial sign up, you will enter your players, golf course, and set your starting date and time for your league. Then you can create teams or assign players to the roster and with just a couple of clicks, you can have the system create a schedule for you.

You will then configure your League Settings to match your format of play so points and handicaps are calculated the way you want. There are many other settings available to tailor Golf League Tracker to suit your needs.

Your league settings and players carry over from season to season with Golf League Tracker, and don't need to be touched again unless you want something changed. The only requirement on a new season is to set your new starting date, and a couple of clicks to create your schedule.

Weekly Maintenance

There are just a few steps necessary in Golf League Tracker for your weekly maintenance duties.

Depending on the size of your league, your weekly duties might take anywhere from 5-10 minutes. Once your scores are entered and points recorded, your players can log in using the player password to see the standings, pull up dozens of statistics, and even post on your league comment section!

Beside your league matches, many leagues have additional games, usually played for a few dollars, as weekly contests. With some contests, players will put money aside to buy prizes for the winners, such as a sleeve of golf balls.

Skins

"Skins" is one of the most popular games for leagues. It consists of players putting a set amount of money into a pot each week (it could be as small as $1 per player).

Golf League Tracker handles all of these calculations automatically. When you enter the player information, you enter the number of dollars each week that they are putting in the pot. You don't even need to have everyone put in an equal amount. The stats section will even tell you how much each player owes, and how much they've won to make your book keeping even easier!

Closest to the Pin

Closest to the pin is a contest which is played on Par 3s, where a marker is placed on the green anytime a player hits his tee shot on the green in 1 shot. The marker indicates who is currently closest to the pin with their tee shot, and only is moved when another player hits his shot closer than the marker. The marker is usually a metal stake that has a piece of paper on it in which to write the player's name. The game starts with the marker being placed just off of the green.

When the round is finished, the markers are gathered (usually by the last group), and the winners tallied.

Longest Drive

Longest drive is also played with a marker, in which a player who hits the longest drive with their tee shot into the fairway win. The marker is moved each time a player hits it past the marker, and the player's name is written on it. Make sure you play this contest on a straight long hole. You don't want your players hitting the longest drive of their life only to hit it through the fairway right down the middle!

Straightest Drive

Not common in golf leagues because it requires a line to be placed down the middle of a fairway before the round begins, this contest evens the playing field of games by awarding the player who hits it closest to the line the prize.

Low Putts

Some leagues will have the players count their putts in addition to their score, and award a prize to the player who had the least number of putts. A shot is considered a putt when the player plays his first shot from the green surface, until he holes out. Using a putter from off the green is not considered a putt, unless a previous shot was hit from the green surface on the same hole.

Low Net

This prize is award to the player who has the lowest score with handicap, otherwise known as “Net score”, for the week.

Custom Contests

With Golf League Tracker, you can set up a custom contest in which to track the results for closest to the pin, long drive, and low putts and anything else you want.