How to start a golf league with friends

To start a golf league with friends, find a core of players, fix a day and a course, pick one game everyone understands, write the rules down, and keep the results where everyone can see them. The steps below take you through each one. Step 6 has a rules sheet you fill in, and step 7 a sign-up sheet you print.

Step by step

1. Find your core players

Start with the few people who’ll turn up most weeks. Mixed abilities are fine if your game allows for them. Published guides suggest handicaps; a quota game does the same job, because each player plays against their own target.

2. Fix a day, a time and a course

Pick one day and one first tee time, and keep them. Talk to the course early about a regular block of tee times. Tell them how often you’ll play and how many of you there are, so they can find you good times.

3. Decide how long a season runs

A season gives your standings a start and a finish. One friends’ group in the sources has about 20 players, plays 9 holes, and runs a 10 to 12 week season twice a year. That’s what works for them, not a rule.

4. Pick a game

Choose one game everyone understands. In a quota game, every player has a target number of points and the best plus/minus wins, so every ability plays the same game. Read the quota game rules, then work out each player’s quota with the quota calculator. Stroke play and match play are the other common choices. Playing with a big group? See golf games for large groups.

5. Agree the money, if any

If you play for money, agree it before the first round: the entry, any shared costs, how prizes split, and what happens to the money when a round is cancelled. Playing for no money is a fine answer. To split a prize pot by place, ties included, use the payout calculator.

6. Write the rules down

Rules everyone has read settle arguments before they start. Fill in the sheet below, then print it or copy it into your group chat. Answer only what your group needs: anything you leave blank stays off the sheet. Your answers stay in this browser.

7. Each week: who’s playing, the groups, the results

Find out who’s playing: print the sign-up sheet below for the clubhouse board, blank or with your regulars’ names. Then make the groups with the pairings generator, play, and add up the results. For a quota game, print the scorecard and results sheet.

8. Keep a season table

A table that runs all season gives everyone a reason to keep turning up, even after a bad round. The Order of Merit guide shows how season points add up. Playing a quota game? Download the quota spreadsheet and you get everyone’s new quota after each round.

What goes wrong

• Rules nobody wrote down. The first disputed score turns into an argument. Write the rules down before the first round.
• One person doing everything. Share the jobs, so your group doesn’t stop when that person is away.
• Not knowing whether the game is on. Agree how and by when players say they’re in, and who calls a round off for weather.

Run it on GreenRoster

Your members say whether they’re playing from their phones, and quotas and standings update when you complete each round.