Tournament guide

Running a tournament, start to finish.

A tournament is one event in one game mode — a charity scramble on a Saturday, a two-day club championship, a Ryder Cup weekend. Here's what you can set up, how to create it, and how the day runs.

What you can create

A tournament is one event — a single day or several rounds — played in one game mode. Pick the mode first; everything else adapts to it.

Everyone plays their own ball: Stroke Play (individual golfers, or teams whose scores add up) and Stableford (points per hole against par).
Team formats: Scramble (one shared score per hole), Larry's Outing (a scramble plus one player on their own ball each hole — two leaderboards, two winners), Best Ball and Best Per Par, each also available scored in Stableford points.
Head-to-head: Ryder Cup (two sides, singles / four-ball / foursomes sessions, holes won not strokes), Bracket (single elimination) and Round Robin (everyone plays everyone).
Single Round for a one-day tournament, or Multiple Rounds for one with a combined leaderboard across every round.
Team or Individual competitors. Team formats fix this to teams; a Ryder Cup is built on individual golfers split into two sides; the rest let you choose.
Handicaps on or off. On, every leaderboard adds a net column, with strokes allocated by each hole's stroke index.

How to create one

From the sidebar, click Tournament. The whole setup takes a few minutes, and every step can be finished later from the event page.

1Pick the game mode — the Tournament page lists every mode in three groups. Click one and the form opens locked to it — no other modes are shown. A Change link takes you back if you picked the wrong one.
2Event info — Single Round or Multiple Rounds; Team or Individual (when the mode allows both); the name; the course; the date; 9 or 18 holes; shotgun start or tee times; handicaps; and an optional cap on how many teams or players can register. Team formats also ask how many players make up a team.
3Pick the course from the list — choosing a course from the shared course database fills in par, yardage and hole handicaps for you. If you type a name instead, the scorecard starts at par 4 on every hole and the app warns you — set the pars under Course setup before printing cards.
4Players — share the registration link and let captains sign their own team up, add teams by hand, or import a whole list from a spreadsheet or a photo of your sign-up sheet. You check the list before anything is added.
5Pairings — or Sides & Matches — for a shotgun round, teams get a starting hole automatically; drag them between holes or tee times to change it. A Ryder Cup ends with Sides & Matches instead: name the two sides, put every player on one (or split evenly by handicap), and add sessions of matches.
6Done — the summary shows the format, start, handicap setting and field, with the registration link to share, the live leaderboard, and printable scorecards.

The event page

Everything about a tournament lives on one page with four tabs, and a What's next checklist on top that points at the next thing to do.

Overview — What's next, live standings, registration numbers, the registration and leaderboard links to share, side games, and the latest scores as they come in.
Teams (or Players) — the roster, with Edit, Scores and Remove for every entry; flights; the two sides for a Ryder Cup; adding by hand or importing a list.
Rounds & pairings — each round with Mark active / Mark completed, Print scorecards, the pairings board (or sessions, bracket and round-robin schedule), and Course setup for par, yardage and stroke index per hole.
Settings — the public registration page's flyer and description; the handicap and competitor settings (locked once anyone has registered); per-round start, format and scoring; and the skins and deuces side games.
Close registration once the field is set, or reopen it any time. The header always shows how many have registered and the live leaderboard link.

Getting everyone registered

One registration link works for the whole field. Mix self-registration with adding people yourself as you go.

A captain opens the link, fills in their team's info and every player's name (and handicap, if you're tracking it). Individual events register one golfer at a time.
Import a list: upload a CSV or Excel sign-up sheet — one row per player with a Team column, one row per team with Player 1, Player 2… columns, first and last names in separate columns, or a plain list — or a photo of a typed or handwritten sheet. The app shows the teams it found, flags anyone already registered, a team over the size limit or a name it couldn't read, and adds them all once you confirm.
Set a maximum number of teams or players and registration closes itself once the field is full; you can still add more by hand past the cap.
Edit a roster, fix a typo or remove a player any time, even after scores have started coming in.

Pairings that keep themselves current

A shotgun round assigns starting holes on its own the moment a team is added, so there's no bracket to babysit.

Every hole gets one team before any hole gets two. The first team on a hole is Team A, the next Team B — worked out fresh each time, so removing or moving a team relabels the rest correctly.
Drag and drop teams between holes on the pairings board; it updates live.
Tee-time rounds work the same way with time slots: add a tee time, drag teams onto it.
Flights split a big field into separate leaderboards — say Championship and Net — each with its own tab on the public board.

Scoring from any phone

Every team — or every player in an individual event — gets a 4-digit PIN printed on their scorecard. The PIN opens their scoring page in any browser; there's nothing to install.

Scan the card's QR code or open the event's scoring link, enter the PIN, and the card opens at the team's starting hole. Scores go in hole by hole with + and − buttons; the page moves to the next unfinished hole on its own.
Each save is confirmed on the button — a check, the word Saved, and the bird taking off — so the scorer knows it went through. A save that fails shows an error instead.
Scrambles enter one team score per hole. Larry's Outing enters two — the Scramble score and the Individual score — and both boxes start at par, so check both before saving.
One scorer per team: teammates share the same PIN and card, so the last save on a hole wins.
Tap Finish and lock scorecard once the card is checked. After that only an admin can change it — from the Teams tab → Scores, where you can also enter scores for anyone who can't.
Match play cards mark holes won and halved in the two sides' colours, and a match that's decided early (3&2) can be finished without playing the rest.

A leaderboard that's always live

Share the public leaderboard link — or the QR code on a printed card — and anyone can follow along without logging in. It refreshes itself every 15 seconds.

Stroke play shows gross scores, and net too when handicaps are on. Stableford ranks by points, highest first.
Larry's Outing shows two boards, Scramble and Individual, with a champion for each.
Match play and a Ryder Cup show every match's live status — holes up, all square, or a final margin like 3&2 — and the running points between the sides.
Round Robin keeps a wins-and-losses table; a Bracket draws the whole bracket as winners advance.
Multi-round tournaments roll every round into one cumulative table.
Clubhouse TV mode is a big-screen version of the board for the bar or the scoring tent.

Ryder Cup and match play

Individual tournaments can run full head-to-head match play, all the way up to a Ryder Cup–style team event.

Name two sides — USA and Europe, Red and Blue, whatever you like — and put every player on one. Split evenly by handicap does it in one click, alternating picks so neither side stacks the low handicaps.
Build sessions in Singles, Four-Ball or Foursomes (true alternate shot — partners share one score per hole). Each session holds any number of matches.
A head-to-head singles match needs just one PIN on its card: either player can log in and enter both sides. Four-ball and foursomes cards carry a PIN per player.
Match results and the two sides' points total themselves the moment scores come in.

Finishing up

Once every team has finished its card — or you've marked every round complete — Finalize results becomes the highlighted button.

Finalize locks the whole event: the leaderboard shows a clear winner and players can no longer enter scores. Un-finalize reopens it if something needs fixing.
If the top of a board is tied, Finalize stops and asks you to pick the winner first — the tie-break boxes appear right under the tabs.
Skins and deuces can be switched on per round as side games; skins can be gross or net and carry ties over.
Print scorecards for any round: two to a page, sorted by starting hole and group, each with the team's PIN and QR code, hole handicaps, and a dot on every hole where a player gets a stroke.

Game modes, fully explained →

How each format is scored, with examples.

Running a league →

Weekly matchups over a season — the other thing Fairway Flow does.

Ready to start?

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