Women's Golf League

[jaci]

How do you start a golf league?

I live in an area with several country clubs as well as several muni courses. I play all of them thanks to friends living in the private communities. However, there are no formal women's golf leagues in our area outside of the country club leagues. I would like to start a league to play all the courses but not be tied to just one and open it up to all the ladies in our area. The thought process is to have enough ladies (16-20) to be able to block some tee times on a different course 1 saturday per month for an informal tournament. Eventually I would like to see us doing charity tournaments and giving back to our community in some way. It will also be a great way to meet to people to add to our "golf buddies". I know that most of my friends just have 1 or 2 ladies that they play with and when they are unavailable and our husbands are playing with their massive group of golf buddies, we are left at home cleaning house on a beautiful Saturday morning...aauugghh!! Anyway...any suggestions ?

[larrybud]

It would be a LOT more work to do what you want to do than to book a standard golf league on the same day of the week/time/course. You're basically running a mini tournament circuit.

 

In all league I've ever played in, the money is prepaid to the course. The player doesn't get their money back whether they play or not.

[Aimee]

What I've seen is that in each club (with permission, of course) you'd post something in the ladies locker room - a sign up sheet for those who'd be interested in participating.

Then pick a day/time/location for everyone to meet up and discuss the logistics.

If it's a private club, you have to dope out the rules ref how many non-members can be hosted by each member. Municipal courses are easy, just talk to the GC manager and explain what you want to do, have a commitment to a day/time and number of participants, and ask him to block it out for your group. You need to set a deadline for the players to commit (say 48 hours before the round); you want to be able to find alternate players or cancel unused tee times.

If someone is good with the web, you can set up a web site for the group where you can post tee times, results each week, etc. Otherwise email chain or phone chain can work.

good luck!

[Debit]

It ain't gonna be easy, but good luck. I also understand your interest in having it move among the various courses. Try a sign up sheet (use bulletin boards in women's restroom) with contact info and don't forget to notify club and teaching pros that you are looking for other women players. Make a couple tee times somewhere (explain to course starter/pro what you are up to) and then ask other women to show up and demonstrate their interest. As others have indicated, the norm is once a week, but hey, this is your league, propose it as you will. The course(s) may be more enthusiastic if you propose playing after the usual morning crowds (i.e. dew sweepers) -- afternoons are pretty much open on many courses. After you are organized, you can think about getting more formal with handicaps, etc. But you can also just encourage players to sign up for handicap system at local course. Official handicaps are required if anyone wants to participate in tournaments. For whatever reason, the USGA is allowing "individuals" to post scores for handicap vs. the earlier requirement club membership. It isn't exactly rocket science to plug in scores, slope, & rating to into USGA formula and calculate them among yourselves. Sounds like fun though -- to get together with others to play on semi-regular basis. My own muni club is about to fold due to lack of interest. The membership has gotten old. Several have left for health reasons, moved away, and others have begun to play with retired spouses. Our Sunday morning group has been decimated by retirements and the players moving to less expensive or more prestigious weekday clubs.