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Structure What will the structure be? Is it a one person operation or will there be a core group to volunteer their time? You can start a league all by yourself and run it quite well, but it’s always nice to have help. If you have volunteers, you can either be the one in charge or hold elections. We recommend that you create a board consisting of a president, tournament director, secretary/treasurer, course director, league director and a merchandise director. The board should meet periodically to determine tournament dates, league nights, course maintenance schedules and other needs for the club. They should meet often while organizing the club and league, then once every few months after that. If you start out on your own don’t despair, you can do it all with a little organization until you get some volunteers to help carry the load.
Planning Once you have a board of volunteers, you must set the play schedule, dates for tournaments (remembering Daylight Saving Time when planning your schedule) and make decisions for the club. First, decide what type of league you want it to be. Will it be for beginners, advanced players, or a combination of both? Check other club and league schedules in your area to avoid conflicting dates.
Flyer The president usually creates the league flyer. If you know someone with an artistic ability or with a computer graphics program, you should delegate this task to them. Make sure to include the league name, dates, times, location, league format, costs, sponsor logos and contact person with phone number. Distribute to all players and place in stores, on bulletin boards in and around the park. Ask for your sponsors’ support in promoting your league at their business sites. President The president is mainly responsible for club operations, running meetings and maintaining regular contact with park personnel. This person should exhibit good communication and people skills, be organized, help schedule events and promote membership for the club. Another very important job that usually falls to the president, is seeking sponsors to fund club activities. The president may also need to create league or tournament flyers and produce the club newsletter. It’s the president’s job to make sure everything else is done correctly and promptly. These are just a few things to consider in planning and running your league. League Director This person actually runs the league and is responsible for posting correct dates and times of the league prior to league play. On league day, they will take member registration and be responsible for any payouts required by your league format. The league director performs informational meetings or announcements before league play begins each week. They make sure CTP markers are placed on the course and retrieved, ensure all the scorecards are returned, cash is accounted for and all the paperwork for the league is completed. Having a league director really lightens the load on some other positions.
Merchandise Director This job is similar to running a retail store. This person needs to attend all league play and tournaments, sell club merchandise, monitor inventory, place new orders and be aware of new disc products. They also need to prepare extra merchandise available for tournaments and other promotional events. Merchandise sales can boost your club’s reserves for those extras on the course, like benches, cement tee pads, baskets, etc.
Secretary/Treasurer This is one of the most important jobs in the club and probably the most time consuming. This person must log of all stats for the league and the club, tracks all the money and any merchandise your club sells when you don’t have someone in charge of merchandising. It’s very important to keep good records, this is the key to avoiding discrepancies or complaints when pay-outs are distributed. Writing and printing the club newsletter could also be their responsibility.
Tournament Director The tournament director (TD) is in charge of running all the activities involved with your tournaments. This would include relations with the PDGA, when your events are sanctioned. As a TD, it’s important to delegate jobs whenever possible. The TD should be free to oversee operations and make decisions when problems arise during the tournament. The TD should have good communications skills since they will speak at meetings and during the awards ceremony. They should also coordinate promotions with the merchandise director and the course director before all events. Recruiting staff is another important aspect of this job. You can never have too many people to help on
Course Director This job involves coordinating volunteer work days to clean the course, repair or replace baskets and tee pads, etc. Your job is to prepare the course for tournaments and leagues. Trash pick-up during league play is good idea and give out prizes for most trash picked up instead of for golf scores. A few days before a tourney is also a great time for trash pick-up. Schedule spring and fall clean up days for your course and hold a mini tourney. Players could work in the morning and be eligible to play for free in the afternoon event. You might also try to get a sponsor to provide food and/or beverages for everyone.
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Formats
What
type of league do you want? We suggest to keep it simple, anyone can
easily run a weekly best shot doubles. Once you begin to grow your player
base, you may want some type of handicap format which gives beginning
players a better chance to be competitive.
Singles,
doubles, best shot, pro-am or match play, what’s best? Some clubs run a
week night singles league during the summer and a weekend doubles league
the rest of the year. Other clubs run weekend singles year round, it all
depends on you how you want to run your league. A good start is an
informal doubles league which plays and pays out weekly. Link to our
Format Explanations Pro-Am : Simply splits your players by ability, so better players are teamed with beginning players as partners in doubles. Match Play: Pits teams or players against each other on a hole by hole basis, the player(s) that win the most holes, win the match. Best Shot: Both players throw, the best shot is chosen and both players throw from this spot, they repeat this until they hole out. Alternate Shot: Players take turns playing their partners’ shot starting with the first drive and alternating every shot until the end of the round. Skins: Similar to match play, each hole is worth a skin (cash or points). Cash or points are carried over from each hole until they’re won, ties on a hole means the value of the hole is added to the next hole.
Pay outs Generally you should pay the top third or top half of the league. However, you can pay out whatever you want to make it fun for everyone. Pay outs can also be made with merchandise which will help fund your club and allow pay outs to more players. If you’re paying out weekly instead of at seasons’ end, pay the top third of the field. The last cash spot in your weekly pay out should at least get their entry fee back. When paying out points, the cash value of each point is figured by dividing the total amount of money collected by the total number of points.
Prices and fees Weekly fees are most commonly from two to five dollars per person. You may also wish to charge an initial membership fee to join the league. The membership fees range from five to fifty dollars and usually include a players’ package. Depending on the amount charged, you can give a mini disc, golf disc or a shirt for the players’ package. League money can go towards your weekly payoffs, a league party, or to pay for course improvements.
Sponsorships Local restaurants, radio stations, sporting goods store, car dealerships or bars are a good place to start. You can also ask your employer or other clubs in your area for donations. The club president should create a sponsorship package for league members to take to potential sponsors. This package outlines benefits to the sponsor and the costs for each level of sponsorship. You can sell advertising spots on your tee signs or flyers, sponsor the ctp’s at league night, have sponsor logos on your league shirts, or with their logo permanently part of the tee sign.
League Night On league night or day if your league is on the weekend you should plan on arriving about a half an hour before tee time to register players. Once everyone is signed in and ready to play you may want to discuss rules, upcoming events, etc. If your league gets too big you may need to stagger tee-off times to ensure everyone can get through the course.
Handicapping Handicapping is a way of allowing players of differring skill levels to compete on equal terms. To handicap your course you’ll need to rank the holes in order of difficulty. The toughest hole on your course should be ranked #1 and the easiest #18 on an 18 hole course. In a match play league, players get strokes based on difficulty of the hole.
League Party A party or playoff day at the end of a season gives you the chance to bring everyone together for a final competition and to hand out awards. The Club Dead Match Play league runs an all day event, where the winner of the first half plays the winner of the second half for the overall championships. The remaining teams vie for the money left in the ace pool. The rest of the day is spent playing putting games, eating, drinking and presenting the awards. The K*aces league, which is point based, awards double points for a morning round then after lunch, they play hi-low doubles at their party. Hi-low doubles means the highest average player is teamed up with the lowest average player in a round of best shot. Then the league awards are given out after the doubles.
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