The course: the biggest cost
Courses usually price an outing per player: golf, a cart and often range balls, sometimes with food. Ask what the price includes, the number of players you must guarantee, the deposit, the date the final count is due, and whether tax and a service charge are added to food and drink. A guarantee you cannot fill is paid anyway, so set it below the field you expect.
Food and drink
Most outings serve lunch before a shotgun and a dinner or reception for the awards, and many run a beverage cart. These are often priced per person, so they grow with the field. Each one is also something a sponsor can pay for: a lunch, dinner or beverage-cart sponsor takes the line off your costs.
Prizes, contests and insurance
Budget for the winning teams' prizes, the contest prizes (closest to the pin, the longest drive) and a gift for every player. A big hole-in-one prize needs a hole-in-one insurance policy, priced on the prize, the hole and the number of players. Donated prizes cut this line, and a contest sponsor can pay for its own prize.
Signs, printing and supplies
A sign on every sponsored hole, a welcome banner, cart signs, scorecards and the pairings sheet. Signs that carry no date can be used again next year.
With Golf Sync XP
The print pack makes the cart signs, scorecards, hole and sponsor signs and the alphabetical list as PDFs from your event, so the printing is the only cost.
Software and payment processing
Many tournament platforms are free to the organizer because they add a fee to each registration or sponsorship, or ask players and donors for a tip at checkout. That cost is still paid, by your players and sponsors. Card payments carry a processing fee wherever you take them.
With Golf Sync XP
Golf Sync XP charges the event instead: $395 an event, any number of tournaments. No Golf Sync fee on registrations, donations or sponsorships when your event raises money. Card payments settle into your own Stripe account, Stripe's processing fee goes to Stripe, and players can be asked to cover it at checkout.
A worked example
Say the course quotes $85 a player for golf, a cart and lunch, and you expect 72 players, 18 foursomes. The course is $6,120. Add $1,500 for dinner, prizes and signs, and the day costs $7,620.
At $150 a player, the field brings $10,800: the costs are covered and $3,180 is left before a single sponsor. 10 hole sponsors at $300 and a title sponsor at $2,500 add $5,500, and the event raises $8,680 before its software and card fees. These numbers are an example; use your course's quote and your own sponsors.
Where the money comes from
Entries should cover the cost of each player and a little more, so every entry raises money. Sponsorships are mostly profit once the course is paid, which is why they deserve the most effort. Supporters who do not play can still give, and mulligans and contests sold at check-in add a little more on the day.
- Entries, priced above what a player costs you
- Sponsorships
- Donations from people who do not play
- Mulligans and contests on the day
With Golf Sync XP
Donations take a card on your page when the beneficiary is a verified charity, or the page links to your own donation page, and the iPad Event Desk sells mulligans at check-in.