Anyone signed in can start a league, free.

On the web: Dashboard › Leagues (then Join or start if you already have one) › Start a new league.

On the phone: Account › Golf › Leagues, then the + at the top.

Give it a name and a description, and pick its type (Persona Style on the web, League type on the phone): Group is polls, roster and chat; Competitive adds tournaments, flights, seasons and standings. Competitive and Invite Only are on to start with, and you can change both later in Settings. You become the league's owner. The web takes you to your league's Manage page; the phone shows your invite code, ready to send.

The league page (what members see) has a Manage button for the owner and delegates. Manage has five destinations: Home, Tournaments (with Course Setup, the scorecard new tournaments copy), People (Members and Flights), Standings (Seasons) and Communicate (Announcements, Chat, Polls, Events and Broadcast), with Settings behind the gear. The phone's Manage menu is grouped the same way.

Share the invite link or code. Your league has an invite code from the moment you create it, and a link that fills it in.

On the web: Manage › gear (Settings) has Copy code and Copy invite link. Only the owner sees them.

On the phone: Manage › gear › Invite people has Share. It shows only for an invite-only league: a public league needs no code, because golfers find it under Browse public leagues and join themselves.

Only if the code has leaked, the owner can replace it (Rotate on the web, Generate a new code on the phone). The old code stops working at once.

Add people yourself. Manage › People › Members › Add members: search anyone on Golf Sync, or add one of your playing partners in one tap. They're on the roster straight away, with no email to answer. On the phone, partners are added from People › Members.

Invite by email (owner only): paste up to 100 addresses at a time, and each gets a one-tap join link that expires after 30 days. Sent invitations, under the box, shows each one as Pending, Accepted, Declined, Revoked or Expired. On the phone it's in Settings › Invite people.

A league holds up to 100 members.

Tap the invite link your organizer sent; it fills the code in for you. Or type the code yourself (codes are 8 letters and numbers, like k7Qm3xPa):

On the web: Dashboard › Leagues › Join or start › Have an invite code?

On the phone: Account › Golf › Leagues › Join by invite code.

On your league's page you'll find its Announcements, Standings, Tournaments, Events, Polls, Chat, Members and the Sub pool. Each tournament's page has Play, Leaderboard, Field, Standings and Info tabs; Standings shows only when the tournament counts toward a season. Playing it is in Playing in an event.

The person who starts a league is its owner. The owner can make any member a Delegate, who helps run the league, or a Scorer, who keeps scores: pick DELEGATE or SCORER in the role list on their row in Members.

Only the owner can:

• delete the league, change anyone's role, or remove a member;
• send email invitations, and replace the invite code;
• send a Broadcast email;
• connect the league's Stripe account for payments;
• delete a tournament once it's past a draft, or import past results;
• from a tournament's date on, change a player's status (withdrew, DQ, no-show) or whether their round counts for the season.

The owner and delegates can:

• create and edit tournaments, and delete a draft one;
• set pars, generate pairings, fix scores and set up payouts;
• post announcements, polls and events;
• run seasons, and set handicaps and flights;
• add members by search or from their partners.

A scorer can enter and fix scores, and mark a player withdrawn or a no-show before the tournament's date. From the day itself, only the owner can change a player's status.

On the web: only the owner sees the Settings form (name, description, invite-only, type). A delegate who opens Settings sees a note instead.

On the phone: a delegate can edit Settings too, but can't delete the league.

A league's owner can't hand it to someone else in the app: make your co-organizer a delegate. A Golf Sync XP event is different: Golf Sync staff can transfer it to a new owner, so email us. If an owner deletes their account, one of the league's delegates becomes the owner, so the league carries on.

Each member has a league handicap, which the owner or a delegate sets in Members: -10.0 to 54.0, one decimal (a plus handicap is negative, so +2.4 is -2.4). Every change is kept with who made it.

A player's own handicap isn't used until you accept it: Accept on their row, or the button above the list that accepts every pending one at once. When you save a number yourself, it may also update the player's account handicap; the line under their row says whether it did (they're told) or why not.

When a member's handicap is out of date, Members shows it, and you can nudge them to update it or propose a number, which they accept or contest within 48 hours (see Your account).

Pairings don't need handicaps. Set them anyway: a balanced draw and net scoring treat a player with no league handicap as scratch (0).

Flights split the leaderboard into groups, usually by handicap band. Create them under People › Flights (for example "A 0–9, B 10–18, C 19+"), then put each member in one from Members. You decide who goes where: the handicap range on a flight is a note, and doesn't sort anyone. Flights are optional, and pairings work without them.

On the web: Manage › Tournaments › Start setup wizard →, or fill in the form under it and tap Create Tournament.

On the phone: Manage › Tournaments › New.

You can edit any detail later. Tournaments are listed oldest first; once there are four or more, you can show Upcoming, Past or All (Upcoming to start with).

Each tournament keeps its own pars and stroke index, copied when it's created from your last tournament on the same course, else from the course's scorecard, else par 4 on every hole. A 9-hole tournament gets 9 holes.

A season ranks your members across several tournaments. Seasons are on Competitive leagues, and the owner or a delegate runs them on the web and the phone, under Manage › Standings › Seasons.

• Create a season with a name and optional dates. Choose how it ranks: add up each player's scores, or award points by finishing place each week (Top 10, Linear or Percentile bands).
• Rules, all optional: drop each player's worst rounds, count only their best tournaments, a minimum number of rounds to be eligible for prizes, and a tiebreak order.
• Attach tournaments to the season on each tournament's create or edit form.
• Finalize the season when it's over: the standings freeze and its scores lock. Reopen undoes it. Then Email recap sends the recap PDF to every member (there's also Recap PDF and CSV).
• Past results. A tournament your league played before it joined Golf Sync can be entered by the owner on that tournament's console, on its Results tab.

Members see Standings on the league page, a Standings tab on each tournament in a season, and a season page for each player.

• Set up the season in one go. In the web form, Show more options › Repeat weekly makes up to 26 weekly tournaments, each named "… — Week N".
• Subs. Members who can fill in tap I'm available as a sub in the league page's Sub pool. Anyone who hasn't confirmed in 90 days is greyed out.
• Finalize each week. Finalize the tournament on the Day-of tab when play is over. It locks scoring for everyone, closes the join code, and lists by name any card without every hole posted, which stays open. Reopen for corrections undoes it. Until then the tournament stays open: its cards can still be changed and the season doesn't count them.
• Still open? When a tournament's day has passed and nobody finalized it, the owner's dashboard lists it in a card with a link to finalize it. Golf Sync can also email the owner a reminder, but only once it has switched that reminder on; it's off unless we tell you otherwise.
• End of season. Finalize the season and email the recap (see Seasons and standings).

Everything is under Manage › Communicate.

• Announcements: you post, members read. You can link a poll to an announcement, and members get a "View poll" link right under it.
• Chat: the league's group conversation.
• Polls: ask the group a question, such as which day works.
• Events: social outings and dates that aren't tournaments.
• Broadcast (owner only): an email to every member with a verified email who hasn't turned off emails from their organizers. Those members also get a phone notification if they have the app. One send every 5 minutes.

Owner only: Remove on their row (the trash icon on the phone). They leave the roster and the chat, and their past results stay. Removing someone doesn't cancel their places in upcoming tournaments or refund dues they paid; the confirm box lists both, so sort those out first (set them to Withdrew on each tournament's Registration tab, and refund in Stripe if they paid there). To bring someone back, add them again from Add members on the Members tab; they don't need a new invite.

Each tournament has its own console: open it with Manage on its row in Manage › Tournaments, or Manage tournament on the tournament's page. Its Registration tab is who's playing, Pairings & Teams builds groups and teams, and Day-of runs the day and finalizes it.

It works the way a Golf Sync XP's Tournament console does, step by step, in Running a Golf Sync XP.

Both apps run the league itself: members, roles, handicaps, flights, seasons, messaging, and each tournament's day (check-in, scores, the leaderboard, Skins and pushes).

On the web: the one-time desk work: a tournament's setup, branding, roster import, email and print pack, side pots, and payouts beyond three places.

On the phone: a tournament's console says what it leaves to the web (Setup, branding, sponsor tiers, roster import, email and the print pack) and has a row that opens the web console. Its payouts editor holds three places.