Hi all- I am chairing a golf tournament for our school. Our goal is to raise $10,000. We are working on getting the food and beverages donated; hole sponsors, title sponsors, and goodie bag items donated as well as prizes. We have two hole sponsors so far ($250 each); and one sponsor for $2000; we are working on getting a car for a hole in one prize. Printing and signs are being donated.

Here are my questions:

What contests have you run at your tournament?
What prizes did you give out to your winners; how many places?(we are doing a shotgun start scramble)
How many raffle prizes did you have and what were they?
Did you sell raffle tickets and mulligans? How much?
Did you sell golf shirts? How much?
What would you have done differently?
What did you do to make your tournament unique?

Our ticket price is $115 per individual/$400 per foursome. The golf club is charging us $6000 for the course.

Looking for any and all advice you can provide! I don't play golf so this is a stretch for me!

Thanks,

Holly

Any help at all would be appreciated! I have read the other message board threads but could not find the answers to these questions.

Sunny FL, I think I can help you a lot here...

We ran our first Golf Tournament last year and it was a huge successs, raising over $9000. Here's some of your questions answered...

What contests have you run at your tournament?

We had, as part of the tournament, a closest to the pin and a longest drive contest. The club had the stakes and signs for this already. To raise additional funds I put myself out at one of the par 3 holes and for $10 a player could take a chance to try to drive onto the green. If they did they would get their name into a drawing for a pair of Red Sox tickets that we were able to get. If thy missed they were allowed to try again, and again, and again. I was wheeling and dealing out there, even giving two players a third or fourth chance each for $5 each, when it seemed they were going to give up. Overall 11 players drove onto the green, and we raised over $800 on this alone...

What prizes did you give out to your winners; how many places?(we are doing a shotgun start scramble)

Shotgun start is the way to go. We had trophies donated from a local shop for the first place and runner ups, as well as the longest drive and closest to the pin.

How many raffle prizes did you have and what were they?

Wow, we had tons. Many, many liquor baskets donated from local stores. More red sox tickets. Other sports memorabilia. Dinner for two to some local restaurants. Golf bag, driver, bicycle, and much more.

Did you sell raffle tickets and mulligans? How much?

Yes to both. We sold a "package" of one mulligan, shoot from the ladies tee (or move up 30 feet for the ladies), a water, and something else I can't remember. This "package" was $10. We sold raffle tickets before the tournament started, and then again as the players were coming in. I think it was $2 a ticket, 6 for $10 (most bought at least 10).

Did you sell golf shirts? How much?

Did not.

What would you have done differently?

Nothing, it went perfectly.

What did you do to make your tournament unique?

It was our first one, so it was unique in that regard.

Hope this helps,
PresidentJim

President Jim- A few more questions for you...

Did you raise most of your money through ticket sales or did you have sponsorship dollars? If sponsorship dollars, what were the levels you charged?

Did you do a meal (lunch or dinner)...did you get that donated or did you pay for it?

Did you get beverages/snacks donated for the carts? If so, did you charge for the items or accept donations?

Did you sell out all of your foursomes? Are our prices in line with what you charged?

Thanks again...

Holly

Thank you President Jim and Sunny FL! One of our corporate sponsors at our school is wanting our PTO to have a golf tournament and I had no idea where to start gathering information on how to organize one. Y'all are helping me tremendously! If you can think of anything else, I would be very grateful!Thank you!

TLGinTN- I have created sponsor letters, registration forms, donor levels, a financial spreadsheet, etc. Just let me know your email address and I will send you what I have put together.

If I had to do it over again...start as far out in advance as you can. Try to get one company to be a title sponsor to wipe out the cost of the greens fees. We were unable to find any course in our area who would donate the course to us for a half day for free. Many people who would have been financial sponsors or donated us in-kind products said they needed 6-9 months notice for budget purposes. We started planning in June for a September tourney so we have had to scramble. In your contract for the golf tourney-you will want to make sure you have the rights to bring in outside food and beverage donated by sponsors. You will also want to negotiate free foursomes from the golf course to use as prizes. We are planning to have all the items on the course beverage carts be free to the attendee but will be accepting monetary donations for the items to come back to the school.

After the tournament (September 23rd), I would be happy to provide you more feedback. Just try to get financial sponsors to offset all of your course and food costs and then get all of your prizes, printing, signs, raffle items and goodie bag items donated for free.

Best of luck. I am still looking for as many suggestions on how to make our tournament better if anyone has information to share from either past golf tournaments they organized or attended.

As always, thanks to everyone for their invaluable feedback.

Holly