Pick your format first
- Stroke play, total strokes across the round, lowest wins. The simplest format, and the default for most casual events.
- Match play, hole-by-hole, more holes won than your opponent wins the match. See the full guide.
- Stableford, points per hole instead of strokes, highest total wins. See the full guide.
- Team formats, best ball, alt shot, or scramble, where a group's combined score counts rather than individual cards.
Decide gross or net
If your field has a real spread of skill levels, use net scoring so it's a fair contest. If everyone's roughly the same level, or you're running a pro event, gross keeps it simple. See gross vs. net explained.
Build the structure once
For anything beyond a single casual round: name the tournament, set your scoring system, add your sessions, build your teams or pairings. Multi-day events with different formats per day are common, a four-ball morning followed by singles match play in the afternoon, for example.
The part that actually breaks tournaments
The single biggest failure point isn't the format, it's getting scores off the course and into one place. Every extra step, an app install, a login screen, a menu to find scoring in, is a place a player gives up and just doesn't do it. A scoring link that opens straight to the scorecard removes almost all of that. LeaderboardLive builds one automatically per group when you set up matches, no extra step for anyone.
FAQ
How many people does this work for?
From a foursome to a full field with multiple sessions and teams.
Do I need everyone's handicap before the event starts?
Only if you're scoring net. Gross-only events skip that step entirely.