The Cut · Guides

How to run a member-guest

The member-guest is the crown jewel of the club calendar: two or three days, flighted teams, nine-hole matches, and a Sunday shootout that the whole club watches. It's also the event most likely to bury an organizer in spreadsheets. Here's the structure that works, and how to run it without living in Excel all week.

The classic format

Two-player teams (a member and their guest), grouped into flights of four or five teams by combined handicap. Each team plays a round-robin of nine-hole matches against every other team in its flight — typically four or five matches across two or three days. Flight winners (and sometimes wildcards) advance to a shootout — a horse-race style playoff where the worst team is eliminated each hole until one stands.

Choosing the match format

• Four-ball match play (most common): both players play their ball; better ball counts. Nine points per match is a popular scoring system — a point per hole plus bonus for the match.
• Mixed sessions: some clubs rotate formats by round — four-ball, alternate shot, scramble — which keeps guests of all levels in the event.
• Handicaps: play off the low ball in the group at 90% allowance for four-ball; full difference for alternate shot. Post the allowances before day one so nobody's surprised on the tee.

Building the flights

Sort teams by combined course handicap, then slice into flights top to bottom. Resist requests to "flight down" — the fastest way to lose the field's trust is a stacked bottom flight. Five-team flights with four matches each fill two days cleanly; four-team flights fit three matches into a more relaxed schedule.

The schedule that keeps a field moving

1. Day 1: practice round or opening matches, plus the Calcutta/pairings party in the evening.
2. Days 2–3 mornings: two nine-hole matches per day per team, off both tees or shotgun.
3. Final afternoon: flight winners into the shootout, everyone else around the 18th green with a drink.

Tee sheets are the crux: each nine-hole session needs every team on the right nine, at the right time, against the right opponent. This is the part organizers dread — and the part software should be doing.

The Calcutta

Most member-guests auction the teams the first night. Keep the auction itself festive and the tracking clean: record results and standings in points, and let payouts happen between participants outside the event. (Know your state's rules — you're an organizer, not a bookmaker.)

Scoring without the war room

The old way is a scoring tent, a stack of nine-hole cards, and a volunteer with a calculator. The new way: every group posts hole-by-hole from a phone, match statuses update live, flight standings recompute themselves, and the board in the clubhouse rotates through flights automatically. Guests' families can follow from home on a public link.

Details that separate good from great

• Post the schedule and pairings before guests arrive — nobody should ask "who do we play?"
• Send tee times to every phone the night before each session.
• Keep a live "standings" board where the drinks are.
• Photograph everything; the recap email with the shootout video is what sells next year's event.

More guides: How to run a golf scramble · Golf side games explained