COVID-19: Safeguard Your Tournament Plans With These 5 Steps

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COVID-19 presents a very fluid situation and without knowing what the future has in store, your tournament plans don’t have to come to a halt.

As COVID-19 continues to affect our lives in many ways, we deeply appreciate the important role you play in being leaders within our communities. We understand that for many organizations, COVID-19 has added new sets of challenges to many facets of your operations, including event planning and charitable efforts.
 
It is incredibly important to the Event Caddy team that we help you meet these challenges head on.
We are amazed and impressed by the creative strategies that many tournament organizers are employing to continue focusing on planning and growth even during these times of uncertainty.

If your tournament is scheduled to take place this spring or summer, here are some suggested steps that you can take to make sure your golfers and sponsors are confident in committing to your tournament now.

TAKE THESE 5 STEPS TO CONTINUE PROMOTING YOUR EVENT AS PLANNED:

STEP 1 Contact your course and ask to secure a back up date, in the scenario that your event must be postponed. This is likely on a first come, first served availability, so don’t delay checking the course calendar to lock in a potential backup date.

STEP 2 Utilize the ‘Event Caddy Email Marketing Tool’ or your preferred means of communication to notify all committed and potential guests that you are continuing to plan your event as scheduled, and not to miss out on securing their registration today.

STEP 3 Once confirmed with your course, let golfers know that “a rain check date has been secured, and will first be postponed if necessary. In the event of a full cancellation a refund can be issued to all participants”. *Be sure to add this statement to your website and marketing materials.

STEP 4 If your event day is rapidly approaching, consider making slight modifications to the schedule of activities that will help with social distancing and put your golfer’s mind at ease:

       i) Plan to avoid the larger group gathering segments of your event:

• * Forgo the awards ceremony. Announce the winners on social media (you might even gain a few more followers in doing so) and mail prizes to the winners. 
• * Ask golfers to check in via text message or phone call and go directly to their assigned holes for the shotgun start.

       ii) Consider moving your charity auction online only.
       iii) Encourage golfers to leave the pin in the hole when putting.
       iv) Branded hand sanitizer will make for a great promotional gift.

STEP 5 Most importantly, keep in regular communication with  your participants and let them know how much you truly appreciate their support!

Fact is, with the right precautions and modifications, golf with it’s natural social distancing in an outdoor space, might be just the right solution for future charitable efforts.

Know that our first priority is the health and safety of you, your loved ones and the communities you serve. So we ask you to please follow the preventative measures recommended by the WHO and local authorities and public health agencies like the CDC.

As your dedicated tournament management solution, Event Caddy is fully committed to uninterrupted support at the capacity to which you’re accustomed. Our customer support and leadership teams are fully enabled and available to assist you. As plans change and tournament management revolutionizes, please stay safe and know that we are here if you need anything.

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Golf Tournament Dinner Receptions & Award Ceremonies

This information on: Golf Tournament Dinner Receptions & Award Ceremonies was republished from http://eventcaddy.com/blog/

 

Ending The Golf Tournament on a Good Note

 

While the golf tends to be the main attraction and ultimately what will attract the guests; it is just as important to put some effort into the dinner and awards following.

Golf tends to be a sport that pulls you back. A terrible round seems to always end on a high note. Whether it be a birdie or even just a par, it’s that last hole performance that will make your day and keep you interested.

 

The awards and dinner portion of your event is no different.. It’s your 18th hole. A well run awards ceremony can not only help you raise more funds but ensure your guests enjoyed their day and remain interested in your event.

 

Here Are a Few Tips to Consider When Planning Your Next Post Golf Reception

 

Incorporate Sponsors: Sponsors pay big money to be apart of your day. Give them the recognition they deserve. Players may have missed their signs on the course but will no doubt listen come closing ceremonies. You could even give them the opportunity to say a few words.

 

Pace of Play: Golf is already a very time consuming sport. Your guests have likely been at the course for 5 or 6 hours so It’s crucial to make sure things move quickly after the event. There’s nothing worse than an event that drags on.

 

Emcee: Are you a master of ceremonies? If not, consider hiring one. A good emcee that keeps guests engaged and interested goes a long way. Consider reaching out to former athletes or local tv personalities.

 

Prizes/Auction: Be sure to have some good items up for grabs. A great way to keep guests interested is to offer raffle prizes or even an auction. This way everyone has a chance to leave with something.

 

Stop Selling: Your guests have already paid some good money to be at your event. While it’s fine to run some extra money making initiatives during the ceremony, it’s important to make sure you don’t over do it. Some guests will no doubt be willing to contribute some more but most just want to enjoy the dinner.

 

There are many different approaches to the post golf reception, however as long as your guests enjoy themselves and remain interested you’ll do just fine. The last thing you want is to see your golfers leaving early. Make it quick, entertaining, and enjoyable for all and you’ll no doubt see many of the same faces again next year.

 

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Reducing Golf Tournament Planning Costs for Organizers

The following information on: Reducing Golf Tournament Planning Costs for Organizers is courtesy of www.eventcaddy.com/blog/

Hosting a charity golf tournament often comes with a steep price tag. Tournament organizers can struggle to turn a profit in the early years as expenses are easily underestimated. Luckily, there are a number of ways to help reduce these costs. Here’s a few professional planning tips for some of those larger expenses:

Marketing:

With a solid team in place there should be very little, if any, money spent on promoting or advertising your event. Remember, the majority of your participants will come from personal or business connections.

Lean on your personal and professional connections as much as possible. You’ll find a good portion of the support will come from those already connected to you. Reach out to individuals and companies who may be willing to help you.

Be sure to create a committee of well connected individuals who can help solicit possible players and sponsors. If you make it a goal for them to obtain 1 sponsor and a couple foursomes, you’ll be surprised how quickly your tournament fills up.  

If your leads are unable to support your event financially, perhaps they can donate some items or even their time. Get creative with your pitches, many local business do have something to offer your event aside from a monetary donation. Local restaurants are typically willing to help out especially if the event is in their backyard. Vouchers, coupons, or even a small display on a hole can provide a lot of value to your participants.

Venue:

As mentioned in our previous blog post ‘Selecting the Right Golf Course for Your Event’ , choosing a golf course is one of the most important decisions that you will make when it comes to planning your big day. It’s essential for the success of your tournament.

Unfortunately, the golf course also comes with one of the biggest price tags. However, the price is just as important as the value the course brings. Many courses will play a vital role in your tournament’s success. Be sure to inquire about the various services and features included in the golf course package. Here’s just a few things the course typically helps with:

• Basic Tournament Planning

• Discounts on gifts and merchandise.

• Staging and setup

• Hole assignments/Cart Signs

• Additional Prizes – Typically a foursome or two would be donated by the course.

When making a final decision on a course, keep in mind that the course is one of the main attractions for your players and sponsors. Don’t just pick the cheapest option as it could have a negative effect on your supporters. Golfers enjoy playing courses that are good value but also well maintained.

Here’s a few tips to help reduce the cost of the golf course when negotiating a deal:

• Bundle items – reception, dinner, drinks, other events, etc

• Date – Find a date/time that not only suites your supporters but also your budget. You can often get better deals if you hold your event on ‘off season’ dates.

• Compare – Shop different courses and use quotes to your advantage. See what each course is willing to offer and whether or not they are willing to beat their neighbour’s price. A course may not have room to adjust price but can always add some additional value.

Gifts and Prizes:

You do not need to break the bank showering guests with gifts and prizes. A fun day with some great company will go a lot further than a couple of overpriced gifts. Way too many tournaments spend money on items that participants will never use again. If you do plan to give out gifts and prizes, be sure to obtain items that participants will actually enjoy and make them remember the amazing time they had at your event.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to some of your sponsors or personal/professional connections to see if they have anything they would like to donate. Many sponsors and local businesses will be more than happy to provide some branded items. This gives both your participants and the sponsor some value. You can also offer some sponsorship opportunities specific to these gift items. Example sponsorships you could offer include:

• Ball Sponsor

• Hat Sponsor

• Tee Sponsor

Whatever you do, don’t spend too much money on gifts and prizes. Let your connections help you. Get creative, and don’t be afraid to ask for support, it is all for a good cause! Your time and effort will always be much better spent on making a memorable fun day for your participants.

Create your free account today and use Event Caddy’s budget tool to help stay organized and up-to-date with your expenses and revenues.

 

 

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How The Rotary Club of Bolton Raised An Additional $25,000 with Event Caddy

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At the Rotary Club of Bolton, we’ve been running our tournament the “traditional” way for many years. This meant, lots of excel documents and multiple committee members collecting checks and cash. Checks and cash were even accepted the day of the event which left us quite worried leading up to the big day. Our committee spent countless hours on data entry. This took time away from some of the more important tasks such as; finding players, sponsors, and improving on the overall experience of the event. 

When our club was first introduced to Event Caddy, we were super hesitant as we’d been running a successful event for so many years prior. Transitioning to an online system seemed like a giant leap but we knew it had to be done. Event Caddy made the whole process super simple. Our team is not very tech savvy but we actually had a lot of fun setting up our tournament website on Event Caddy as a team. It was simple and anytime we got stuck or had a question, the support team at Event Caddy was there to guide us.

We’ve been using Event Caddy for the last four years and it’s been a huge help for our club. Event Caddy helped streamlined the registration and management process. Event Caddy not only gave our players/sponsors somewhere to go to signup and pay, but more importantly gave our committee a central location to manage and track this information. 

Prior to using Event Caddy, the emails and communication between committee members seemed to never end. With Event Caddy, all committee members have access to the application and with the click of a mouse can instantly find what they needed.

Our financials use to be quite unorganized. It would often take weeks (sometime months) to calculate event totals. Event Caddy’s live financials has made it super easy to stay on track. Payments were also directed straight to our bank account which makes life much easier on our committee as they no longer have to hunt down missing payments.

Creating an account on Event Caddy was super quick and easy. Our team simply signed up for the free account at eventcaddy.com, entered in our tournament details and we were able to begin the planning.

Creating an account on Event Caddy takes mere minutes. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Navigate to EventCaddy.com

2. Click the ‘SET UP YOUR FREE TOURNAMENT’ button which can be found at the top of the page.

3. Input your desired account login details then press continue

4. Enter the company information
   

5. Fill out your tournament info (this can always be changed at a later time if need be)
   

6. Congratulations, you've signed up! You can now begin to create your tournament website and your registration packages/options.

Our committee eventually decided to upgrade to the PRO version for $199. We typically charge $200 per player so we were able to cover this cost with a single registration. 

Most importantly, the PRO upgrade allowed us to accept donations, sell sponsorships, mulligans, and other non-golf items, as well as give us the option to accept cash and check payments online. 

Full list of PRO features can be found at www.eventcaddy.com/features

We’ve always wanted a website for our tournament but didn’t necessarily have the know-how or team to accomplish this. The Event Caddy website builder was very intuitive and allowed us to get a site up and running in no time.

We loved the customization of the tournament website. The other services we reviewed simply request information and automatically added it to their site without control. When it comes to adding custom content, Event Caddy uses a word style editor which required no coding whatsoever. If you’ve used Microsoft Word before, you can build a website on Event Caddy.

Here’s a quick video to show just how easy building a website on Event Caddy can be:

Our finances use to be a tangled mess. We would have to call in each credit card we accepted. This consumed a lot of our time. With Event Caddy we were able to quickly get setup with a Stripe account and begin accepting credit cards directly on our tournament site. Stripe would then deposit the funds directly to our bank account a few days later. It made life so much easier! 

Setting up a Stripe/PayPal account on Event Caddy

Event Caddy has made it easy to accept payments online. No large application forms, no waiting process and no monthly fees. Here’s how you can get setup with a Stripe or PayPal account right from the Event Caddy dashboard:

1. Click the "SET UP NOW" button found on the tournament home screen.
   

2. Once on the setup page, you’ll need to choose between Stripe or PayPal. Both have no monthly or setup fees and offer the same rate of 2.9% + $0.30 per credit card transaction. (Lower fees available for non-profits)

3. Once you’ve chosen your payment gateway, simply click on the "Get Started" button at the bottom and fill in the necessary business details.

Promoting our tournament each year has become a very simply process now that we’re using Event Caddy. All our information is stored in the system year after year. We simply log in and send out an email to all previous guests. 

Once guests start signing up we can communicate with them through either the email or text messaging tool. We loved the text messaging feature as it allowed us to communicate with the players the day of the event. 

Event Caddy is packed with great marketing tools to help you communicate with players and sponsors through email and text. Here’s a quick video to show you exactly how you can properly communicate with your tournament guests:

While Event Caddy has certainly made our lives as tournament organizers much easier, we’ve also had raving reviews from our players. The signup process for players/sponsors is a much easier process now. They love the fact that they can pay online with a credit card or reserve their spot via the cash or check option. 

We love using the Event Caddy, it’s been a huge time savings for us and has helped us increase revenues, while eliminating all the time consuming tasks. Our committee is as organized as ever.

Since using Event Caddy our tournament has increased net proceeds by over $25,000.  We’re super pleased with this increase but what we love the most is how effortless each year now seems. We wished we had found Event Caddy sooner!

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How To Handicap Your Charity Golf Event

The article: How To Handicap Your Charity Golf Event is sourced from www.eventcaddy.com/blog

We’re all familiar with the standard scramble where players all tee off, then one player’s shot (usually the best) is chosen. The team all plays their second shot from that location. Play continues like this until one player holes out.

These scrambles are lots of fun but are often won by the higher skilled teams. You can however make it more competitive by adding a handicap system to your event.

Here’s a couple of ways you can incorporate golf handicap system into your tournament.

 

How to Calculate Golf Handicap

 

Modified Peoria System

This works well for charity golf tournaments as you’re able to calculate a team handicap after the event has concluded.

The committee secretly selects a par 3, par 5, and four par 4 holes from an 18-hole course. The par-4 holes should include two from the front nine and two from the back nine.

The handicap is determined by calculating the teams strokes over par on the six selected holes, and then multiplying that number by 2.8. This will be the number that is deducted from the gross score. Please note, a maximum of three over par should be used on the par 3 and 4 holes, while a maximum of four over can be used for the par 5 hole.

 

Calculating Handicap Score:
Team score is 74, with a score of 2 over on the six selected holes.
2 x 2.8 = 5.6 for a net score of 68

 

If you can obtain handicaps from the players prior to the event, the 50 percent method works quite well.
 

50 Percent Method

Add all players handicaps together for a given team. Divide the team’s total handicap number by twice the number of players.

 

Calculating Team Handicap:
Handicaps of 2, 4, 14, 18 for a team total of 38. 
38 ÷ 8 = a team handicap of 4.75

 

Subtract the handicap number from the team’s gross score at the end of the event to determine the team’s net score.

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2018 Masters Picks

The following article: 2018 Masters Picks is sourced from Event Caddy’s Blog

The 2018 Masters is now a couple of days away and we’ve once again put together our not so expert picks:

 

Tiger Woods:
When someone gives you an opportunity to pick Tiger, you take it! Following a runner-up at the Valspar and a solid performance at Bay Hill Woods definitely looks like he’s in top form coming into Augusta. If Tiger can find the fairways this week there’s no doubt he’ll be in contention come Sunday.

Dustin Johnson:
The world number 1 is always a good pick when it comes to majors. Last year Johnson was the favourite to win before he had to withdraw due to injuries. If DJ can avoid the use of stairs this week we expect him to be at the top of the leaderboard.

Ian Poulter:
We’re not huge Ian Poulter fans but the way he was able to steal the last Masters spot was quite impressive. His match play game is quite strong so if he can put himself in the final pairing come Sunday we expect to see a good battle.

Bubba Watson:
Coming off a recent win at Riviera, you have to like Bubba's chances at Augusta National. His imagination and ability to work the ball will no doubt prove to be beneficial once again this week. 

Rickie Fowler:
With three top-12 finishes in his last four appearances, Fowler is no stranger to Augusta National. We expect him to have a legitimate chance come Sunday. He’s certainly got the experience contending in Majors but it’s about time we see him pull one out.

Master your charity golf event with 25% OFF our PRO upgrade:

 

 

 

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2018 Masters Picks

The following blog article: 2018 Masters Picks is published from http://eventcaddy.com/blog

The 2018 Masters is now a couple of days away and we’ve once again put together our not so expert picks:

 

Tiger Woods:
When someone gives you an opportunity to pick Tiger, you take it! Following a runner-up at the Valspar and a solid performance at Bay Hill Woods definitely looks like he’s in top form coming into Augusta. If Tiger can find the fairways this week there’s no doubt he’ll be in contention come Sunday.

Dustin Johnson:
The world number 1 is always a good pick when it comes to majors. Last year Johnson was the favourite to win before he had to withdraw due to injuries. If DJ can avoid the use of stairs this week we expect him to be at the top of the leaderboard.

Ian Poulter:
We’re not huge Ian Poulter fans but the way he was able to steal the last Masters spot was quite impressive. His match play game is quite strong so if he can put himself in the final pairing come Sunday we expect to see a good battle.

Bubba Watson:
Coming off a recent win at Riviera, you have to like Bubba's chances at Augusta National. His imagination and ability to work the ball will no doubt prove to be beneficial once again this week. 

Rickie Fowler:
With three top-12 finishes in his last four appearances, Fowler is no stranger to Augusta National. We expect him to have a legitimate chance come Sunday. He’s certainly got the experience contending in Majors but it’s about time we see him pull one out.

Master your charity golf event with 25% OFF our PRO upgrade:

 

 

 

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