Golf Tournament Planning - A Mini Guide To A Successful Golf Event

The secret to plan a successful golf tournament is organization. Here's a mini step-by-step planner/guide for a successful Golf Event. The key to success is sticking to schedule, following your timeline and assigning responsibilities to the right people. Planning a golf tournament is much like organizing any other public event.

9 months prior to event
It's time to sit down and start thinking about the project's objectives. You also have to recruit a team of people to help you with certain tasks. Who will they be? Who will be your director/chairperson? Choose wisely, then talk to that person about the project. Let him/her help you. This period is critical because you will start building the project's main base/foundation.

6 months prior to event
After setting the main goals and deciding on the people who will take part in the project is time to create a timeline and set the main date event. Your timeline will be the most important part of your project plan.
It is also the time to decide on several issues like the tournament's budget, any potential sponsors, your guest stars/celebrities, whether you will create a website for your golf tournament etc.

Now it's the right time to assign some responsibilities. Who will calculate the exact budget? Who will mail the potential sponsors? who will get in touch with the guest stars? who will create and manage the website?

You also have to decide on the place where the event will take place. This is also important. Talk to your team of professionals. Decide on the place. Then it's your responsibility to perform frequent site inspections to make sure everything is going according to schedule.

3 months prior to event
Things are warming up now. It's time to boost your engines. Here is when you have to work on the player's contracts. You also have to inform the players about the methods of payment. What you need a good lawyer to take care of the contracts and all that stuff. Sign the contracts and have your team prepare the invitation list and mail the invitations. Double check everyone's got their invitation. Take some time to look at your website and update it with the breaking news.

Time to advertise too. Start with press releases. Check with your sponsors for any deals. Inform all media about the golf tournament. Maybe you should create some video about the event and post it on web or create a TV or radio spot for more exposure. Also newspapers and magazines related to golf. Look for some deals with them. Remember to consult your team before closing any deal.

Select the type of your awards. This is one of the good parts of golf tournament planning. After ordering the awards, meet with your accountant to finalize your budget.

45 days prior to event
By now you should know who will take part in the golf tournament and the members of the guest list. You have already published your invitations so it's time to make a plan on how to welcome your players and your guests. Talk with your team about the golf tournament rules. Decide on the final agenda. Maybe it's time to hire a photographer and order a significant amount of T-shirts, shoes, gloves and the rest of the equipment needed.

Don't forget to take the safety of the people seriously, especially that of the players. That's why it's a good idea to plan a couple of aid stations across the area to ensure safety of the people. Also discuss about the tournament security staff.

Do you have any serious sponsors by your side? If you haven't discussed yet, it's time to think of a deal that will benefit you both.

7 days prior to event until the day of the event
As I said this is only a mini-guide offering just a plain overview of planning a golf tournament. The main purpose of this article is motivational. I would need 100 articles like this one to go into details so I don't have to say a lot about the week prior to the event or the day of the event. By now, you should have finalize all critical matters. If you reach this level and everything is working fine then you have nothing to worry about. Don't overdo it during the last week, save your powers/energy for the day of the event.