No matter what time of year it is, it's never too early to start planning your next golf event. Planning
1 Year Event Planning Timeline
If you have an entire year set aside to plan your golf event, that's great! You'll have more than enough time to plan the best event possible. We suggest the following timeline of tasks:
10-12 Months Out
- Identify the reason you're hosting this event and set goals (i.e. a fundraising goal, attendance goal, etc)
- Determine your event budget.
- Create your dream team. This will include fellow planners, organizers, and individuals who can manage the event.
- Choose the perfect golf course for your event.
- Schedule the event date. All your follow-up decisions will depend on the event date such as availability of vendors. To prevent low attendance, check the community calendar to ensure there are no other large events occurring the same day.
- Start creating committees to help with event day tasks.
- Draft a guest list. Many golf clubs have a cap on the number of players who can play in a tournament in order to keep players moving. Of course, you're not limited to only that number of attendees for the entire event. Provide an option to buy dinner-only tickets, too.
- Determine ticket prices.
- Set up event website, social media pages, apps, etc.
- Create packages for sponsors to purchase.
- Complete event logo and other branding.
- Book special guests, keynote speakers, and entertainment.
- Start promoting your event.
7-9 Months Out
- Review your expenses and budget.
- Look at your revenue projections.
- Create event timeline.
- Go live with your website if you haven't already.
- Finalize committees and work on getting volunteer participation. Then, develop agendas for these individuals in order to stay well organized. Committees will likely meet every month or so.
- Send "Save the Dates."
- Reach out to your golf venue and ask for picture of the course to include in the marketing of your event.
- Create and send press kits to local media. Make sure you don't send them too early or they'll get lost among more timely news.
- Sell sponsorships.
- Ask local businesses, organizations, sports teams, entrepreneurs, artists, craftspeople for auction and raffle items.
- Continue promoting your event.
4-6 Months Out
- Review your expenses and budget.
- Look at your revenue projections.
- Identify a volunteer who can take photos or hire a professional photographer.
- Continue reaching out for auction and raffle items.
- Confirm that your special guests, keynote speakers, and entertainment can still make it to the event.
- Send invoices to sponsors.
- Meet with your catering professionals to create your event day menu and select what you want to provide for beverages.
- Create hole-by-hole contests with the golf professionals for players to win. Some ideas include a hole in one, longest drive, longest putt, etc.
- Continue promoting your event.
1-3 Months Out
- Review your expenses and budget.
- Look at your revenue projections.
- Finalize the event program.
- Send invoices to sponsors.
- Write "thank you" cards or emails to send following the event.
- Order signs to help attendees know they're in the right place.
- Determine volunteer responsibilities
- If you're handing out awards for the golf tournament, order those.
- Confirm any vendor deliveries.
- Make sure you have everything you'll need for event day.
- Send event reminder with directions to all who have registered.
- Review all gifts, sigs, designs, etc.
- Finalize pairings for golf tournament.
- Order goody bags for players.
- Determine prizes for winning team and winners of hole-by-hole contests.
Day of Event
- Get there early to set up.
- Run through the agenda with golf club staff and volunteers.
- Assign volunteers to specific areas/tasks and train them on how to do their job well.
- Make sure the event is sticking to your timeline and the program is running smoothly.
- Have fun!
Now, you're probably wondering, "What if I only have three or six months to plan?" Don't worry! The steps are all the same, you'll just have to complete more tasks off your to-do list each month.
Sound overwhelming? Try recruiting more people to help you. Think about partnering up with another business to divide and conquer. When you have a committed dream team, it won't matter if you have three months or a year to plan, your event will be fantastic. Once the big day arrives, don't forget to have some fun!
