How to Run a Member-Guest: Teams, Flights and a Shootout Finish

The Format in One Paragraph

Each member and their guest form a two-man team. Teams are split into flights by handicap, so similar teams play each other. Inside each flight every team plays every other team in a short match, usually nine holes of better ball, net. The team with the most points in each flight wins it, and the flight winners meet in a shootout final for the overall title. A member-member is the same event; only who makes up each team changes.

Step 1: Build the Teams

Collect each team's two players and their Handicap Index before the event. Decide early on the handicap allowance, for example full strokes or a percentage for better ball, and use the same rule for every team. Most disputes in a member-guest come from a guest whose handicap nobody checked.

Step 2: Flight by Handicap

Flights keep the matches close. Sort the teams by combined handicap and split them into equal groups. Flights of four to six teams work well: a flight of five means each team plays four matches, which fits a two-day event.

In theStick, a member-guest is a Round Robin tournament with the Member-Guest format. You enter the teams, choose the number of flights, and theStick bands the teams into flights by handicap and shows how many teams each flight holds.

Step 3: Play the Round Robin

Every team plays every other team in its flight. A common scoring rule:

Results go on the Flights tab as each match finishes, and the standings in every flight update for everyone following along, so nobody has to wait for a scoreboard to be filled in by hand.

Step 4: The Shootout Final

The flight winners meet in a shootout, also called a horse race. All the teams play the same hole, and the team with the worst score is out. One team drops on each hole until one is left. Ties for the worst score are usually settled by a chip-off.

It is the best part of the event because the whole club can watch. In theStick you choose a 9-hole or 18-hole final when you set up the flights, then draw the final from the Flights tab once every flight has a winner.

Side Games for Teams That Are Out of It

By the second day, half the field can no longer win its flight. Side games keep them playing for something:

Paying It Out

Most member-guests pay each flight winner and runner-up, plus the overall champion. Agree the purse and any rake before the first match. A rake is the organizer's money; theStick never takes a cut and never holds the money. Players and the organizer settle directly with each other.

Why Use an App

A member-guest with twenty teams in four flights is forty or more matches. Tracking them on a board works, but it is slow and easy to get wrong. theStick keeps each flight's table, draws the final and shows live standings to anyone with the link, including the guests who don't belong to the club.