Commissioner Guides

The Organizer Playbook: Running Your League or Tournament in theStick

8 min read · by theStick

This is the hands-on companion to the other Commissioner Guides: not why to run a league a certain way, but what to tap, in order, to run it in theStick. Most of it is easy to change later. The handful of steps that aren't are called out in the last section, so read that one before your first finalize.

Start with the right container

The first decision is the container, and it comes down to one question: does this repeat, and how many groups play at once?

The same buddies every week, one group: a Group (Regular, or Simulator for indoor rounds).

A recurring roster, several groups, a season: a League. It has season standings and points, pools split across groups, and Pick'Em and Side Action for anyone following along.

One big casual day, one round, one field: a Simple Event. It's the fastest setup, with no flights, teams or finale.

A championship, knockout, cup or match play season: a Tournament (Stroke Play, Bracket, Ryder Cup or Round Robin).

A season with a marquee event or two: a League with a Tournament chartered into it, so its results feed the same order of merit.

You don't have to get it perfect on day one. If you find you need flights, teams or more rounds, run a Stroke Play Tournament instead.

Before the first round: setup and roster

Joining any event is free. Running a League, Tournament or Simple Event takes a one-time pass or a Commissioner subscription; Plans has the current prices and size limits.

Create it. Open My Events, pick the tile (Leagues, Simple Event, Regular, Simulator, or the Tournaments folder), name it and tap Create. A Tournament's format is the product you chose, and it can't be changed once the tournament exists.

Walk the setup wizard. A League asks for Courses, Golfers, Pool and Points, and only Courses and Golfers are required to move on. A Tournament's wizard adds Teams, Tees, Divisions, Flights, Games, Finale and Schedule as its format needs them.

Load the roster. On Golfers, use Import to drop in a CSV, an Excel file, or a photo of a list, with columns for First Name, Last Name, Handicap ID, Email, Phone and Venmo. Existing players are matched by Handicap ID or email, so you won't create duplicates. Use Add Player(s) for stragglers.

Get players into the app. Anyone without an account becomes a guest you manage. Send them the Share link from the invite strip, or print Claim Cards from the Print Pack. Each card's QR code signs that player in, so hand each card only to its owner.

Check handicaps. Players who connect a Handicap ID play off their Handicap Index, and their course handicap comes from the tees they play. No Handicap Index yet means playing at gross until they have one. Handicaps lock when play begins, so fix them before the first tee shot.

Add a co-admin. In Setup, under Admin, open Co-Admins and tap + Add, by email or by promoting a roster member. They need to have signed up already. A League's co-admins can also run the League's chartered tournaments. Do this in week one, so the league survives your vacation.

Schedule, games and money

Every round has its own setup tabs: Details, Games, Tee Times, Payouts, Points and Rules, plus Format, Teams, Tees, Divisions and Flights in a Tournament. Set the money before anyone tees off.

Add event dates. In a League, go to Admin, then Event Setup, and tap New Game Dates (course, tee, entry fee, rake) or Seed From Rotation. In a Tournament the equivalent tab is Rounds Setup. Members mark themselves in or out under Events, then Availability.

Pick the games on the round's Games tab. In a Tournament, set them once in Tourney Setup's Games step and they flow to every round that hasn't started yet.

Set entry fee and payouts. On the Payouts tab, open Game Payouts. Set the Entry Fee, choose whether to Collect from Players, split the pot across games (or tap Even split), and set how many places are paid. The pot is the entry fee times every player in the field, after any rake, whether or not each fee has been collected yet. Fixed dollar amounts per place pay as named when the pot covers them; if it comes up short, every place is scaled down in proportion. A Tournament's Combined Pool is the exception: there, fixed places pay as named and you cover any gap.

Decide on a rake. Rake Type is None, a fixed amount, an amount per player, or a percentage of the pot. The rake is your league's money, for a banquet or a season-end pot. theStick never takes a cut of any pot.

Tournament-wide pot. For a Tournament, set up the Combined Pool in Tourney Setup's Pool step. A Tournament chartered under a League can be funded from the League's Tournament of Champions pool, using only money actually collected.

Turn on season points. Points are off until you switch them on per game, on the round's Points tab.

Optional: Pick'Em. Once the first group has started, set a buy-in on the League round's Live tab and tap Create Contest, then Lock Picks when entries should close. It settles itself when you finalize.

What locks when: the payout split across games locks as soon as any group is started (Start Round), even before a score is entered. Handicaps lock when play begins. Entry fee and rake stay editable until you finalize.

Game day

Your job on game day is to seat the field, start the groups and watch the board. One scorer per group enters every score: you audit, you don't transcribe.

Build the tee sheet the night before on the round's Tee Times tab. Use Auto-fill (it honors partner requests), Randomize or By HC, then Lock All. Notify Tee Times pushes the sheet to players. Shotgun rounds get starting holes instead of times.

Only seated players are in the field. A walk-on who isn't in a group isn't charged and can't win, so seat them before they tee off.

Print what you need. On the round's Admin tab, Print Pack has scorecards, cart signs, the tee sheet, an alphabetical list and Claim Cards. TV leaderboard puts the live board on a clubhouse screen.

Start the round. On the Live tab, tap Start Round for every group, or start each group on its own. If the Round Check shows an error, such as teams that were never built or a team split across groups, fix it first: Start Round stays off until you do.

Assign scorers. To change a group's scorer, tap the player's avatar and choose Make scorer. It works mid-round, but the new scorer needs a real account, not a guest. Everyone else in the group follows along on the watch link.

Rescue a group. If a scorer's phone dies, use Start round as admin, or enter the group's card yourself from a photo of the paper scorecard.

At the end of the round, each scorer taps Review Round, then Submit Round. Remind them before they head to the bar.

After the round: finalize

Finalizing turns scores into official results, standings, season points and payouts. Do it once every group has submitted and you've checked the board, ideally within 24 hours.

Open the round's Finalize tab. It runs a health check first, covering missing or incomplete scorecards, groups that never played, rounds still live, and payout settings that don't add up. Fix anything it flags.

Tap Finalize Round. Results, standings and season points update, Pick'Em settles, and what everyone owes appears in their Bank.

Export if you want a record. The CSV button on the same screen downloads the results.

Finalizing locks the scorecards. No one can edit a hole score on a finalized round.

Changed a points setting after rounds were scored? In a Tournament, when the Points card says points may be out of date, tap Recompute Now. It recalculates points and tournament payouts for finalized rounds, and updates balances, without reopening anything. Leagues don't have this button.

Settling up

theStick never holds or moves money. It keeps the ledger: players pay each other, usually by Venmo, and someone records that the payment happened. Your part is confirming the money that came to you.

Bank shows everyone's balances. As the organizer, the banner in Bank opens Payouts, your to-do list:

Group Collections to Confirm: confirm what each group's collector took in.

Entry Fees to Confirm: Confirm or Dispute a fee a member says they paid.

Entry Fees to Collect: chase unpaid fees, and tap Mark Received when the money arrives.

Pick'Em Buy-Ins to Collect: the same, for Pick'Em. Members can't report these themselves; only you or a co-admin can mark them.

League Event Pots and Pick'Em: pay the winners. Each row has a Venmo link.

When someone owes for several weeks, their row adds them up. Mark all received records every week at once; if they only paid part, mark the individual weeks underneath instead. The payer can edit the amount in a Venmo link, so check what actually arrived before you mark it.

Mistakes that are hard to undo

Re-opening a finalized round wipes its results. Re-open deletes the saved results, reverses the money already posted, un-settles Pick'Em, and leaves that event blank in the standings until you finalize again. Any payout you corrected by hand is lost, because re-finalizing recalculates everything from the scores. Write your corrections down before you tap Re-open.

An entry-fee confirmation can't be taken back. A fee can be recorded more than one way: the member's claim, a group collector, or your Mark Received. theStick never credits more than the fee, so a second confirmation adds nothing, but check who actually paid first: a confirmation can only be corrected with an adjusting entry.

Unseated players aren't in the field. Someone who played but was never placed in a group isn't charged and can't win. Seat everyone before Start Round.

Points don't turn themselves on. If the standings look empty after week one, check the Points tab before anything else.

The payout split locks when the first group starts. Set the split across games before anyone taps Start Round.

One thing that looks like a problem but isn't: players can copy a round into their own history. The round still counts only once in their Winnings, and a copy never attaches to your event, so it can't double your pots, payouts or points.

Run it on

Game rules mentioned in this guide

Low Net Skins

More guides

Leagues, Tournaments, Simple Events and Groups: Which One Do You Need?Tournament Formats: Stroke Play, Bracket, Ryder Cup and Round Robin How to Run a Golf League: The Complete Commissioner's Guide Golf League Payout Structures That Keep Everyone Coming Back

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