Season preparation is a critical part of tournament operations at a golf club. Whether you are preparing for your first season using this product or transitioning from a prior season to a new season, there are important steps and practices that will help you run your season more smoothly, and also help you transition to future seasons.
In this article we will discuss these steps and practices in detail.
(Note: If you are just managing a single league and need to begin a new season, simply clone the league and disregard the instructions below.)
Update Managers:
When preparing for an upcoming season, your new staff members will need to be added as managers and departing staff members will need to be deactivated.
To add new staff members as Customer Managers, go to Customer Center > Customer Settings > Managers. For more details on adding a Customer Manager, Click Here.
Admin Customer Managers can remove other Customer Managers by going to Customer Center > Customer Settings > Managers. Please contact your Admin Customer Manager to remove other Customer Managers. For more details on removing Customer Managers, Click Here.
Review System Integration Options:
Integration with other systems is key to making everything "work together" for our customers and improving productivity. To save time by learning more about integration options, Click Here.
Add/Update Course Details:
For new customers, Click Here for instructions on how to add a new course.
Returning customers may also need to update their current course. Sometimes the details for a course may change (e.g., Slope Rating, Course Rating, handicap holes, yardages). Click Here for instructions on updating your course.
Review Default Event/League Settings:
The Default Settings for your Events and Leagues are your customer-level settings. Any event or league you create will have these settings applied in their Event/League Profile. Any changes to these settings will not apply to events and leagues already created. Because of this, we strongly encourage reviewing these settings before creating your events and leagues each season.
For details on updating your default event/league settings, Click Here.
For details on updating existing event/league profiles, Click Here.
Organizing your events and leagues into Categories:
If you are preparing for your first season using our product, refer to our article on Managing Categories in the Customer Center to learn how to create categories.
We suggest placing your events and leagues into categories to:
Keep them organized in the Customer Center.
Use them to manage your directories. You can automatically assign categories to a directory so that any event/league added to those categories also gets placed in the directory.
If you are moving into a new season we suggest the following practices:
Create Categories: If you haven't already, create categories for your events and leagues. You can categorize your events however you'd like (e.g., Mens, Ladies, Juniors, Outside, etc.). Each category will include events and leagues from multiple seasons so there is no need to put the year into the name of the category.
Place events and leagues into Categories: If you haven't already, place all of your past season's events and leagues into their correct category. For instance, all ladies events should go into your "Ladies Events" category, regardless of what season.
Organize your events and leagues into seasons:
If you haven't already, place your past events and leagues into seasons. This allows you to easily organize and view events and leagues in your Customer Center by season.
For instructions, Click Here.
Update Season Points (Order of Merit):
If you maintain season point standings (points earned across events), then you can automatically track them throughout the season.
For new customers, Click Here to learn how Season Points work and how to set them up.
For returning customers, Click Here to learn how to prepare and update your season points for the upcoming season.
Create Purse Distribution Tables:
If you award purse for your tournaments, you can set up custom distribution tables to be used for any of your events and leagues. For details, Click Here.
Update Master Roster:
New customers will need to upload a master roster. Click Here for details on all the methods to do this.
Returning customers should update their current master roster using one of these three methods:
If using our Roster Sync integration (e.g., Clubessential, MembersFirst, etc.), then no steps need to be taken (because the master roster will be automatically updated each day).
If your master roster has been imported from GHIN or WHS, then update it by going to Master Roster > Refresh Master Roster from GHIN/WHS.
Otherwise, you can update the master roster via spreadsheet. Click Here for instructions on this method.
Assign or Update Default Tees:
In the club environment, players will almost always have a tee they play most often. We call this the default tee. Assigning your players to their default tee will save time throughout the season as you create pairings and set the course/tee. For details on setting a default tee, Click Here.
Add New Events and Leagues:
If you have previous events and leagues that will be played again in the upcoming season, we recommend cloning them because information like portal setup, tournaments, logos, and banners will be copied over thereby saving you considerable time. Click Here for instructions on cloning.
Otherwise, if this is your first season, or you do not wish to clone for any reason, Click Here for instructions on creating a new event.
Whether cloning or creating new events and leagues:
Include the year in the title of the event or league to help distinguish between events and leagues from other years (e.g., "2016 Member-Member").
Add the Round(s) immediately because the event date (which appears in different places) is determined by the date of the first round.
When creating the event or league, make sure to select the proper category and season to place the league/event in.
Set up Event Portals and TV Shows for the Season:
The slow period between seasons gives you a great opportunity to set up your events and leagues and get a head start when you may have more time. For example, you cannot add players to your Member-Guest event yet because the roster is not known. However, there are steps like building and updating your portals and creating TV Shows that can be accomplished before the season begins.
If you have the opportunity before setting up events/leagues, review and update your default event portal, to provide a consistent look for all your new event/league portals. For details on editing your default portal, Click Here. Note: Updates to the default portal do not make changes to existing event/league portals.
Set up Event Registration:
Registration is a great way of populating your events. The slow periods between seasons give you an opportunity to set up your registration so you are not scrambling to set registration up later. All Golf Genius TM Club customers can take registration with Golf Hub and Golf Genius TM Premium Customers can set up Premium Event Registration before the season begins.
When using premium event registration, you can also create marketing campaigns to schedule emails and/or text messages to promote your future events. This is a great way to increase event participation and revenue. For more details, Click Here.
Organize Events and Leagues for your Club Website:
Clubs typically allow members to view upcoming events and leagues on their club website by organizing them into listings such as Men's Events, Women's Events, Mixed Events, Junior Events etc. For instructions on the variety of ways to accomplish this (using Directories or Golf Hub and other methods), Click Here.
(Note: If you already have Directories listed on your club website from a previous season, the bottom of the article HERE will show instructions on updating these directories for the upcoming season.)