How to run a charity golf scramble

Why a scramble is the best charity format

In a scramble, every player on the team tees off, the team picks the best shot, and everyone plays from there — repeat until the ball is in the hole. Four players, one team score, and nobody has to be a good golfer to contribute. Everyone gets a moment where their shot was the one the team used.

That matters for a fundraiser because your field isn't golfers — it's donors. Board members, sponsors' clients, staff relatives. A scramble puts a club in the hands of people who'd never sign up for stroke play and lets them have a genuinely great day, which is exactly the experience they'll tell their friends about. Compare that to a medal-play event, where a casual player can spend four hours feeling like dead weight, and the choice is obvious.

Set a fundraising goal and format

Name the number you want to raise, then work backward from it: 20 teams at $800 per team plus $12,000 in sponsorships is $28,000 — a simple target you can check against as registrations come in. That number belongs in every announcement and email, because it gives donors a concrete thing to push toward.

Pick a date and course that fit your audience — weekends and well-known courses draw better, and the course fee is usually your biggest line. Settle the team size up front: four-person teams are the standard for scrambles. Four rides in two carts, and with the best-shot rule all four contribute on every hole. Stick with four unless you have a specific reason not to.

Get sponsors on board

Sponsorships often cover the event's costs, so the entry fees you collect become pure donation. Offer clear sponsor levels — title, hole, cart, flag — and price them so one or two large sponsors plus a dozen hole sponsors cover your course bill. Then deliver the visibility you promised: sponsor names on registration signs, hole signage, in your announcements, and in front of everyone watching. If your event's leaderboard is live and public, the title sponsor's name sits where donors and players can see it all day.

Open registration

Make signing up easy and collect entry fees up front — a flat price per team (or per player) keeps it predictable for players and for you, and paid registrations are the ones that actually show up. Build the roster as registrations come in, and keep an eye on the field filling; that's when you remind the board to lean on their networks.

When a team signs up, add them to the event right away. On Chase Birdies your declared player count caps the roster, and if the field outgrows it you simply add more slots at $1 per player.

Keep costs low with simple scoring

Every dollar you spend on logistics is a dollar that doesn't reach your cause, so keep the machinery cheap. Chase Birdies scores your whole event for $1 per player — no subscription and no per-transaction fees — and comes with everything a fundraiser needs:

• A live leaderboard spectators can watch from any phone, with a public link or a 4-digit PIN if you want to keep it to the field.
• Find My Event search so players and donors can locate your tournament by name, course, or state without asking anyone.
• Per-tournament chat on the leaderboard, so the banter and the auction announcements have a home.
• Hole-by-hole entry from players' phones — a link, no app, no account — with every score editable until the round is final.

Run the event

Start on time and open with a short welcome that thanks the sponsors by name — they paid to be thanked, and everyone's watching. A field of 18 to 36 four-person teams (72 to 144 players) is a common charity size, and with a shotgun start the whole field is out in one wave.

What to watch on the day:

• Scores arriving on time. Set the expectation at the welcome that hole-by-hole scores go in as groups play. The leaderboard is only as live as the data, and early groups set the habit.
• Pace of play. The best-shot rule makes a scramble the fastest of the team formats; protect that by starting on time and keeping groups moving.
• The leaderboard becoming the attraction. Point a screen at it or share the link, and watch the clubhouse gather as the afternoon tightens. It builds the buzz that sells next year's tickets.
• Small scorecard errors. They happen — every score stays editable, so a mis-typed number is a quick fix, not a re-tally. Confirm final scores before you announce winners.

Thank donors and follow up

Within a week, send every player and sponsor a thank-you that includes the final results and a few photos, and tell sponsors exactly what their money will do — the program, the equipment, the scholarships. Announce the total raised loudly; it's the number everyone remembers. A strong follow-up turns one-time donors into next-year sponsors, and a happy field into next year's first registrations.