How to flight a golf tournament

1. Why flights matter

Without flights, one strong group usually runs away with the day while the rest of the field plays for nothing by the back nine. Flights fix that by grouping players of similar ability, so the competition stays close and everyone stays engaged. More people get a chance to win, one reason golf tournament flights are so common. When you flight a golf outing, you're not creating more work; you're creating more winners.

2. A/B/C/D flighting by handicap

The classic setup is four flights: A for the lowest handicaps, D for the highest, with B and C in between. Sort the field by index or course handicap, then cut it into four groups of roughly equal size — a 24-player field becomes flights of six. Boundaries matter less than equal sizes and a rule you can defend: "top six, next six, next six, last six." Golf tournament A B C D flights are a fixture for that reason — simple, explainable, and fair.

3. Building balanced foursomes

Once the flights exist, build groups the classic way: one player from each flight per foursome — an A, a B, a C, and a D in every group. Balanced foursomes mean no group packs all the talent, and pace of play stays steady. Fit the plan into the rest of the day with the tournament planning checklist.

4. Flights, prizes, and the leaderboard

Decide before the round what each flight plays for — gross winner in A, net winners below, or flighted payouts — whatever your club's rules call for. Then let the field watch it happen: a live leaderboard sorted by total shows every flight's race in real time, and flight winners are simply the best score in each band. For stroke play, the natural home of flighting, the scoring setup handles running totals vs. par automatically. Honest note: Chase Birdies won't assign your flights — that's a tournament director's call — but it keeps the whole flighted field on one board everyone can watch.

5. A worked flighting example

Take a 24-player field with course handicaps from 4 to 28. Sort by handicap and cut four flights of six:

• Flight A — handicaps 4–8
• Flight B — handicaps 9–13
• Flight C — handicaps 14–17
• Flight D — handicaps 18–28

Number each flight one through six, then pair A1 + B1 + C1 + D1, A2 + B2 + C2 + D2, and so on — six foursomes, one player from every flight each. Every flight's six players compete among themselves, the groups balanced end to end. Twenty-four players, six balanced foursomes, four real competitions.