Golf tournament software questions, answered

Getting started

Chase Birdies runs a golf tournament end to end: you build the event and the roster, players enter scores hole by hole, and everyone watches one live leaderboard. No paper scorecards, no app, and nothing to install.

What is Chase Birdies?

Chase Birdies is golf tournament software for running an event from sign-up to the final score. An organizer sets up the tournament, the course, the format and the field; players and teams enter scores hole by hole; and a live public leaderboard updates itself as the scores come in.

Do I need to install an app?

No. Everything happens in a web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. Scores are entered on a web page and leaderboards are watched on a web page — there is nothing to download and no app store detour for anyone.

Do players or spectators need an account?

No. A public leaderboard opens with just a link, and nobody has to log in to watch it. Players enter scores through the event link. Only the organizer has an account.

How do I start setting up a tournament?

Register as an organizer, sign in, and choose + New tournament on your tournament list. Setup is a guided wizard: name the event and pick the date, build the roster, decide who can see the board and whether chat is on, then review the bill and publish. You can jump between sections at any time without losing what you have typed.

Setting up an event

What do I need to set up an event?

An organizer account, a course and a date, the format and scoring mode you want, the tee boxes, the per-hole par, and the players. Nothing else — no player-count to declare in advance and no scoreboard hardware.

Can I set up the event in any order, or do I have to finish each section?

Any order. The wizard's line says it outright: *"Jump to any section — nothing you enter is lost when you switch tabs."* Start with the roster, go back and change the format, and nothing you typed disappears. A tab with something still missing is marked, so you can see at a glance what is left.

Do I have to type every par for the course?

No. Set the course and Chase Birdies looks up the per-hole pars and fills them in from course data when that course is available. If your layout is not in the lookup — a nine-hole course, a composite course, a set of temporary tees — you type the pars in yourself, and the card works the same way afterwards. Course data is provided through the OpenGolf API, with attribution shown.

What is the difference between an individual event and a team event?

An individual event gives every player their own scorecard — one score per entry. A team event puts teams on the roster, and each team's players sit underneath their own team name. Team events can keep one combined score per team, score every member individually, or combine members' scores into a team total. Team members are players, and they are billed like any other player.

Rosters and players

Can I import my roster from a spreadsheet?

Yes. Import players on the Roster section takes a pasted or uploaded list and shows you a preview of what it understood before it applies anything. The convention is simply: player name in the first column, team in the second for team events. Teams named in that column are created automatically, rows missing a team are skipped and flagged rather than silently dropped, and the count and the bill update the moment you apply the import.

Do I have to declare how many players I will have?

No. There is no player-count field at all. A chip in the top corner of the wizard reads "N players · $N" and counts the roster you actually build — it reads "0 players · $0" on a fresh event and grows as you add names. That roster count at publish is the bill.

Can I add players after the event is live?

Yes. The count you paid for is the cap for that event, and you can raise it with an Add more players checkout at $1 per additional slot. Slots you buy and do not use are not refunded, so the sensible habit is to buy just ahead of need rather than stockpiling a cushion.

Scoring and the live leaderboard

How is a score entered?

Hole by hole, as the round is played. The scorecard is a grid with par on one row and score beneath it, and each hole has a − and a + stepper around the number, so a slip is one tap from correct. Under each score sits the running to-par mark, and the bottom of the card states progress in words, for example "18 holes entered · running total 74 strokes". Save scores writes the card back and the leaderboard picks it up.

Can I change a score after saving it?

Yes. Scorecards stay editable any time until the round is final. A transposed hole or a number typed wrong is one edit and a save, and the leaderboard follows the correction the next time it reads the standings. There is no locked card and nothing to void.

How often does the leaderboard update?

By itself, on a timer. The board re-reads the standings and updates them in place — you can see it in the LIVE badge and the update time in the header, and the line underneath reads *"Updated 10:24:21 PM · refreshes automatically."* Nobody has to reload the page, so the same board can sit open on a wall for four hours and stay correct.

Can I put the leaderboard on a television or projector?

Yes. Every board has a Big screen button that opens the same tournament in a new tab as a clubhouse scoreboard: larger type, a wider layout, the site navigation and chat stripped away, and one way out — an Exit big screen link. It refreshes itself exactly like the normal board, and it is just a URL, so any browser on any screen in the building can show it.

How does the leaderboard rank the field?

It ranks the scoring unit: players on an individual event, teams on a combined-score team event. The sort is by total, best first, with the leader's row highlighted and badged. Each row shows position, the player or team name, THRU (holes completed, so a partial card is never mistaken for a finished one), TOTAL strokes and score against par — red over par, green under par, and E for level.

How do spectators find the tournament?

Find my event is the public search: type the tournament name, the course or the state, or filter by date, and results link straight to the live board. A search with nothing typed still returns results, so a spectator can simply browse what is on. Organizers can also share the board's link directly — that is all anyone needs.

Pricing and billing

How much does Chase Birdies cost?

$1 per player, billed on the number of players on the roster when you publish. There is no monthly plan and no per-transaction fee.

Do team members get billed too?

Yes. Team members are players, so a team of four is billed $4 — the same as four individual entries. The payment screen says so on the line itself: *"$1 per player (team members are players too)."*

Is there a monthly or per-event fee?

No. The only charge is per player, per event, at publish. There is no subscription, no separate per-event fee, no per-transaction charge and no tiers — every format and feature is in the same product at the same price.

When do I pay, and what am I billed for?

You pay at the end of setup, on the Review & Pay step — the moment the event goes live. The bill is the roster you built, at $1 a player: the summary lists Players: 4 players · $4 and the button reads PAY $4 · PUBLISH, so the amount is printed on the control that pays it. Card payment is taken on a hosted checkout page; no card details are entered on, or stored by, Chase Birdies itself. If you leave before paying, nothing is lost — the event waits on your tournament list as an Unpaid draft with a Pay now button.

Do unused player slots get refunded?

No. The bill is the roster at publish, so you pay for the field you have built rather than a headcount you might reach. The same rule applies to slots bought later with Add more players: unused slots are not refunded.

Access and privacy

Can the leaderboard be private?

Yes. At setup you either leave the board public — anyone with the link can watch — or turn on PIN protection, which asks for a 4-digit PIN before the standings appear. A protected board greets a viewer with "This leaderboard is PIN-protected". Both choices are legitimate: a club championship may want the board gated to the field, while a charity scramble wants every sponsor to be able to open it.

Is the tournament chat separate from the board?

Yes. Chat lives directly beneath the standings on the leaderboard and can be switched off entirely for an event that just wants a scoreboard. When it is on, chat has its own optional 4-digit PIN, independent of the leaderboard's — so you can publish the standings to anyone and keep the conversation to the field, or the other way round. Posting takes a name and a message; there is no account to create.

Will my tournament show up in Google?

No. Leaderboard pages are served noindex, nofollow and no leaderboard URL appears in the site's sitemap, so a tournament's standings do not turn up in search results — even if the link is shared widely. "Public" describes who can watch, not whether search engines index it. Public boards are discoverable inside Chase Birdies, through Find My Event and the public leaderboards list, and by anyone holding the link; that is the extent of their reach. A PIN only adds a gate on top of that — it does not change indexing.

Who can see my event before I publish it?

Only you. Until payment completes, the event exists for its organizer alone: it sits on your tournament list as an Unpaid draft with a Pay now button and nothing about it is public. Set an event up days in advance and pay on the morning of play and you lose nothing by waiting.

Formats and scoring modes

Which formats can I run?

Scramble, Shamble, Scotch, Golf and Best Ball, with Stroke Play and Match Play as scoring modes, for individual events or team events. Format and scoring mode are separate choices in setup, which is why the read-back pairs them, for example Scramble · Stroke play.

What is the difference between stroke play and match play?

Stroke Play is lowest total strokes wins — every stroke counts and the lowest total takes it, which is the mode behind club events, leagues and medal play. Match Play is holes won, not strokes: head-to-head golf decided hole by hole, and it is tracked on the same live leaderboard rather than on a paper bracket.

How does team scoring work?

A team event comes in three shapes, and setup is where you choose. One combined score per team — the team returns a single score per hole and the board ranks teams. Each member's own score — every member keeps a card and holds a place in the standings; the team is an organizational grouping rather than a scoring unit. Each member's own score, combined into a team total — members score individually and those scores are folded into a team figure that can be ranked alongside them (adding members' strokes together for most formats; see Best Ball below).

What is Best Ball, and how is the team total built?

Best Ball is the format where the lowest score on the team counts: everyone plays their own ball and the team takes the lowest score on each hole. It is the one format where a team total is built by taking the lowest member score on every hole rather than by adding cards together — so the arithmetic on the board is the arithmetic the format calls for.