How to Run a Charity Golf Day for Your Club (UK Guide)

A charity golf day is one of the most dependable fundraisers a UK club or good cause can run: teams pay to enter, local businesses pay to sponsor holes, and the extras around the golf often raise as much as the golf itself. The quickest way to lift the total is to pair the day with an online prize draw that anyone can enter, whether or not they own a set of clubs — Play Fund Win sets one up in about ten minutes with nothing up front. Our 15% standard fee only applies when you raise, and the platform is built for UK fundraising rules, so your volunteers aren’t left with the admin.

Start with the maths, not the venue

Golf days go wrong when the costs are agreed before the income is. Before you book anything, list what you must cover: green fees, catering, prizes, printing and hire. Then work out how many teams you need to break even, and treat everything above that as the fundraising.

Ring two or three courses and ask what they can do for a charity day midweek or out of season — many will discount green fees for a local cause if you fill the tee sheet. Get the package in writing, including the cut-off for final numbers.

Pick a format that keeps everyone playing

You want a format that suits mixed abilities and finishes on time. The usual choices:

• Texas scramble — teams of four all tee off, pick the best ball and play on from there. Forgiving, sociable and quick, which is why it’s the charity-day default.
• Stableford — points-based individual scoring that keeps higher handicappers interested to the last hole.
• Am-am or better-ball — the best one or two scores on each hole count, keeping teams competitive without slowing play.

A shotgun start — all groups teeing off at once from different holes — gets everyone finishing together. That matters: a full room at the presentation is where the rest of your money gets raised.

Where golf days actually make their money

Team entry rarely delivers the profit alone. The income comes from stacking several smaller lines:

• Hole sponsorship — a sign at the tee and a mention in the programme. The easiest ask you have for local trades, and 18 holes means 18 conversations to start.
• Headline or catering sponsor — one business underwrites the food or the day for top billing.
• On-course extras — nearest the pin, longest drive, beat the pro, or mulligans sold on the first tee.
• Prize draw or raffle — ideally online for weeks beforehand, not just in the room afterwards.
• Auction — a few genuinely good lots beat a long list of tat: signed shirts, a corporate box, a weekend away, a round for four at a nearby course.

Ask sponsors for prizes as well as cash — a business that can’t spare a fee will often donate a voucher or a service instead.

Run the prize draw online so non-golfers can give too

The limitation of a golf day is field size: only so many people can play. An online draw removes that ceiling. Open entries a few weeks out, share the link with your membership, sponsors and social following, and let people back the cause from their phone.

A 50/50 draw suits a golf day especially well, because the prize funds itself: our 15% standard fee comes off the top and what’s left splits evenly between the winner and your club, so you need no donated prize at all. Announce the winner from the stage and you get a second spike in entries from the room.

Get the rules right

Raffles, draws and lotteries are regulated in the UK, and the rules depend on how you run yours:

• A raffle sold and drawn entirely at the event, with no tickets sold beforehand and no rollover, generally falls under the incidental lottery rules and doesn’t need a licence — but there are limits on prize spend and on what you can deduct from the proceeds.
• Selling tickets in advance, online or to the wider public usually makes it a society lottery. Smaller ones are registered with your local licensing authority; larger ones need a Gambling Commission licence.
• Skill competitions such as nearest the pin sit outside lottery rules, which is partly why they’re so common on course.
• Be straight about where the money goes. Say plainly what the proceeds fund, and don’t imply a charitable status your club doesn’t hold.

Thresholds and guidance get updated, so check the current position with the Gambling Commission or your council before you sell a ticket. A compliant platform is the simplest route: entry is kept to over-18s, every entry is recorded and the winner is drawn verifiably, so nobody can question the result.

A simple run-up plan

• Three months out: book the course, agree the package, set your team fee and sponsorship tiers.
• Two months out: start the sponsor and prize asks, open team entries, launch the online draw.
• The final month: chase the tee sheet, confirm catering numbers, build the presentation running order, print scorecards and sponsor signs, brief volunteers and set the draw close time.
• Afterwards: publish the total raised, thank every sponsor by name, and ask them to pencil in next year.

Mistakes worth avoiding

Don’t leave all the fundraising to the day itself — if the weather turns or the field is short, you’ve nothing banked. Don’t overspend on prizes you could have had donated, don’t let the presentation drag, and don’t go cash-only.

To have the fundraising side running before the first tee shot, set up your club’s draw at playfundwin.com. Nothing up front, live in around ten minutes, and your club keeps its share of everything raised — on the course and off it.