Competition secretary planning a golf tee sheet

A good tee sheet template is a saved pattern: start time, interval, blocks and restrictions, set once and reused for every matching day. Get the template right and the daily set-up takes minutes. Get it wrong and your secretary re-edits the diary every week. This guide covers what a template should contain, how to set up a sensible set for a UK members’ club, when a printable sheet is enough, and what a template cannot fix on its own: who gets the popular slots when they are released.

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Make Popular Tee Times Fairer
Give members a fair chance at popular tee times with BallChute’s online waiting room, shaped by rules each club controls.

TL;DR

  • A template defines the shape of a day: first and last tee time, interval, tees in use, blocked times and who may book. Build one per type of day, not one per date.
  • Most UK clubs need four to six templates: summer weekday, summer weekend, winter weekday, winter weekend, competition day and shotgun or event day.
  • A printable sheet works for a single event. For weekly member play, a digital template saves hours of manual diary work.
  • A template sets the supply of tee times. It says nothing about fairness of access, which is decided by your release and booking rules.
  • If popular slots vanish in seconds, a queue or waiting room on top of your existing system is the fix, not a tighter template.

Table of Contents

What a tee sheet template actually is

The tee sheet is the schedule for the whole day. As one event guide puts it, it lists every group, every tee time and every player. A template is the blank version of that: the skeleton your system stamps onto a date before anyone books.

The point is repeatability. One tee sheet software page describes templates as the foundation of the tee sheet, and says digital versions should let managers define intervals, shotgun starts, maintenance gaps and member-only restrictions, so the daily set-up does not eat hours of manual diary management. That matches what we see: the clubs that struggle are rarely short of software, they are short of a clear set of templates that someone has agreed and written down.

What goes into a template

Work through these decisions in order. Each one should be agreed by the committee, not left to whoever happens to build the sheet.

Start time, last time and interval

Set the first and last tee time for the season. Then choose the interval. Youth and event guides often quote 8 to 10 minute gaps for foursomes, and many UK members’ clubs use something similar for weekday play, with a wider gap in busy periods. The right number depends on your course, your typical round time and how many groups you send from the first tee.

Pace of play is the real test here. Practitioners note that rounds can stretch to five hours or more, and that ready golf and active marshalling are what make the intervals work in practice. If groups regularly bunch up at the fifth, the template is not the culprit, but a slightly longer interval is the cheapest fix to trial.

Blocks and gaps

Blocks are the times you remove from general booking. Typical uses:

  • Society or visitor slots at set times.
  • Ladies’, seniors’ or juniors’ sections at their regular time.
  • Maintenance or greenkeeping gaps, for example for a mid-morning break to let the course clear.
  • Competition starts held back for the competition secretary.

Write each block with a reason and an owner. When a member asks why there are no times at 9:00 on Saturdays, you want an answer you can point to in the club’s policy, not one that lives in somebody’s head.

Who may book

Member-only windows, category restrictions and visitor access all belong in the template or in the rules attached to it. Research on golf club management in Iceland found that managers weigh revenue against member satisfaction, and that transparent, committee-governed fairness policies are central to justifying restrictions. The lesson travels to the UK: a restriction that members can read and understand is far easier to defend than one they discover when a slot is greyed out.

Booking window

How far ahead can people book? Many UK clubs publish this in their rules. One Highland club, for example, lets members and visitors book up to fourteen days ahead online, through the pro shop or from a clubhouse terminal. Your window is a rule, but it interacts with your template: the moment a new day’s sheet opens is the moment demand concentrates.

A starter set of templates for a UK members’ club

There is no universal answer, so treat this as a starting point to adapt. Times and intervals are placeholders for your own course.

Template When used Typical decisions to make
Summer weekday Mon to Fri, April to September Early first tee time, standard interval, a visitor block, a maintenance gap
Summer weekend Sat and Sun in season Competition block in the morning, member-only window, wider interval at peak
Winter weekday Mon to Fri, October to March Later first tee, shorter day, possible temporary greens notes
Winter weekend Sat and Sun out of season Reduced start window, fewer competitions, possible two-tee starts in short daylight
Competition day Opens, medals, Stableford days Competition secretary holds the starts, group sizes set, draw rules applied
Shotgun or event day Captain’s day, charity events All groups sent at once, tee allocation, no general booking

Software suppliers describe the same idea: unlimited template types for different days, such as a winter weekday versus a summer weekend. Whatever system you use, name templates plainly so a new volunteer can pick the right one first time.

Keep templates few and named

The temptation is to build a new template for every exception. Resist it. If you have fifteen templates, nobody knows which applies, and the one-off tweaks start to drift. Prefer a small set, with overrides for genuine exceptions, and review the set at the start of each season.

Printable template or software?

A printable sheet is a legitimate choice. If you run a single event, a society day or an away-day, a fillable PDF where you enter the start time and interval, then add names, does the job. One free download lets you set the first tee time and interval, click to fill the times and add player names and cart numbers, and then print. Note that it is a US-style product, with US paper sizes, so check it prints well on A4 before the day.

Where printable sheets stop working:

  • Weekly member play. Re-typing the same pattern each week is wasted effort and invites errors.
  • Changes after publication. Cancellations and swaps leave you with crossed-out paper.
  • Rules. A sheet of paper cannot check who is eligible or enforce a booking window.
  • Records. You cannot easily see who played when, or spot patterns of no-shows.

A sensible middle path: use digital templates for everyday play and keep a clean printed or emailed tee sheet for the starter and the pro shop on busy days.

What a template cannot fix: access to the good slots

Here is the part most template guides skip. A perfect template gives you the right number of tee times at the right intervals. It does not decide who gets the 9:00 on a Saturday.

Demand is lumpy. A 2026 Golfshake piece reported that 8am to 12pm is the most coveted window, and that between 78% and 87% of golfers play more than once a week in peak season. Its survey also found that only 68% of golfers under 55 feel they can book the times they want, against 92% of those over 65. Those who work or have caring duties tend to be the ones competing for the same few slots at the moment a sheet opens.

The same article points to hoarding, meaning slots booked and never cancelled, and suggests that clubs need firmer, member-focused booking rules, including consequences for non-attendance. Our own piece on tee time cancellation policy looks at how 24 to 72 hour windows work in practice.

So a template answers “what is on offer?” and your rules answer “how may people claim it?” The second question is where complaints come from.

Three ways to release popular times

Clubs generally choose between three approaches:

  1. Fastest finger. The sheet opens at a set time and the quickest clicker wins. Simple, but it rewards fast connections and members who can be at a screen at that exact minute.
  2. Ballot or draw. Members enter a draw and the club allocates. Fair, but slower and heavier for administrators.
  3. Waiting room or queue. Members join a queue, are given a turn, and select within a time limit the club sets.

We compare these in more detail in waiting rooms, fastest-finger booking or tee-time ballots, and our guide to a booking fairness policy gives a checklist for writing the rules down. If you want to see why the same members find Saturdays harder, read why a Saturday tee time is harder to get.

Our view: fix the template first, then the release

We build BallChute, so we see the same pattern across clubs. The template is usually fine. The pain starts at the moment of release, when a sheet that took a secretary an afternoon to get right is emptied in seconds.

Our view is simple. Do the housekeeping first: a small set of named templates, blocks with reasons, a booking window the committee has agreed. Then ask whether your release method is fair to the member who is not sitting at a screen at the stroke of the hour. If it is not, change the method, not the template. A queue in which every member gets an orderly turn, and the club decides the time limit and the rules, takes the pressure out without taking control away from the committee.

That is also why we do not try to replace your membership or competition system. Your templates and tee sheet stay where they are. We focus on the one job that causes the arguments: who gets to choose, and when. Clubs that publish how the queue works tend to find that complaints fall, because members can see the rules are the same for everyone. Our piece on piloting a queue for fairer release schedules explains how a committee can test this on a single busy day before committing.

— Simon

Setting up your templates: a step-by-step routine

  1. List your day types. Look back over a season. Group days by how they actually run, not by calendar date.
  2. Agree the intervals. Use your recent pace-of-play experience. Trial a small change on one day type before rolling it out.
  3. Define blocks. For each block, record who owns it, why it exists and when it expires.
  4. Write the access rules. Booking window, member categories, visitor allowance, guest limits.
  5. Name and save. Use names a stranger would understand. Retire old templates rather than leaving them to confuse people.
  6. Generate in bulk. Most systems can create several weeks of sheets from your templates in one go. Check the first generated week against your diary.
  7. Review after eight weeks. Check for unused blocks, no-show patterns and complaints, then adjust.

If you use Intelligent Golf for membership and tee times, the same routine applies. We have written about fairer releases for clubs using Intelligent Golf, because that is a common setup among our clubs.

Try a fairer release on your own sheet

If your templates are sorted and the problem is the scramble, you can try BallChute free for 14 days, with no automatic fees at the end. Published plans are per club:

Plan Monthly Annual
Standard £29 per month £290 per year
Intelligent Golf £35 per month £350 per year

The Intelligent Golf plan is the one for clubs that use that membership system. Members join the waiting room, make their selection within the limit you set, and your officials get a completed tee sheet, downloadable or emailed.

Common template mistakes

  • One template for everything. Summer and winter days differ in daylight, demand and course condition. Separate them.
  • Hidden blocks. If members cannot see why times are unavailable, trust erodes. Publish the logic.
  • Intervals set by wishful thinking. Base them on how long rounds take, not on how many groups you would like to fit in.
  • No rule for no-shows. Empty slots that were booked are a template problem in disguise.
  • Changing rules mid-season without notice. Announce changes to the booking window or blocks before they apply.
  • Ignoring members who are less confident online. If your release method favours the fastest and most technical, you will hear about it. A queue with generous time limits helps these members.

FAQ

Can I use a free golf tee sheet template for my club?

For a one-off competition or society day, yes: a fillable sheet with a start time and interval is enough. For weekly member play you will soon want a digital system, because bookings change daily and rules need enforcing. Check any free download prints on A4, as many are made for US paper sizes.

How many tee sheet templates does a club need?

Most clubs manage with four to six: summer and winter, weekday and weekend, plus a competition template and an event template. More than that and people stop knowing which to choose. Use overrides for genuine one-off changes.

What interval should I use between tee times?

There is no single right answer, because it depends on your course and pace of play. Event guides often quote 8 to 10 minutes for foursomes. Start from there, watch where groups bunch up, and adjust one day type at a time.

Does a better template stop popular tee times going in seconds?

No. A template sets how many times exist and when, not who can claim them. To change that, you need to change the release method, for example by moving from fastest finger to a queue or ballot. Our guide to booking options sets out the differences.

Sources

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