How to Run a Kick-Ass Golf Tournament

By Ryan McGowan

If you think back to summers when you were a kid, they all kind of blend together.  Summer memories all evoke a certain nostalgia: long, lazy days in the pool, unending games of stickball, wiffleball, tennisball, or whatever games you played to pass the time, running from adults after sneaking into their yard to retrieve a home run ball, following the baseball standings, reading the box scores.  Of course, some of our readers might have different memories of being chased, in this case by the cops or jealous girlfriends rather than by fascist neighbors.  Either way, the summers of one’s childhood tend to be a hazy collection of blurred, pleasant memories.
Every summer always had a highlight, though.  In my dorky, sports-obsessed youth, the highlight of the summer of 1988 was the first night game at Wrigley Field, and watching it while hidden in a “fort” that my brothers and I created out of blankets draped over bunk beds.  The highlight of 1986 was watching hometown hero Roger Clemens start the All-Star Game for the American League and accept the game’s MVP award.  The highlight of 1992 was following the mythical exploits of the Dream Team, a collection of mortals conjured up by a God who was so obsessed with pro basketball that He allowed Magic and Larry to coexist on the same team for a short period of time, thereby shattering my previous (albeit rudimentary) understandings of the laws of metaphysics, but giving me a whole new appreciation of the kick-ass hoops talent of the good ol’ U.S. of A.  1994, of course, was the Summer of O.J.  Somewhere in there was the Summer of George on “Seinfeld.”  And mixed in with all of these were numerous summer league baseball games, basketball camps, tennis matches, golf rounds, football preseason workouts, and Red Sox second-half collapses.  It’s all a blur.

In your mid-20’s, summer needs to be redefined.  Most people who aren’t named Ryan McGowan work for a living between mid-June and late August, so the experience of summer changes drastically.  Summer becomes just another part of the year, only with more humidity and a slightly higher percentage of young ladies wearing spaghetti tops and ruffled skirts.  (I say “slightly” because in Rhode Island, the percentage of women between 17 and 23 who dress in beach outfits year-round is roughly 43%.)  By your 20’s, summer is lacking something intangible, a magical quality that it had when you were a kid, and every twentysomething, to some degree, strives to get it back.

Enter: the McGowan Open.

The McGowan Open has, since 1999, served as the highlight for my summer, as well as that of a number of people of indeterminate quantity and identity.  Basically, the tournament started out as a loose golf outing of 4 teams (16 players, for anyone who has trouble with figuring out four times four in their head) playing an 18 hole round at the Chemawa Golf Club in North Attleboro, Mass., followed by a small cookout at my parents’ house in town.  In the first year of the Open, a bunch of friends and I prepped for the tournament by attending a Barenaked Ladies concert at what is now the Tweeter Center.  We got a little banged up, woke up at 5:20, sleepwalked around the course, and came back to the house for some burgers and brew.

Since then, the Open has evolved into a full-fledged golf tournament and party, the kind of event that you mark off your calendars for in January.  It started with the Cup.  A neighbor, who is a jeweler, donated a miniature Stanley Cup, and engraved on it, “THE MCGOWAN CUP: Born to Play, Live to Win.”  The Cup has been presented to the winning team since McGowan Open II, and team members get possession of it for three months, and can do whatever they want with it short of smashing it.  For the last few years, the tournament has featured around 25 teams, approximately 100 players, a bacchanalia of an after-party, and best of all, a palpable buzz around the area, as this event has become not only the highlight of my summer, but also the highlight of dozens, perhaps even scores, of people from all over.

Even better, we (the McGowan Open Board of Directors) have taken a charitable route with the tournament, collecting money for two scholarship funds.  One is in memory of a friend of my younger brothers, Jeff Plante, who was killed in an accident in England while serving in the U.S. military.  The other is to remember Joe Gazzola, a former high school football teammate of mine who tragically lost his life in February of this year.*

I might be able to give you a full recap of the 2004 Open on Monday, if I am coherent enough to be able to walk without the aid of a support system, let alone use a computer and type.  However, what I do want to do today is to provide some Do’s and Don’ts on how to run a kick-ass, memorable summer golf tournament.

DO:

Include as many people as possible.  It is the McGowan “Open” and not the McGowan “Invitational” for a reason.

Choose a golf course that will be playable for all involved.  You don’t want to play the tourney at the local pitch-and-putt, but if you want as many hacker friends of yours to be involved, Bethpage Black isn’t going to work either.

Keep good records.  Make all players sign in with contact information (especially e-mail) that you can use for notification about future tournaments.

Have an interesting, controversial scoring system.  We have adopted a version of the Stableford system of scoring, which awards 1 point for a bogey, 2 for a par, 4 for a birdie, 8 for an eagle, 16 for a double eagle.  We then handicap the field by assigning a “target score” for each player, and then a target for each team.  The team that beats its target score by the highest number of points wins the Cup.

Provide entertaining and humorous team names, such as the “Studweisers” (defending champs), “Holy Cross Brewsaders” (my team), “Three Men and a Nose,” “Hulkamania,” “Sand Baggas,” “Tin Cups,” and “Young Stiff Shafts.”

Get on good terms with the sports editor of the local newspaper, so he continues to print stories about the tournament.  Free publicity is key.  If he sends a reporter or intern to cover the tournament and obtain actual quotes from players and tournament organizers, it does count as part of your fifteen minutes of fame, so ham it up.

Make sure the after-party is classy.  Set up a tent, provide plenty of chairs and tables, have a caterer on site, have stuff for the little kids to do, build a basketball hoop, etc.

Three words: Kegs.  On.  Tap.

Make sure you collect as much money from straggling party-crashers as you can.  This food and drink didn’t get here magically.

Sell commemorative t-shirts with slogans that people will remember and designs that people will wear for further publicity.  Last year’s slogan was “Birdies, Bogeys, Burgers, and Beers.”  Simple, and honest.

Gather everyone at the after-party together for a group photo, just to prove to yourself and future generations that such an obscene number of people could possibly congregate simultaneously in your backyard.  Make sure at least one party-goer is so hammered at the time of the photograph that he is keeled over on his back with his legs straight up in the air as the flash goes off.  By the way, that is purely hypothetical, that never happened, no one ever gets that bad, that never happened to a kid named Raposa last year, it’s pure hearsay.

Kick everyone out at 2 AM.  These speakeasy deals with the local cops don’t last forever, and you want to be able to make the tourney a recurring event, so stay in the law’s good graces.

DON’T:

Take any crap from people who think their target score is too high.  Tell them to get a lesson, or make some birdies.

Allow first-year teams to lie about their target score, come in and obliterate their goal, and win the Cup (known as “sand bagging”).  Force them to whet themselves with one year as a preliminary participant; don’t allow first-year teams to win.  Or, require them to show an official USGA handicap card (a PGA tour card works just as well and might bring some pub to the tourney.)

Tolerate any destructive behavior in the after-party.  The McGowan Open has survived for six years with a very well-behaved party crowd.  Respect your guests and they will respect you.  If they don’t, call the cops.  (That speakeasy thing works both ways.)

Get all uptight.  It is important to have fun.  

It’s golf; it’s supposed to be miserable.  The old cliche always applies: a bad day at golf is still better than a good day at work.  And a bad day at golf with the prospect of a Stifler-esque party following it should be enough to calm even the most anxious, choleric golfer out there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to hit the driving range and the local tavern… to warm up.

* While I hate to use this forum as a request for donations (and that is not my intent), if you are interested in learning more about these scholarships you can email my father Tim at [email protected].