Your First Club Championship: What to Ask and How to Prepare

There is no standard club championship. The Rules of Golf leave the choices to the club’s committee: match play or stroke play, one weekend or matches spread over weeks, one field or several flights. The R&A’s guidance for committees names what the committee decides: “Terms of the Competition determine the structure of each competition including who may enter, how to enter, what the schedule and format of the competition will be and how ties will be decided.”

The same guidance gives the committee three duties, to “Set clear and concise terms for each competition”, to “Make these terms available to players in advance of the competition” and to “Interpret the terms should any questions arise”. It gives the player one: “It is the responsibility of each player to know and follow the Terms of the Competition.” So the first step is to ask the golf shop or the committee for the terms in writing, and to ask about anything they leave out.

Take this sheet with you. The words in quotation marks are The R&A’s. Each row is a question for your club, not a statement of what clubs do. Two rows quote a Rule instead of the guidance: pace of play is from Rule 5.6b, and caddies is from the note to Rule 10.3a.

Entering

The format

On the course

Prizes have their own rules for an amateur. Our guide to the Rules of Amateur Status covers what an amateur may accept in a scratch competition and in a handicap competition.

Rule 3 says every golf competition has three central elements. A club championship is one combination of them:

• Match play or stroke play. In match play “a player and an opponent compete against each other based on holes won, lost or tied”. In the regular form of stroke play “all players compete with one another based on the total score”.
• Individual or partners. “Golf is played either by individual players competing on their own or by partners competing together as a side.”
• Gross or net. A scratch competition counts the gross score. A handicap competition counts the net score, “so that players of differing abilities can compete in a fair way”.

Rule 21 adds three other forms of stroke play that score differently: Stableford, Maximum Score and Par/Bogey. Rules 22 and 23 cover the two partner forms, Foursomes and Four-Ball, which a club may use for other events on its calendar. Our guide to golf tournament formats compares each of them with worked scores, and covers ties, cuts and how to keep a scorecard.

Flights are not a format. They are a way of dividing the field, and the guidance explains why a committee uses them: “This may be in order to have players of similar abilities compete against each other or in order to have multiple winners.” It adds a point worth knowing before you enter: “While the draws may be set by handicap, there is no requirement that the resulting play within the draw be a handicap competition since all the players should be of relatively equal ability.” A flight chosen by handicap can still be won on gross scores. Ask which applies in yours.

This is one club’s page for one year, read on October 11, 2026. It is here to show what published terms look like, and it says nothing about any other club. Ed Oliver Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, posted a page for its 2026 Ed Oliver Club Championship, “a two-day event” listed for August 29 and 30. When we read it, the page said “This event has passed.”

Set that against the question sheet. The page answers the flights, tees, gross and net, and starting-time rows. When we read it, it did not say whether the rounds are stroke play or match play, how many holes are played, who may enter, what the entry costs or when entries closed, how a tie is decided, or which Local Rules and pace of play policy apply. Its ticket section read “Tickets are no longer available”. That is not a criticism of the page. An event listing is not a full set of terms, and the answers it leaves out are the ones to ask the golf shop for.

This sheet is our own suggestion for organizing your practice rounds. It is editorial, not a scoring method, and it promises no result. Knowing a course well does not guarantee a score on it.

Two rows rest on a Rule, so check them against your terms:

• Scoring practice round 2. In stroke play Rule 3.3c says “A player must hole out at each hole in a round.” A casual round with putts given is not the same test. In match play Rule 3.2d says “The players are expected to know the match score”, so practice keeping it.
• The day of the round. Rule 5.2b says that on the day of a stroke-play competition “A player must not practise on the course before a round”, except that the player may “Practise putting or chipping on or near their first teeing area” and “Practise on any practice area.” Rule 5.2a is different for match play: “A player may practise on the course before a round or between rounds of a match-play competition.” The Rule notes that a committee may adopt a Local Rule “prohibiting, restricting or allowing practice on the course before or between rounds”, which is why practice is on the question sheet.

For the notes themselves, our yardage book guide has a page layout and says what the Rules allow in one. For deciding where to aim, see the course management guide. For the last week and the morning, the tournament prep guide lays out a routine you can reuse.

The night before, do the dull things: confirm your starting time and group, count your clubs, and pack food, water and rain gear. The day itself runs on a handful of Rules.

1. Be at the starting point on time. Rule 5.3a: “The player must start at (and not before) their starting time”, and “A starting time set by the Committee is treated as an exact time (for example, 9 am means 9:00:00 am, not any time until 9:01 am).” The penalty for a breach is disqualification, with exceptions. One is for a player who “Arrives at Starting Point, Ready to Play, No More Than Five Minutes Late”: that player “gets the general penalty applied to their first hole”.
2. Count your clubs. Rule 4.1b says a player must not “Start a round with more than 14 clubs”. In stroke play the penalty is two penalty strokes “for each hole where a breach happened, with a maximum of four penalty strokes in the round”. In match play the match score is revised “by deducting one hole for each hole where a breach happened, with a maximum deduction of two holes in the round”.
3. In stroke play, look after your scorecard. Under Rule 3.3b your marker enters your gross score for each hole. When the round has ended you “Should carefully check the hole scores entered by the marker and raise any issues with the Committee”, “Must make sure that the marker certifies the hole scores on the scorecard” and “Must certify the hole scores on the scorecard and promptly return it to the Committee, after which the player must not change the scorecard”. If the score returned for a hole is higher than the one you made, “The higher returned score for the hole stands.” If it is lower, “The player is disqualified”, with one exception in the Rule for a penalty the player did not know about.
4. Leave the arithmetic to the committee. The same Rule says “There is no requirement for a player’s handicap to be shown on the scorecard or for players to add up their own scores.” It also notes that a committee can adopt a Local Rule making the player responsible for the handicap on the scorecard, so read your club’s sheet.
5. In match play, the match is between the two of you. The Rules’ definition of a scorecard says one “is not required in match play”. Rule 3.2b lets a player concede a stroke, a hole or the match, and “A concession is final and cannot be declined or withdrawn.” If the match is tied after the final hole, “The match is extended one hole at a time until there is a winner”, unless your club’s terms say it ends in a tie. The result becomes final “in the way stated by the Committee”, so ask where to report it.
6. Keep pace. Rule 5.6b recommends that a player “make the stroke in no more than 40 seconds after they are (or should be) able to play without interference or distraction”. Rule 5.6a penalizes unreasonable delay: one penalty stroke for a first breach, the general penalty for a second and disqualification for a third. Your club’s own pace of play policy can add time limits and penalties.

The general penalty is “Loss of hole in match play or two penalty strokes in stroke play.” If you are unsure of a Rule during a stroke-play round, raise it with the committee before you return your scorecard. The formats guide linked above has a section on getting help with a Rule during a round.

Once you have played one, three next steps are open to an adult amateur:

• A Handicap Index, if you played without one. Our guide to getting a Handicap Index and a GHIN number is written for junior families, and the path it describes is the same for an adult.
• Your state or regional golf association. Tessaira’s state amateur directory lists a selection of state amateur championships, each with a link to the association that runs it. An association’s own schedule is where its net and flighted events are listed if it runs them.
• Mid-amateur golf, from age 25. The mid-amateur guide covers the USGA’s U.S. Mid-Amateur and where else an adult can compete.