Join leaders in the golf community who each week receive golf club marketing and merchandising insights and strategies to make their work a tap-in (or at least a 3-footer). Let's Grow Golf.
Share
The Scorecard: How One Pro Reclaimed His Time
Published 11 days ago • 5 min read
Newsletter No. 53
GG x Live Tourney
This week, I'm launching a new content series in partnership with the team at Live Tourney. If you don't know Live Tourney, they are a modern, intuitive, and affordable tournament management and live scoring software for golf clubs, courses, and ranges.
The Scorecard is a series focused on how golf professionals can solve event and tournament headaches with insight and expertise from peers around the golf operations industry. However, in the typical Grow Golf way, I'll also be offering strategic frameworks for any professional in the golf industry to smake sense of and utilize for your position. Without further ado, meet Bryan Tupper, Head Golf Professional, Tam O’Shanter Golf and Country Club in Bellevue, WA. Bryan joined Tam O’Shanter as an Assistant Pro—a leap of faith that turned into the "best decision" of his career. Two years later, he became Head Professional, navigating the challenges of COVID and leading a close-knit, community-driven club he's proud to call home. Six years in, and he's still as grateful and excited about this role as day one. Who wouldn't be? Look at these course beauties from the club.
Rainbow over #4 at Tam O'Shanter Golf and Country Club - Bellevue, WA
Let's dive into some time-saving insights, shall we? -Rich
In the world of golf operations, the smallest details often take the most time.
Just ask Bryan Tupper, Head Golf Professional at Tam O’Shanter Golf and Country Club — a nine-hole course tucked inside a 497-home community in Bellevue, Washington, surrounded by tech professionals from Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Tam O’Shanter may be small, but its tournaments are anything but. And like many head pros, Bryan found himself facing the same issue that plagues the best-run operations in the country: the hidden time cost of “doing it right.”
The Issue: The Time Sink of Scorecards
Bryan’s Member-Guest Invitational is the club’s signature event — 30 teams, five flights, and five rounds in a round-robin format.
It’s the kind of format members love. Competitive, social, and fun.
But behind the scenes, it’s been a logistical nightmare.
“We used Golf Genius, but it didn’t have the format we needed. So we built everything in Excel — 30 scorecards per round, color-coded to team shirt colors, manually calculated matchups, handicaps, and results. It took two weeks just to get ready. And if one team dropped out? You started over.”
For head professionals, that story is familiar. What seems like “just a tournament” quickly becomes a two-week project of spreadsheets, scorecards, and manual double-checks.
And that time adds up, not just in hours worked, but in opportunity cost:
Time away from members. Instead of connecting with players, pros are buried in Excel.
Increased risk of errors. One misaligned formula or dropped team can unravel an entire event.
Event fatigue. The admin load turns what should be a fun highlight into a stress point.
Burnout before the event even begins. By the time tee times start, staff energy is already drained.
These problems might sound small, but they compound over a season — especially for smaller teams.
Why It Matters
Events are the heartbeat of a club. They drive camaraderie, engagement, and member satisfaction, but they also expose how efficient (or inefficient) your systems really are.
Bryan puts it simply:
“We’re a small operation. Everyone wears a lot of hats. Time is everything. The more we can simplify, the more we can focus on the people.”
This isn’t just about scorecards. It’s about protecting time as its the one resource head pros can’t create more of.
The Turning Point
In 2021, Bryan got a call from Matt Robinson (Founder at Live Tourney), who asked one question that changed everything:
“Why don’t we have live scoring?”
That conversation turned into a complete rebuild of his invitational format, this time powered by automation.
“They built out the round-robin format with handicaps, live scoring, and multi-round tracking. What used to take two weeks now takes a fraction of the time. I can set up the event, send a link, and we’re ready.”
The results?
Two weeks of work saved.
No printing or retyping.
Instant updates for members.
More time for the human side of golf.
“It made our Member-Guest so much easier to handle. Now, I can concentrate on the member instead of the math.”
How To Assess Your Time
I wanted to create a set of questions for all of you to help better assess your time and if there is a need to create efficiencies, just like Bryan did at Tam O'Shanter. These questions aren’t about doing more, they’re about protecting your attention for the things that matter most: your members, your staff, and the game itself.
“What am I doing this week that a system or template could be doing for me?"
Repetition hides inefficiency. If you’re re-creating spreadsheets, emails, or scorecards from scratch each time, you’re not adding value—you’re repeating work. Automate, don’t replicate.
“Is this task improving the member experience—or just maintaining my own process?”
Golf pros are natural perfectionists. But not every detail matters to members. If it doesn’t directly impact the golfer’s experience, it’s probably not worth the time you’re giving it.
“Am I spending more time preparing for events than actually running them?”
Preparation is essential, but if setup is consuming more hours than execution, you’re caught in an admin loop. Events should create energy, not drain it before they begin.
“Would my members notice if I stopped doing this?”
It’s a simple audit. If the answer is no, it might be a legacy task or personal habit that’s no longer needed. Great pros evolve by cutting what doesn’t show up in the member experience. “What could I do with an extra five hours a week?”
Time saved isn’t just less work—it’s more leadership. Five hours could mean walking a few holes with members, mentoring an assistant, or building your next event concept. That’s where growth happens.
The Bottom Line
Every head pro has a “scorecard story”, a moment where the effort to keep things precise nearly outweighed the reward. Bryan’s experience is a reminder that efficiency is leadership.
The less time you spend building scorecards (or whatever takes up your time), the more time you spend building relationships. That’s not just good for operations. It’s good for golf.
For Tam O’Shanter, automation didn’t replace the professional, it amplified him.
Bryan’s time went from managing paper to managing people - and that’s where the real value lies.
Aerial of Tam O'Shanter Golf and Country Club - Bellevue, WA
I hope you enjoyed the first edition of Grow Golf's The Scorecard presented by Live Tourney. Comments, feedback? Send 'em my way. As always, if you’re building something great in golf, my inbox is always open.
Let's grow golf,
ICYMI
New to Grow Golf? Miss a week? Here's a list of Grow Golf's most recent newsletters:
A weekly strategy newsletter for golf industry professionals
Join leaders in the golf community who each week receive golf club marketing and merchandising insights and strategies to make their work a tap-in (or at least a 3-footer). Let's Grow Golf.
The Membership Reset We're almost at Thanksgiving, and for many, you're in renewal season. Look, we all know renewal decisions aren’t made in March when invoices go out. They’re made in the Fall, right now in November, during the quietest stretch of the year (for most). As the weather cools and schedules shift, members naturally drift away from the club. When that detachment goes unaddressed, the renewal conversation becomes significantly harder. Clubs often try to “save” members during...
The Off Season Advantage It will probably come to no surprise to say that indoor golf has become "mainstream" in the golf industry. I'm not saying anything you all don't already know, however, what may surprise you is that its becoming more organized. I caught wind of the The Indoor Golf Alliance. YES, an organization dedicated to uniting the indoor golf world. Here's their mission statement: Our mission at the IGA is to unite the world of indoor golf and technology. Our mission is to serve...
October 28, 2025 Fall 2025 Update Hey everyone, Before I dive into the next wave of stories and spotlights, I wanted to share a few quick updates from Grow Golf HQ. These changes are all about making the newsletter more accessible, more connected, and more valuable heading into the 2026 PGA Show. What's New? 1) 🔓 Unlocked Articles You no longer need to log in to read Grow Golf articles on the web (www.growgolf.co)For the next few weeks, everything’s wide open — no barriers, no pop-ups, no...
