How to Run a Ryder Cup Tournament With Your Friends
Every year, somewhere in America or Canada, a group of friends makes the same ambitious decision: we're doing a Ryder Cup. Two captains, two teams, three rounds, and a points table that someone updates from the 19th hole on their phone.
Most of those tournaments run on paper scorecards, a shared Google Sheet, and a lot of "wait, what hole do we play 10 from?" energy. A few use an app that was mostly built for charity golf. Almost none of them have what makes the real Ryder Cup interesting: a live draft, a social feed that makes the whole group feel the moment, and a record that carries into next year.
This guide covers how to actually run one.
The Format
A friend-group Ryder Cup has three sessions:
- Foursomes (Alternate Shot). Partners alternate hitting the same ball. One player tees off on odd holes, the other on even. It's the hardest format, the most political during pairings, and the most entertaining to watch. A typical friend group plays four matches of two-on-two — 4 points available.
- Four-Ball (Best Ball). Each player plays their own ball; the team takes the lower net score on each hole. More forgiving, better for varied handicaps. Same pairings structure — 4 points available.
- Singles. One-on-one match play. The most pressure, the most drama. 8–12 matches depending on group size — 10–20 points available.
Total: typically 28–30 points. First to 15.5 wins. When it's 14–14 going into Sunday singles, that's when your group becomes a golf podcast.
Handicaps
Without handicaps, the scratch golfer wins everything and it stops being fun by Saturday afternoon. Use WHS course handicaps. For foursomes, average both players' course handicaps and divide by two. For singles, give the full stroke difference. The formula matters less than being consistent — pick one and stick with it.
The Draft
This is where most groups leave points on the table. A Ryder Cup without a draft is just "pick your friends." A draft with captains is a Friday night event. Snake order, two rounds, 45 seconds per pick. The group chat goes silent. Someone makes a spreadsheet. Someone gets picked last and declares a grudge match for singles.
The draft is genuinely half the tournament. Run it the night before the first round. If you're not doing it in person, run it on a shared screen with everyone on a call.
Skins
Run skins as a parallel side game across all three rounds. Every player throws in $20. On each hole, the player with the lowest net score wins the pot. If two players tie, the pot carries to the next hole — and those carryovers are what make hole 17 on Sunday feel like a major.
With 20 players at $20 each, you're running $400 in skins across 18 holes. A clean hole 18 win after a six-hole carryover is worth remembering.
What Makes a Scoring App Worth Using
Paper scorecards work. A shared spreadsheet works. But they both require someone to be the designated scorer-updater, and that person spends the round looking at their phone for the wrong reasons.
A good scoring app does four things paper can't:
- Everyone sees the score live — including people at different holes, people in the cart, and people sitting in the clubhouse waiting for singles to start
- Skins calculate automatically — carryovers, net scores with handicaps, the split-pot edge case on hole 18
- The draft has a board — picks visible to everyone in real time, snake order enforced, no one arguing about whose turn it is
- It remembers — next year's tournament starts from this year's roster, with last year's standings as context
Running It Year After Year
The first year, you're figuring out the format. The second year, you're settling scores. By year five, you have rivalries with documented history. Someone has won the MVP three times. Someone has never won a singles match. The commissioner has carried the same roster file in a Google Drive folder since 2019.
That's when it stops being an event and starts being a tradition.
The tool that makes that work is one that carries the roster forward, keeps the stats, and doesn't require re-entering 20 handicaps every October.
Getting Started
If you're running your first one: keep it simple. Pick the format, set a date, get 12–24 people to commit, and stop worrying about the scoring app until two weeks out. The tournament doesn't need software to be good — it needs people who want to be there.
If you're on year two or three and you've outgrown the spreadsheet: Golf Tourney is built for exactly this. Free for groups up to 8. $35 for the full experience — draft, skins, social feed, spectator mode. $99/year if your group runs it annually and you want the roster and history to carry forward.
The September tournament will happen whether you use an app or not. The app just makes the Friday night draft and the Saturday skins table feel like the real thing.