Design the league your golfers will actually join
Most league programs get designed from the operator's side of the counter — the night that suits the floor, the format the last person set up, the price that felt about right. This asks the people who would play, before anything gets built.
You know who visits. You don't know why they skip Tuesday.
Your booking system records transactions. It cannot tell you what someone nearly booked, what put them off a league, or which night they would have said yes to. Those are the four or five facts a league design turns on, and none of them are in your data.
The night
Operators pick a league night from floor availability. Golfers pick from childcare, shift patterns and their friends' schedules. These rarely agree.
The commitment
A six-week season and a ten-week season convert very differently, and the drop-off point is specific to your crowd — not a rule of thumb.
The barrier
People rarely say "too expensive." They say some version of "I'd be the worst one there." That is a format problem, and it is fixable — but only once you know it is the real reason.
The price
What people will pay for a season, and whether they would rather pay once up front or weekly, has a real answer that almost nobody asks for.
The group
Nearly everyone arrives with other people. Whether they can field a team of four, or need help being matched into one, decides your team size.
The reach
Which of your channels your best customers actually read. Venues routinely promote leagues on the channel with the biggest list rather than the most attentive one.
This is a design input, not market research. The goal is not a statistically representative picture of your market — it is enough signal from the people most likely to enrol that the format, the night, the season length and the price stop being guesses.
Four phases, about three weeks.
We design and analyse. You send it — your list, your building, your voice. That split matters: a survey arriving from the venue people already know gets several times the response of one from a company they don't.
- 01 Week 1 · one 45-minute call
Design the survey with you
We start from the question bank and cut it to what you actually need to decide. If you have already settled the night and the season length, those questions come out. Twelve to fifteen questions, under five minutes to complete — every question past that point costs completions.
You bringThe decisions still open, and anything you already believe about your crowd, so we can test it rather than repeat it.
- 02 Week 1–3 · two weeks live
Field it through your channels
We build the survey and hand you a link, a QR code and copy written in your voice for each channel. You send. We watch responses come in and tell you when to send the reminder — a single well-timed reminder typically adds half again as many responses as the original send.
You bringThe send: your email list, your socials, and the in-building placements.
- 03 Week 3
Read it
We analyse the responses and write up what they mean for the program — not a chart pack. Where the answers contradict what you expected, we say so plainly, because that is where the value is.
You getThe findings, the raw response data, and the open-text answers in full. They are yours to keep.
- 04 Week 3–4
Design the league from it
The findings feed straight into your league design document: format, night, season length, team size, handicapping, price, prize structure and the weekly rhythm — each one traceable to something your golfers said rather than to a default.
You getA design document per season, with every setting mapped to how it gets built.
What we would ask.
Four modules are in every study. The rest are optional — you pick the ones covering decisions you have not already made. A shorter survey aimed at your real questions beats a long one that covers everything.
In every study
Who you are
Splits every other answer. A near-beginner and a single-digit handicap want opposite things from the same league, and the whole design turns on which of them you have more of.
- Relationship to golf: never played, a few times a year, regular, competitive
- Self-rated ability, in plain words rather than a handicap number
- Whether they have a handicap index at all
How you visit today
Establishes the baseline you will measure the league against, and shows which day-parts have room.
- Visits in the last three months
- Who they normally come with, and how many
- Which days and times they actually visit, versus which they would prefer
League interest and the blocker
The centre of the study. The blocker question changes designs more often than any other, and it has to offer skill-embarrassment as an option or nobody will volunteer it.
- Whether they have played in a league here or anywhere else, and how it went
- How interested they are in a league at this venue
- What would stop them: time, cost, skill level, no team, don't know anyone, night doesn't work
The night and the commitment
Directly sets two settings in the league: the fixed day, and the number of sessions.
- Which weeknights they could commit to, ranked
- Longest season they would sign up for
Add the ones covering decisions you have not made
Format preference
Include when the format is genuinely open. Ask about the experience, never the format name — "everyone plays their own ball" lands where "best ball stroke" does not.
- Team night or individual night
- Described experiences to rank: one team ball, everyone plays their own, points for good shots rather than a total
Price sensitivity
Include when the season price is unsettled. Ask as a range with what is included, not as an open box — open boxes produce a number nobody would actually pay. Read the answer as a range to work inside: stated willingness to pay runs high, so it narrows the decision rather than setting the fee.
- What feels reasonable for a season, given what is included
- Pay once up front, or per night
Prizes and what winning is worth
Worth including once. Most venues over-estimate how much the prize pool drives entry, and under-estimate the trophy.
- What makes a season worth winning: cash or credit, a trophy, standings and bragging rights, the weekly night out
Food, drink and the evening
Include where food and drink is the margin. Tells you whether to design a two-hour night or a three-hour one.
- Whether they eat or drink when they visit
- Ideal length of a league night
How to reach you
Cheap to ask and immediately actionable — it tells you where to spend the promotion effort for every season after this one.
- How they would want to hear about a league: email, text, in the app, on a screen in the building, social
- Optional name and contact, so you can invite the interested ones directly
Anything else you'd want from a league here?
An open box at the end. It is the least structured question in the survey and reliably the most useful — it is where you find out that the real objection is parking, or that four people have been waiting for a women's night.
Your channels, not ours.
Response rate is almost entirely a function of who appears to be asking. Every placement goes out under the venue's name.
| Channel | How it works | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Email list | One send, one reminder eight days later. | The backbone of the study. The reminder is not optional — it typically adds half again as many responses. |
| In the building | QR code on table tents, at the bar, and at the bay. | Catches the customers who are not on your email list at all, which is often the group you most need to hear from. |
| After a session | QR on the bay screen as a group finishes. | The highest-intent moment there is. They have just played and they have an opinion. |
| Existing league players | Direct message to current and past league rosters. | Highest response rate of any channel, and the most useful answers on format and season length. |
| Social | One post, one story, both linking the survey. | Lowest yield per impression, but free, and it reaches lapsed customers. |
| Text | One message to anyone who has opted in. | Only to contacts with messaging consent. Skip it rather than risk the list. |
Under about forty, the open-text answers are still valuable but the splits by skill level stop being trustworthy — and we will say so rather than over-read them.
A gift-card raffle, and why that shape.
Some incentive roughly doubles completions. The form matters more than the amount.
Raffle for a few larger prizes
RecommendedThree prizes of store credit or a gift card. Cheap, easy to administer, and it lifts response without attracting people who are only there for the reward.
Free bay time
Works wellCosts you inventory rather than cash, particularly on hours that would sit empty. Good as the raffle prize itself.
Small reward for everyone
WorkableMore expensive at scale, and it pulls in low-effort responses. Use only if your list is small and you need near-total coverage.
A large single prize
AvoidIt draws entries from people with no interest in a league, which is exactly the noise you are paying to avoid.
- Open to everyone who completes it, whatever they answer. Never make the reward conditional on a particular response.
- State the number of prizes, the value, the closing date and when the draw happens, up front.
- Entry is a separate optional contact field, so someone can answer honestly and stay anonymous if they want.
- The venue funds and fulfils it — it is your customer relationship and your prize. Fareway does not hold or hand out the incentive.
- Announce the winners on the same channels you fielded on. It closes the loop and makes the next survey easier.
Whose data this is.
Yours
Responses, raw export and open-text answers all belong to the venue, and are handed over at the end.
Anonymous by default
Contact details are a separate optional field for the raffle and the follow-up invitation, never required to answer.
Reported in aggregate
Findings never attribute a quote or an answer to a named customer.
Not a marketing list
Contacts collected here are used for the raffle and, where they said yes, an invitation to the league. Nothing else.
The people who answer a survey from your venue are, by definition, the people who pay attention to your venue. They skew engaged, and they will over-state their interest in a league relative to the general population. That bias is acceptable here, and worth naming out loud: you are designing for the people who would actually enrol. It is a poor basis for forecasting total demand, and we will not use it that way.
Ask your golfers before you build it.
Bring the decisions you have not made yet — the night, the format, the price — and we will design the study around them.