Running Your Simulator League

Your Dashboard shows a Getting Started checklist. Every open step is clickable, so you can work in any order:

1. Set up your venue — your simulator bays and the hours members can book
2. List or import your league members
3. Create a season and set each week's course
4. Add players to the season
5. Review your league settings — name, logo and time zone

Once the season is under way, the dashboard's This Week card shows the current Playing Week and its course.

GolfCommish keeps two lists, and it helps to know the difference:

• Members are everyone in your league — the people on your Members page. It's your full contact list: anyone you've invited, or could invite, to any season. Members stay from season to season.
• Players are the members playing in a particular season — the Players list on the season page. Someone becomes a player when they accept that season's invitation (or you add them directly). Only players can book time, enter scores and appear in the standings.

So a new winter season starts with all your members but no players: you invite members, and the ones who say yes become that season's players. The Members page shows where each member stands for the current season — Joined, Invited, Declined or Not on roster.

Go to Venue in the top nav.

• Bays — add one per simulator. A bay that has bookings can be made inactive but not deleted.
• Hours by day of week — for each day, the first start time, the last start time and the slot length (the time per player). For example: weekdays 4–9 pm and weekends noon–5 pm with 30-minute slots.

Each player in a booking takes one slot, so a group of three books three back-to-back slots.

Go to Seasons and click New Season. Enter a name, the date the first week starts, the number of weeks, an optional season fee, the most players per booking, and your scoring settings (see section 10).

GolfCommish creates the Playing Weeks for you. Each week runs seven days from the start date's weekday — start on a Monday for Monday–Sunday weeks.

Each week's course

On the season page, click Set course next to each week and enter the simulator course, which nine (front, back or full 18), its par and any notes. Par is required — it's used for to-par scores, fill-in scores and handicaps.

Season status

• Draft — only you can see it. Set things up at your own pace.
• Active — click Start Season on the season page. Members can now see it, book and enter scores.
• Completed — set it on Edit Season when the season is over. It becomes read-only and stays in the standings history.

On the season page, the Players card lists everyone who has joined. You have three ways to fill it:

• Send Invites — emails every active member who isn't on the season yet. Each email has one-click Count me in and Not this season buttons — no login needed. Click "What will this send?" to preview it first.
• Add all without inviting — puts every member straight on the roster, with no email.
• Choose… — tick specific members to add directly. This also moves someone who was invited or declined onto the roster.

Below the Players list you'll see Waiting for a reply (with Resend to no-replies) and Declined. Members can change their answer until the season is completed. A member who hasn't accepted their league invitation yet can still join the season from the email, but needs to accept the invitation and log in before they can book.

How members book

Players click Book in the nav, pick a week, day and start time, and add up to the season's limit of other players (for example, three more for a foursome). The bay is assigned automatically. Each player can be in one booking per week, and players can book future weeks. Only the person who made a booking can change or cancel it, and only before it starts.

Your schedule grid

Go to Schedule for a week-by-week grid: one card per day, rows for start times, a column per bay. Use the arrows to move between weeks. The header shows how many players are booked and how many on the roster haven't booked yet (Who? lists them).

• Book for a player — choose the booker, co-players, any guests and a bay (or "Any open bay").
• Edit or cancel any booking. You can cancel at any time, including no-shows.
• Block time — hold a bay for a number of slots with a note (maintenance, a private event).

Players enter their own gross score under Scores once the week has started — no booking needed. Scores are whole numbers from 10 to 199.

The score grid

On the season page, click Scores next to any started week. You can enter, correct or clear anyone's score, including past weeks. Clear a box to remove a score. A score you enter or change is locked for that player.

Finalize the week

When a week's scores are complete, click Finalize Week. Players can no longer change their scores (you still can), and the week now counts in the standings — only finalized weeks count. Click Reopen if you need to let players fix something.

Season handicaps come from your league's own rounds — they're separate from a member's GHIN handicap index. Open them from the season page's Handicaps button.

• Calculated — each player's handicap is their average over par across their first N rounds (N is a season setting, 3 by default), times the handicap allowance. Players with fewer than N rounds show as provisional.
• Recalculate handicaps — handicaps only change when you click this (on the Handicaps page or the score grid), typically after entering a week's scores.
• Override — type a value to override the calculated one. The override always wins; clear it to go back.
• Manual only — set N to 0 and you enter every handicap yourself.

Open the season page's Flights button. Players are ranked within their flight on the standings.

• Auto-split — choose the number of flights and GolfCommish splits players by handicap, lowest into the first flight. Players without a handicap stay unassigned. Re-running it replaces the assignments but keeps your flight names and payouts.
• Adjust — rename flights, add or remove one, and move any player with their flight dropdown.
• Payouts — for each flight, choose how many places are paid and the amount for each. Tied players split the payouts for the places they share.
• Set aside — an amount from each entry fee that isn't paid out (a year-end party, for example). The pot line shows fees, the set-aside, and what's left against your payouts.

Payouts are shown only — GolfCommish doesn't collect or pay out money.

Set these on New Season or Edit Season — you can change them any time and the standings recalculate:

• Score — gross, or net (gross minus handicap). Use net only when every player has a handicap from Week 1; you can still use handicaps for flights with gross scoring.
• Season total — total strokes, or strokes to par (for example, +10).
• Missed weeks — a fill-in score of par + X (you set X), or rank by each player's average per round played.
• Drop worst N weeks — each player's N worst weeks don't count. Missed weeks can be dropped too, so with 1, a single missed week costs nothing.

Standings shows one table per flight with a column per finalized week. Fill-in weeks are marked F, dropped weeks are struck through, and ties show as "T2". Use the season picker to see past seasons.

• Season invite — from the season page (see section 5).
• Week invite — on the Schedule page, Send Week N Invite tells the roster the week is open, with the course and a Book button.
• Booking reminder — Remind the N not booked nudges players with no booking that week.
• Booking notices — sent automatically to every player in a booking when it's made, changed or cancelled; the person who made the change gets a confirmation.
• Weekly results — once a week is finalized, the score grid shows Email Week N Results. Each player gets their week, their flight's standings with payouts, and a link to the full standings. Click Add a note to include a message from you.

Click "What will this send?" to preview any of these first. Everything you send is listed under Email.

On Members, click Add Member or Import CSV to add people; each gets an invitation email to join your league. The table shows each member's GHIN and handicap index (optional — for leagues that use GHIN) plus their current-season status, season handicap and flight.

Deactivating a member stops league emails to them and leaves them out of new season invites. Removing a member takes them off your league, including season rosters and standings.

Under More → Settings, set your league name, logo and time zone.