Golf Tournament Trophies and Awards: Choosing What Winners Take Home

The awards table is the last thing anyone sees at your tournament, and the first thing that appears in the photographs.

That makes it a strange item on the planning list. It is usually the smallest line in the budget and the one people decide last — and it is the single element most likely to end up on someone's desk, on a club wall, or in a post that runs on a sponsor's social account the following Monday.

Worth ten minutes of thought. Here is what goes into it.

Award the Categories That Earn a Photograph

Most tournaments under-award. They hand out first place, maybe second, and sit down.

Every award you give is a moment, a name read out, and a photograph. Photographs are what you send sponsors next spring when you ask them to renew. The marginal cost of a fourth award is small; the marginal value is not.

The categories that work at almost any event:

• Winning team — the headline award. Give it real presence on the table.

• Runner-up — cheap to add, doubles your photo count.

• Longest drive, men's and women's — two awards, two moments, and a natural sponsor attachment.

• Closest to the pin — the same, and usually the most contested contest of the day.

• Putting contest winner — if you ran one.

• Last place — only if your field has the temperament for it. When it lands, it is the most photographed award of the day.

If you have contest sponsors, name them when you present. "The longest drive award, sponsored by ——" costs four seconds and is a meaningful part of what that sponsor bought.

Crystal, Metal, Acrylic or Wood

The material decides how the award photographs and how long it stays on display.

Optical crystal. The premium choice. Heavy in the hand, catches light well, and engraves with real clarity. This is what you want for the headline award — a winning-team trophy in crystal signals that the event was taken seriously. It photographs better than anything else on the table.

Silver-plate and pewter cups. The traditional golf look. A classic presentation for club championships, perpetual trophies, and events with some history behind them. If your tournament is in its twelfth year, this is the register that fits.

Bronze and metal figures. Sculptural and substantial. Good where you want something recognisably golf on a shelf rather than an abstract shape.

Acrylic. Lighter and more affordable, and modern full-colour printing on acrylic has come a long way — it takes a logo in full colour where crystal generally does not. A sensible choice for contest awards and larger award counts.

Wood and marble plaques. Best for perpetual awards that live on a wall at the club, with a plate added each year.

Medals. Worth remembering for junior events and larger fields, where a medal for every participant does more for the day than one trophy nobody in the field was ever going to win.

Browse the full range of golf awards and golf trophies to see how the materials compare at size.

Perpetual Trophies vs Keepers

Decide which you are running, because it changes what you order.

A keeper goes home with the winner. Every winner gets their own, every year. Simpler to administer and more satisfying for the player.

A perpetual trophy stays with the event or the club, with each year's winner engraved onto a plate. It builds history — a twenty-year-old cup with twenty names on it is a genuine asset for a tournament — but somebody has to store it, insure it, transport it, and get it back from last year's winner in time.

The usual answer is both: a perpetual trophy for the winning team, and a smaller keeper each winner takes home. That way the history accumulates and nobody goes home empty-handed.

If you are starting a perpetual trophy this year, buy one with more blank plates than you think you need. Matching the base a decade later is harder than it sounds.

Engraving: What to Say and When to Order

What goes on it. Event name, year, award category, and the winner's name if you know it in advance. If you do not — and for team awards you usually will not — order with everything but the name and have the plate added afterward, or use a blank plate the winner can have engraved locally.

Keep it short. Engraving areas are small, and cramming four lines into a space meant for two makes an expensive award look cheap.

Check the spelling twice. Engraving is permanent, and a misspelled club name on a perpetual trophy is there for twenty years.

On timing: engraved and decorated awards run on artwork approval, not on the order date, and engraving adds a step after that. This is the category where late ordering hurts most — a towel can be swapped for a similar towel at short notice, and a specific crystal award cannot. Settle the award list early, even if names get added at the last minute.

The Ceremony Itself

Twenty minutes. Not an hour. Your field has been in the sun since seven and the bar is open.

A run of show that works:

1. Thank the volunteers first. They are still working.

2. Thank every sponsor by name, out loud. Not a slide — read them.

3. Contest awards — longest drive, closest to the pin, putting. Fast, one after another.

4. Runner-up, then winners. Photograph every handover. Assign someone to this specifically; "someone will get a picture" means nobody does.

5. The total raised, if it's a fundraiser. Present the check.

6. The ask for next year, while everyone is still in the room and still pleased with the day.

Have the awards table set up and visible from the start of the ceremony, not carried out at the end. People look at it while they wait, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Common Mistakes

Ordering to the exact number. A tie for closest to the pin is not unusual. Order a spare.

Plastic on the top table. A lightweight trophy in the winner's hand undoes an otherwise well-run day, and it is the photograph that circulates.

Awards nobody can identify. An abstract crystal shape with no engraving is a paperweight by August. Make sure the event name is on it.

Forgetting the photographer at the awards. More tournaments get this wrong than get it right. The awards are the visual record of your event; if nobody shoots them, the event has no visual record.

Leaving the award list open too long. You can add a name late. You cannot add a trophy late.

How Global Golf Events Helps

Global Golf Events has been supplying golf tournaments since 2001, and Tournament Showroom carries the awards side alongside everything else the day needs — golf trophies and awards, on-course signage for your contest and sponsor holes, and tournament gift sets for the players who didn't win anything.

Free artwork set-up, a proof emailed for your approval before you pay, and free ground shipping in the continental U.S. on any size order.

If you want help putting an awards table together for your next event, request a custom merchandise quote or call 866-701-8027. Artwork goes to art@tournamentshowroom.com.