It is a logistics problem, not a golf problem
Nobody organising a charity scramble has a golf question. They have a hundred small operational questions and one afternoon in June where all of them come due at once.
79 courses around Pittsburgh handle outings, and 77 of those have a restaurant, bar or banquet room on site. That second number is the one to filter on first, and I will explain why below.
Book earlier than feels reasonable
For a Saturday in June or September, you are looking at six to twelve months ahead. The good courses have their prime weekend dates claimed a year out, frequently by the same organisations that ran an outing there last year and rebooked on the way out of the car park.
Weekday outings are a completely different market. You can often place one within a month or two, the per-player cost is lower, and the course will be more flexible on everything. If your event does not genuinely require a Saturday, moving it to a Thursday makes the whole project easier and cheaper.
The headcount question
Most courses want somewhere around 60 to 72 players for a true shotgun start, which is enough to put a group on most tee boxes at once. Below that, you will usually be offered a modified shotgun using part of the course, or consecutive tee times.
Consecutive tee times are fine and nobody minds, but be aware they change the shape of the day. Your first group finishes ninety minutes before your last, so any post-round meal or prize giving has a long tail. With a shotgun everyone finishes together, which is why organisers want it.
If you are hovering around fifty players, ask the course directly what their threshold is rather than assuming. It varies.
What to have ready when you call
Three things, and having them ready marks you out as someone worth accommodating: headcount, date range, format. That is what determines whether a course can take you at all.
Be honest about the headcount rather than optimistic. Courses plan staffing and catering from it, and a group that promises 80 and turns up with 52 causes a problem that gets remembered.
Read what the package includes
Most courses will quote a per-player price covering golf, cart and a meal. Check specifically:
- Is the cart included or separate
- How many range balls, if any
- Whether the meal is plated or buffet, and what happens with dietary requirements
- Whether they provide scorecards with your format already set up
- What the deposit is and when the final headcount is locked
That last one catches people. Most courses lock your final number a week out, and you pay for that number whether or not everyone shows.
Prizes and contests are usually yours
Longest drive, closest to the pin, skins. The pro shop will often help with markers and signage, but the prizes themselves are normally your problem. Sort them earlier than you plan to.
The same applies to hole sponsor signs if you are running a fundraiser. Printing takes longer than you think and nobody wants to be laminating at eleven at night.
Why food on site matters more than the course
If you take one thing from this: book a course with a clubhouse that can feed everyone.
An outing where forty people finish and then disperse to find dinner separately is not an event, it is a round of golf followed by a car park. The meal is where the raffle happens, the cheques get handed over and the day actually pays for itself. Courses with banquet space are set up for this and will run it with you.
On the day
Have someone at the registration table who is not playing. Get carts loaded and staged before people arrive. Announce the format twice, because half the room will not hear it the first time and a scramble where two groups played best ball is a scoring problem you cannot fix afterwards.
Start on time. The single most common failure is a shotgun that goes off twenty minutes late, which puts the meal late, which puts the prize giving after people have started leaving.
Where to look
The outings list has all 79 courses with contact details. Call the ones with banquet space first.