Lady Golfers Forum User Manual

Lady Golfers Forum is a community for women golfers to talk about golf, share experiences, organize rounds with friends and track their golf handicap.

This manual explains the main features of the site. You can use the Manual Topics menu to jump directly to the feature you want to learn about.

Creating an account allows you to participate in discussions, organize golf outings, receive invitations and use other member features.

Email verification helps confirm that the email address associated with your account belongs to you.

Registered members can log in using their Lady Golfers Forum account.

If you prefer, you can use the Google login option available on the login page.

Follow the Google sign-in instructions and authorize the login when requested.

You may also use the Facebook login option when available on the Lady Golfers Forum login page.

Select the Facebook login option and follow the authentication instructions provided by Facebook.

If you forget your password, use the password-reset option from the login page.

Your profile contains information associated with your Lady Golfers Forum account.

Select Profile from the navigation bar to view or manage the available profile options.

Log into LadyGolfersForum.com with your current username and password. Then click the "profile" tab (top of website).

If you want to use a different forum username, you can change it from your profile.

Your updated username will be used when your account is displayed throughout Lady Golfers Forum.

We do not recommend changing username too often. If you must change it, be sure to let your friends know as in their friends list your new username would appear.

Threads are conversations started by members of the forum. You must be logged into the LadyGolfersForum.com first, then follow steps below.

Categories help other golfers find discussions that interest them.

Current forum categories include topics such as General, Golf Goals, Golf Confessions, Swing Technique, Gear and Equipment, and Funny Moments.

Photos can make golf discussions considerably easier to understand, particularly when discussing equipment, courses or swing questions.

Use the image option provided when creating or contributing to supported forum content.

Lady Golfers Forum supports YouTube content in forum discussions.

To add a video, first click the "Create New Thread" Tab or the icon to get into the Create New Thread form. Then simply insert (or type out) the url of the youtube video into the thread body, along with rest of your thread. Be sure to give your thread a Title , then click "Post Thread"

This is particularly useful when sharing golf swings, instruction videos, equipment reviews or memorable golf moments.

Open the thread you want to participate in and use the reply option to join the discussion.

The notification bell alerts you when activity relevant to your account occurs.

You can get notifications informing you when people respond to your thread. And because there are many other features that come with this forum such as organizing rounds you get notified here also when you have a golf outing invitation from your friends and likewise if you planned the round and invited your friends then they would also get notifications, all viewable here upon clicking the notification bell icon, . Also note the bell icon only appears once you are logged in.

Select the bell to view your notifications. Selecting a notification takes you to the relevant area of the site.

Use the search box in the navigation area to find existing discussions.

Searching before creating a new thread can also help you discover earlier conversations about the same subject.

Plan a Round helps an organizer arrange a golf outing and keep track of who is playing.

It’s important to note that LadyGolfersForum does not schedule tee times directly with the golf course. That is the responsibility of the organizer of the round.

Once the organizer creates the outing using the Plan A Round form and sends out the invitations from the Outing Details Page, LadyGolfersForum handles much of the process automatically. Invitations are sent to invitees — both forum members and guests — by email and WhatsApp (when provided). In addition, invite alerts are also sent via app notifications to members of LGF. LadyGolfersForum then manages the RSVPs received from those invitations, handles the waitlist, assigns individual players to tee times, and communicates each player’s tee-time assignment by email.

See the MANAGE YOUR OUTING section of this manual for more details about these features.

Invitees who are forum members can easily check their status after logging into LadyGolfersForum. They can see whether they are playing, invited but have not yet RSVP’d, or placed on the waitlist, by selecting OUTINGS from the top navigation bar and opening the relevant outing.

That’s a big chunk of the work handled automatically, taking much of the stress out of organizing the outing. 😀

Invite-Only

Only golfers who have been invited can RSVP to the outing.

Open to Forum Members

Logged-in forum members can RSVP while places remain available.

Start typing the golf course name in the course search box.

When the correct course appears, select it from the results.

Tee times are entered using the local time at the golf course.

Lady Golfers Forum normally detects your browser's time zone. If the golf course is somewhere else, select Use a different time zone.

Your Outing Details Page

All the details obtained from the 'Plan A Round' Form will show up here. You will also see that there will be 2 buttons , the "i'm in" button and "Can't make it" buttom. You can use these to declare your intent of whether or not you are going to play. These outing details as well as the "See Who's Playing" and "See Waitlist" are available to both Organizers and Invitees.

In addition, if you are the organizer of the round, only then will you also see the "Edit Outing" , "Responses So Far", "Invite My Friends", "Manage My Friends", "Invite using Username/Email" and "Sent Invitations for this outing" panels.

The easiest way to access the Outing Details Page is by clicking on the OUTINGS 🏌️‍♀️ button at the top navigation bar and select your Outing from the list of outings. You can also access your outing details page by going to your profile page (Click on Profile) at the top navigation bar and selecting the outing from the My Upcoming Outings list.

Clicking on any panel in the Outing Details Page, will show the relvant information to that panel. eg.The " See Who's Playing panel will show a table of all invitees that have reponded with a YES Rsvp.

The following Panels described by A to C below will, as mentioned earlier, be present for Organizers Only.

C

Invite Players Section:

This section has 4 panels namely the "Invite My Friends" panel and "Manage My Friends". And the 2 after that are "Invite using Username/Email and "Sent Invitations for this Outing" panels. (a) and (b) below deals with your friends, while (c) deals with anybody.

a

Invite My Friends panel. Here you can either invite your friends individually or select as many of them and send invites to all selected friends all at one go. (See section of manual titled "Bulk Invite Friends" after scrolling further down). In order to get your friends information to this this panel you will need to add them first using the "Manage My Friends" panel below. The invites go out via email, whatsApp and app Notifications ().

b

Manage My Friends panel. Clicking this panel shows you 2 forms. It is important to note this panel just add friends to your Friends List. You cannot send invites out from here. To send out invites to friends you must go to "Invite My Friends" panel after adding them there using this "Manage My Friends" panel (above).

The first form titled "Add friends to My Friends List by their email" lets you add friends who are both forum members (those registered with LadyGolfersForum) AND with non forum members (Guests). If you know your friend's email place it in this form. Fill out a Name for your friend (optional but recommended) and a label. You don't need to know whether your friend is a forum member of ours or not, as our app figures it out behind the scenes and displays it appropriately in "My Friends List".

On the other hand if you know your friends forum username, then you can add them to your Friends List by using the other form titled "Add friends to My Friends List by their username" .

For both forms there is a part of the form where you can add your friends whatsApp number (optional but recommended). This ensures invites go out by whatsApp too.

Lastly in this part of Manage my Friends panel is the "My Friends List". This is a list of all your friends. You can remove a friend if you wish by clicking the "Remove Friend" Button next to the friend you want removed.

c

Invite using Username / Email panel. Clicking this panel will reveal 2 forms.

The first form titled "Invite Forum Member using username". Here you can invite any person who is a LadyGolferForum Member as long as you know their username. Invites will go out via email and app notifications. Additionally if this forum member has listed their whatsApp number in their individual profile, they will get a whatsApp Invite too.

The second form titled "Invite using email (can be either guest or member). Here you can invite any person whether or LadyGolferForum member or a non forum member(guest) by placeing their email in appropriate section of form. You can fill their Name (optional but recommended) and if you have their whatsApp number, fill that in too (optional but recommended). Invites will go out to forum members via app Notifications , email and whatsApp (if provided or if listed in forum members individual profile). For guests, the invites will go out as email and whatsApp (if provided).

Important to note invites sent out via whatsApp (both members and guests) can be rsvp'd right on the same whatApp invite message, there will be "Yes, I'm Playing" and "No, I can't Play" buttons.

As for email Invites to forum members, these too can be rsvp'd the same way as above. Email invites sent to guests - here the guest can click the "RSVP now" button and then rsvp accordingly.

Invites also show up in app notifications where Forum Members can log into Lady Golfers Forum , click the icon in the navigation bar at the top , then click on the notification and make their rsvp.

And when the outing gets locked (at this time no further rsvps can be made/processed) tee times get assigned to the players and emails get send out to each individual invitee (both forum members and guests too). Forum member invitees will also get an app notification . As explained further is the section of outing title "Locking An Outing" the outing gets locked at the cut off hours before the first tee time , so as to give the organizer a chance to communicate to golf course if there would be any unused tee times.

Upon sending out the invitations the organizer of the outing can click on the "Sent invitations for this outing" and a table gets revealed, an example is shown below.

PLease see section titled "Sample Invitations Images" (the last panel of the Outing Details Page for the Organizer) for further explanation of above table

As an organizer you will have access to the "Edit Outing" panel. Opening this panel by clicking on to iy will show a form that will look like the image below.

After creating the outing the organizer must remain flexible to changes. Perhaps she need to add another tee time so she could invvite more players. Perhaps she needs to change thhe actual times of the tee times. This is why this panel wass created.

In order to add a tee time to an existing outing, the organizer has to first click on the Edit Outing panel in the Outing Details Page of that outing as described above. Then click the green "+ Add Slot" button present on the right side. Once clicked another empty row appears below the Proposed Tee Times in the form, where the organizer can then input the additional tee time details.

As you can see in above image a second tee time has been added to the outing.

The organaizer can also change the Title and Course Name (not recommended as players can get confused as to which outing they got invited to).

You can simarley change the CutOff hours (the number of hours before the first tee time at which point outing is automatically locked, and no further Rsvps can be made past this point). In the image above Cut Off hours are set at 24, which means 24 hours before the first tee time ,the outing will get locked. Rsvp will be possible up to this point but not after. Also at this point players get assigned to tee times randomly. (See section on amnual titled Tee-Time Group Assignments)

Once outing gets locked the Edit Outing panel is no longer accessible by even the organizer of the outing.

Instead of inviting golfers one at a time, you can select multiple people from your Friends list. Please allow a few seconds to upto a minute for bulk Inviting. Your friends List can have forum members and/or guests.

Below see picture of the Friends List from the Friend Manager section of the Outing Details Page.

Notice while some emails are visible others have a message saying "Email is on file, but hidden for confidentiality" (Since there is no way for us to know the friend in question wants her email disclosed). The reason for this is that LadyGolfersForum protects user emails from even the organizer, when the friend has been added by username. However if the organizer adds the friend to the List by the friend's email then there is no need to hide it from organizer as the email was already known to Organizer. Also notice some friends had whatsApp but not others (cause not everybody has whatsApp or the organizer did'nt include their whatsApp details in when creating their Freinds List).

In the picture above, the organizer clicked "select all friends". Now to send the invites all at one go all the organizer would have to do is click "invite Selected". When this happens our 3 forms of invites are sent out. To Guests - emails and whatsApp (if provided) invitations are sent out. Forum Members - The invites sent out are app notifications, emails and whatsApp (if either provided by organizer or already on file with forum members LadyGolfersForum account (ie. profile)).

If the golfer is a Lady Golfers Forum member, you can invite her using her forum username.

In the Outing Details Page, for the outing in question, an organizer can click on the panel titled "Invite using Username / Email", upon clicking which reveals a drop down form, see picture below.

Fill out the only field in the form titled "Invite Forum Member using username" with the username of the forum member.

Note that in this section of Outing Details Page you can only send out invitations one person at a time. Useful for inviting those that you do not intend to regularly invite, but want to include them in a particular outing.

After clicking the "Invite Forum Member" LadyGolfersForum will send out invitations to member by app notification and by email. Also an invitation will be sent to the forum member by whatsApp if her whatsApp number is on file with LadyGolfersForum.

If you have a group of people you regularly play with you can create a Friends List by clicking the "Manage My Friends" panel and follow steps in the "Bulk Invite Friends" section of manual.

You can also send an outing invitation using an email by clicking on the "Invite using Username/ Email" panel of the Outing Details Page. Then fill in the form titled "Invite using email (can be either guest or member)", and then click the "Invite By Email - Guest or Member" button. The email address can belong to either a guest or a forum member.

This section can be useful when you know the golfer's email address but you are unsure as to wether or not she is a member of Lady Golfers Forum.

If the email belongs to a forum member, LadyGolfersForum will recognize it and all send out invitation by app notification to them as well by email and whatsApp (if their whatsApp number is already on file with LadyGolfersForum in the invitee members profile account or is provided in this part of the form). Invitation to a guest will be sent out both via email and whatsApp (if provided in this part of form)

A golfer does not necessarily have to be a registered Lady Golfers Forum member for you to include her in your outing.

Invite the guest using her email address (and whatsApp number if provided) right from the Outing Details Page. See section of manual titles "Invite By Email" to invite one guest at a time. Also see section titled "Bulk Invite Friends" where you can send inviations to multiple friends/guests all at once.

The invitation is sent out by email (and whatsApp, if provided), just as it is with forum members. The guest can RSVP by clicking "RSVP now" on the email invitation message they receive or also by clicking "Yes, i'm Playing" button in whatsApp invitation message (if whatsApp number was provided).

See section under Manage Your Outing for more details.

The guest can make her rsvp right from the whatsApp invite by clicking either the "Yes i'm Playing button" or "No, I'm Not Playing" button.

Also see pictures of the email invites in section of manual titled "Sample Invitation Images" or "view Sample Invites"

A whatsApp invitation (see below) to an Invitee. Invitees (both forum members and guests) may make their Rsvp right from the whatsApp Invitaion. No need to log into forum first.

Upon clicking the "Yes, I'm Playing" , then depending on wther there are any open spots left you can either can a "You're Confirmed to Play" message or a "You're placed on Waitlist" message. See the 2 pictures below.

And, if there are no spots left a message letting the Invitee know that she has been placed on the waitlist. See below.

Below - An email invitation sent to an Invitee who is a forum member too. As you can see the Invitee can rsvp by clicking either the green button to indicate she will be playing or the red button to indicate she will not be playing. Right from the email. No need log into forum to make rsvp, done right from email message.

And for a guest the email invite looks like picture below.

Clicking the "RSVP Now" button in the guest invite will take you to a screen where guest can select and send either her "Yes, I'm Playing" or "No, I can't Play" rsvp. See pic below.

Forum members invitees also get app notification as shown in picture below when they click the bell icon once they are logged into LadyGolfersForum.

When the invited forum member clicks on the invite that came into the app notification she will then be taken to the Outing Detals Page for Invitees. Remember the Outing Details Page for the organizer have all the invite tools that the one for the invitees (see below) will not have.

From the Outing Details Page as shown above, the forum member invitee can make her Rsvp by clicking either clicking on "Yes, I'm Playing" or "I Can't Make it" buttons. Below is the Outing Details Page of the organizer for comparison. Can you see the difference?

The organizer of the outing as seen above has the following panels/tools(in addition to the ones available to guests) in her Outing Details Page - "Edit Outing", "Responses So Far", "Invite My Friends", "Manage My Friends", "Invite using Username / Email" and lastly "Sent Invitations for this outing" panels(tools).

Upon sending out the invitations the organizer of the outing can click on the "Sent invitations for this outing" and a table gets revealed, an example is shown below.

The table above shows the sent invites ✅ and what medium sent through (ie Via Notification, Email) but not whatsApp .

For example Yvonne's Invite was sent to her by app Notification , By Email but not By whatsApp (see the ❌ under whatsApp). So in this case she could make her rsvp both via notification and/or email.

In comparison Britanny can make her rsvp through any of the three mediums (via app Notifications, Email and whatsApp) as her invite was sent through all three as marked with ✅.

Notice that for a guest invitee (Kayla and Rebecca) there is a ❌ under the Notification medium, as app notifications are only available to forum members not guests.

Clicking either ✅ or ❌ will trigger an information pop up message that tells the organizer what email or what whatsApp number the invite was sent to, if ✅ is clicked and if ❌ is clicked the pop up reveals the reason why the invite was not sent via that perticular medium.

Below see some images when either ✅ or ❌ is clicked

✅🔒 Simply means that the invite went succesfully through that particular medium but for privacy reasons, the forum members whatsApp or Email is not disclosed in the Pop up message (see above)

Invitees can respond to their invitations by indicating whether they are playing or not. All invites sent out have rsvp buttons that the invitees click namely "Yes, I'm Playing" and "No, I'm Not Playing".

Golfers that responded (rsvp'd) as "Yes I'm Playing" are placed into the playing pool while available capacity remains. Their info appears in the "See Who's Playing" panel.

A golfer can change her mind too. Say she responded with a YES rsvp but later circumstances change, she can go back to her invite then click "No, I'm Not Playing". In this case the app removes her from the PLAYING pool and she no longer appears in the "See Whos Playing section".

The Who's Playing section shows the golfers who have confirmed that they are playing in the outing and there are available slots in the outing. THey are then placed in a PLAYING pool which then shows up in the "See Who's Playing" panel. .

Forum members have access (can look into) this panel but guest Invitees can not, even though guest invitees can appear in the See Who's Playing panel.

In above example 4 players are playing 2 members , Yvonne and Brooke and 2 guests, Kayla and Rebecca.

Each golf outing comes with certain playing capacity.

When the available playing capacity is full, additional golfers who respond Yes are placed on the waitlist.

If a place later becomes available, the first golfer from the waitlist is automatically promoted from waitlist status to playing status. Thats the whole idea behind it. It's for people who are willing to be on stand by just incase a spot opens up at which point they can get to play.

Above message show up if an Invitee (can be either a guest or a forum member) gets placed into the waitlist after they click the "Yes, I'm Playing" button of the invite sent to her whatsApp and email and if no open slots are available.

The outing detail page for members who are place on wait list does appear as below.

Invitee Forum Members who have been placed on whats app can also click on "Leave Waitlist" if they are no longer interested in being on stand by.

Locking happens at the cutt off hours before the first Tee Time. Say the cut off hours upon creating the outing is 48 hours. Then locking happens automatically 48 hours before the first Tee Time. No further rsvps can be processed past the lock time. As an organizer you could edit the outing and make the cut off hours way lower. This way invitees who perhaps want to play but unable to rsvp due to late decisions, can rsvp if outings cut off hours are lowered. We recommend anywhere between 24 to 48 hours.

The main reason for this early locking is so that it gives the organizer time to communicate to the course to cancel unused tee times if any (ethically, the right thing to do).

Locking finalizes the outing so the participating golfers can be assigned to the available tee times. The assignment is communicated to players via app notifications when they do occur. Players get assigned to the tee times randomly so as to avoid favoritism.

The outing automatically gets locked at cut off hours (cut off hours are decided by the organizer upon creating the outing) before the first tee time.

When the outing is locked, confirmed golfers are distributed among the tee times being used for the outing.

The players are assigned into the tee times randomly using the Fisher-Gates method and evenly distributed among the tee times. If there are 9 players with 3 tee times, the app will assign the players equally amongst the tee times , so each tee time with have 3 players assigned instead of 4 in this case. In another example if there are 7 players and 2 tee times, then it's not possible to have equal players on both tee times so the app puts 4 in one and 3 in the other.

Another example would be if there are 10 players and 3 tee times then one group will have 4 players and the other two groups will have 3 players each.

If there were 5 players total and 2 tee times then one tee time will have 3 players assigned and the other 2 players will be assigned.

In yet another example say there were 3 tee times but only 8 people responded as playing, then 4 players would be assigned to each of the first 2 tee times. This is logical as 2 tee times can accomodate all 8 players. At this point the organizer can cancel the third tewe time.

The assignment of players to their tee times is cummunicated to them via app notifications and by email. This is one of the perks of being a Lady Golfers Forum member as this notification is not avaialble to the guests, even if they get assigned to tee times , however both guest and forum member invitees will receive emails alerting them of what tee times they have been asigned to.

The Handicap Tracker lets you save golf rounds and estimate your Handicap Index using your recorded Score Differentials.

You need enough recorded rounds before an index can be calculated.

Begin typing the name of the golf course. Matching courses will appear below the search box.

Select the correct course before choosing your tee.

Select the tee that you actually played during the round.

Tee names and colors vary from course to course, so don't assume that a particular color always represents the same difficulty.

Course Rating represents the expected difficulty of the course for a scratch golfer.

Slope Rating describes the relative difficulty of the course for golfers who are not scratch golfers.

Your Adjusted Gross Score is your score after applying the appropriate maximum-hole-score rules used for handicap purposes.

This prevents one unusually high hole from having an excessive effect on your handicap calculation.

Each posted round produces a Score Differential that reflects your performance relative to the difficulty of the course and tee played.

As you enter more rounds, the tracker uses your best eligible Score Differentials to calculate your estimated Handicap Index.

With a full set of 20 rounds, the best 8 differentials are used.