The 6 tools we actually use to plan a group golf trip in 2026

What it does. Picks a destination the whole group can agree on (given everyone's home airport, dates, and budget), then generates a day-by-day itinerary with real green fees, lodging estimates, and booking deep links. Once the group starts booking, the trip page holds every confirmation number — flight, hotel, rental car, tee times — in one view, so you're not searching your email inbox at the Hertz counter. Free.

Why it's here. Nothing else does the group-coordination part. Most trip apps assume you've already picked Scottsdale. If your group has four people flying from four different cities with different budgets and different dates, the first real problem is deciding, not booking. Scramble reconciles the inputs and hands you three or four destinations that actually work for everyone.

The concession. Scramble doesn't book tee times directly (Supreme Golf and GolfNow do that better) and doesn't track the daily expense ledger (Tricount does that better). It's the planning and coordination layer, not the whole stack.

Free. No sales call, no concierge markup, and you keep your hotel and airline loyalty status because every booking goes through the brand's own site via deep link. scrambletrip.com

What it does. An aggregator for public-course tee times. Supreme Golf pulls listings from GolfNow, TeeOff, Chronogolf, and direct-course APIs into one searchable view, and it doesn't add a markup — you pay the same price you would on the underlying platform.

Why it's here. The same course on the same day is often listed on two or three platforms at two or three different prices. We used to cycle through GolfNow, TeeOff, and the course's own site for every booking; Supreme Golf shows the options in one grid, with the final price-after-fees visible. For a group booking six rounds, the cumulative savings are real.

The concession. For last-minute tee times inside 72 hours, go directly to GolfNow — their Hot Deals are often the cheapest option and don't always surface in the aggregator view. And resort courses (Pebble, Bandon, Pinehurst, Sand Valley) still require booking direct.

What it does. Hole-by-hole GPS yardages, scorekeeping, stat tracking, and a live group scorecard that syncs so the foursome on the next tee can see who is winning.

Why it's here. Somebody in the group has to run the skins game or Nassau without keeping score on the back of a Titleist box, and the group scorecard is the feature that actually gets used. We picked 18Birdies over the main alternatives because its social layer is built for groups first — invite links, shared leaderboard, push notifications when someone makes a birdie two holes ahead. That pull is what keeps everyone logging scores instead of the notes app.

The concession. If premium features matter to you, Hole19 is the cheapest serious alternative at about $30 a year. If you need an official USGA-posted handicap from the same app, TheGrint is the only one that does that. All three push a paid tier hard, but the free version of 18Birdies is enough for a weekend.

What it does. Shared ledger. Everyone in the group enters what they paid as the week goes on. On Sunday night it shows you who owes whom what, in one number per person, with a one-tap settle link.

Why it's here. Splitwise used to be the default pick here, but as of 2026 the free tier is ad-walled and caps you at a handful of expenses per day. Tricount does the same job without ads, without daily limits, and with multi-currency built in. For a four- or six-person weekend trip, it's the cleaner experience.

The concession. If your crew runs the same trip every year and already has a five-year Splitwise ledger with partial settlements and IOUs, stay on Splitwise — the data portability isn't great. For a new trip with a new group, start fresh on Tricount.

What it does. Picks up your clubs from your door, ships them to the resort, and has them waiting in the bag room when you arrive. Reverse trip home on Sunday.

Why it's here. For golf trips specifically, the differentiator is Ship Sticks' partnerships with Bandon, Streamsong, Pinehurst, and the Troon network. At those resorts you play your last round, leave your bag in the pro shop, and the resort staff packs it and hands it off to Ship Sticks. You walk onto the plane home with nothing but a carry-on. LugLess is cheaper if you're willing to handle packing and drop-off yourself, but the resort handoff is the feature worth paying for on a bucket-list trip.

The concession. Standard ground shipping runs $40–$65 one-way, with cross-country shipping pushing $75+. If your flight is nonstop and under about 500 miles, just check the bag — it's cheaper and faster.

What it does. Makes a dinner reservation for a group of six without calling fourteen restaurants at 4 PM on Friday.

Why it's here. OpenTable lists about 60,000 restaurants; Resy lists around 25,000 — and Resy's inventory skews toward major metros. Most golf trips end up in resort towns or small cities (Pinehurst, Bandon, Bend, Brainerd) where Resy has thin coverage and OpenTable still has the local steakhouse, the brewpub, and the one Italian place everyone goes. For a group of six walking in cold on a Friday night, OpenTable is the one that prevents the 90-minute wait and the 11 PM seating.

The concession. In major metros (New York, LA, Vegas), Resy has the better high-end inventory and typically lists the reservations OpenTable doesn't. And the best golf-town steakhouses — the kind with a members-only tab — often don't list on either. Your hotel concierge still beats both for those.