Luckily for the golfers, sunset was not until late in the evening, which allowed everyone to finish the game. “Dinner had to be pushed back a little, but we were able to pull it off.”

The situation would not have worked out so well had the group been playing somewhere where the sun sets earlier. “If you're playing at the wrong time of year, and the sun goes down during the tournament, you're in trouble. Luckily, the attendees thought it was a riot.”

Jones' advice? While most U.S. courses know how to organize shotgun starts, those in Europe and other international destinations might not, so don't make any assumptions. As for Jones, even when he's organizing events stateside, he is now extra careful.

“If I haven't been to the course before, I gently ask them if they have experience with shotgun starts. At first, they look at me like I'm nuts, but when I tell them what happened in Scotland, they get it.”

Sometimes, It's Just Bad Luck

When most people think of the Bahamas, images of sunshine and beaches come to mind. Not so for Robert Hatheway, president, RJH Associates, Windsor Locks, Conn. Just days before a three-day tournament he had planned at the former Bahamas Princess Hotel (now the Country Club at Bahamia) on Grand Bahama Island, a severe storm hit, forcing the group to cancel the event.

“The storm was so bad that the airports shut down and we couldn't even get the group there,” he says. He worked with the property to reschedule the tournament and managed to find an alternate date that worked for the course and the 80 golfers.

When the group flew into the Bahamas for the rescheduled tournament, Hatheway was relaxed and ready to go. But the day of the event, the island was hit with a second storm — this time, it was a hurricane.

Knowing that it would be impossible to reschedule a third time, Hatheway and his contact at the golf course scrambled to come up with a viable solution. Using makeshift miniature golf holes left over from a trade show, they constructed a nine-hole miniature putting course in a large meeting room at the hotel.

“We put little lights in each hole, turned down the room lights, and got some luminous golf balls.” The effect was unusual, and it got the golfers into the spirit. “These were serious golfers, but this setup allowed them to relax and still be competitive. We put people in teams and had all sorts of putting contests with a variety of prizes. It became a fun event that maintained the spirit of the tournament.”

The experience taught Hatheway that when negotiating the contract, it's critical to spell out how to deal with a weather-related postponement. “We always try to get an arrangement where we will commit to come back to the golf course and hold the tournament within a certain number of months, but usually with a lower number of attendees.”

What Happens in Vegas … Doesn't Always Stay in Vegas

John Lehmann thought that he had pulled off the impossible: securing 16 tee times at Shadow Creek, a private course in Las Vegas where tee times are few and far between. As president of Network Sports Marketing, an event-planning company in Wellington, Fla., Lehmann was tasked with organizing the golf event as part of a sales trip for a small group of investment bankers and their clients.

Knowing the group would be out partying the night before, Lehmann scheduled the first tee time for 10 a.m to ensure that everyone would make it to the course on time. The first foursome arrived promptly at 10, but when the second group showed up, one golfer was missing. No worries, thought Lehmann. The group could be pushed back to the next tee time, 12 to 14 minutes later.

As tee times kept passing and there was still no sign of the missing fourth golfer, he began to worry. After trying to phone the golfer at the hotel and on his cell phone, “we just couldn't get in touch with him. We knew that someone had last seen him at the roulette table at 2 a.m. the night before.”