Events and Calendar

Purpose

Events power the public diary on your site, the homepage "What's On" widget, and the iCal/Google Calendar feeds. They cover anything date-bound: competitions, club socials, ladies' away days, junior coaching, course closures.

Three sources, one calendar

Every event in your diary comes from one of three places. They all write to the same collection and are kept in sync automatically:

Manual — you create an event in the admin.
CSV import — you upload a spreadsheet of events (Events > Import CSV).
Golf Genius sync — the Golf Genius integration pulls competitions on a schedule.

When two sources describe the same event (same calendar day, same venue, very similar title) the system merges them into one event instead of creating a duplicate. You don't need to do anything — see How duplicates are detected below.

When to use this

Use an Event for anything that happens on a specific date. Use a Post for the write-up afterwards.

Key fields

Title — the event name (e.g. "Captain's Day 2026").
Start date / End date — required. Use the All-day toggle for events without a clock time.
Venue — relationship to the Venues collection. See Clubs and Venues.
Categories — pick from the Event Categories taxonomy.
Source — Manual, CSV, Golf Genius. Set automatically; flips to Golf Genius if a Golf Genius sync later claims a manual/CSV event.
External ID / External URL — the Golf Genius identifier and link to the GG entry page. Managed by the sync — don't touch these.
Entry info — text shown on the event detail page (closing date, entry fee, how to enter).
Attachments — PDFs (entry forms, conditions of play).
Featured image — used by the diary thumbnail and social shares.

Common tasks

Add a manual event

Events > Events, Create New.
Title, Start date, End date.
Pick Venue (or create a new one).
Categories (Competition, Social, Coaching).
Entry info, attachments.
Status = Published, Save.

If a very similar event already exists for that date and venue, a yellow "Similar event already exists" note appears in the sidebar with a link to it. Saving is never blocked — the warning is there so you can decide whether to open the existing one and edit it instead.

Import events from a CSV

Events > Import CSV.
Use the template (columns: title, date, time, endDate, endTime, venue, description, category).
Upload. Rows that match an existing event (same day + same venue + ≥90% title match) update the existing event rather than creating a duplicate.

CSV imports never overwrite an operator's title or venue edits, and never replace a Golf Genius external link. A CSV row's main contribution to an existing event is a richer description if the existing one is shorter.

Bulk-import via Golf Genius

Configure Golf Genius Settings and the scheduled sync pulls competitions, brackets, and starting times into Events automatically. If a synced competition matches an event you created manually or imported via CSV, the sync merges into your existing event and stamps it with the Golf Genius link.

Cancel an event

Don't delete it (the URL might be cached). Instead:

Set the title to "CANCELLED — original title".
Update Entry info with the reason.
Status = Published (so members see the cancellation note).

How duplicates are detected

An incoming event is treated as a duplicate of an existing one when all three of these are true:

Same calendar day (UTC) — 11:55 PM and 12:05 AM are different days, even five minutes apart.
Same venue — either the same venue from the dropdown, or the same free-text venue name (case-insensitive). An event with no venue at all is never merged.
Title similarity ≥ 90% — measured by word-overlap, so:
- "Captain's Day 2026" and "Captains Day 2026" → merged (punctuation ignored).
- "Captain's Day — Birchwood" and "Captain's Day – Birchwood" → merged (dash style ignored).
- "Boys Open Competition" and "Girls Open Competition" → kept separate (different words at the front).
- "Men's MPC" and "Senior Men's MPC" → kept separate.

What edits survive a future sync

When a Golf Genius sync (or repeat CSV import) lands on an existing event, your edits are preserved with these rules:

| Field | Who wins | |---|---| | Title, venue, dates, categories, entry info | Your edit always wins. Future syncs never overwrite. | | Description, Short description | The longer of the two is kept — so a richer write-up isn't replaced by a shorter one. | | External ID, External URL, Source | Golf Genius wins when a GG sync matches the event. This is how the GG link gets stamped onto an event you created manually. |

In short: rename a synced event, change its venue, or rewrite its description — your changes stick.

Gotchas

Events without a venue can't be deduplicated. Always set a venue (relation or free text) so the matcher can join up duplicates from other sources.
Times don't have to match. An all-day event (00:00) and a timed event (13:00) on the same day at the same venue with similar titles will be merged. Prefer the timed version — it's more accurate.
Recurring events aren't a built-in concept. Create one event per occurrence or use a single all-day event spanning the whole series.
Calendar Settings (under Events) control which views are visible (month/week/agenda) and which colour each category gets.