Customer story
A volunteer team. A professional event.
How an all-volunteer team ran the 2026 Hazy Boy Open on ChipIn.
The Hayes Joseph Pien Organization · Troy Burne Golf Club · July 13, 2026
312 guests
on the course and at the dinner
100 hours saved
by their own conservative count
25% more raised
than the previous year
“Factoring in efficiency and also just sheer volunteer labor, this is an absolute STEAL. I think it would be a value-add at double the price, truthfully.”
A little heart, a big community.
The Hazy Boy Open is the flagship event of The Hayes Joseph Pien Organization, founded in memory of Hayes Joseph Pien, "Hazy Boy," who lived five and a half weeks and fought through open-heart surgeries. The organization supports families facing congenital heart defects and critical childhood illness, from refreshing the Ronald McDonald House at Children's Minneapolis to direct help for families in the middle of a medical crisis.
It is run entirely by volunteers. No paid staff. One tournament a year, a silent auction dinner that night, and a community that shows up in matching shirts.
Learn more at thehjp.org →
Everything lived in Google Drive.
Registration, payments, sponsors, the auction. All of it in shared folders, and all of it needing someone to go find it.
"We constantly were looking for data. Golfers, registration, who paid, sponsors, ins and outs."
The team agreed a system would help. The question was whether one existed that a volunteer committee could run.
Launch to lights out.
One site ran the whole event: registration, sponsorships, donations, check-in, live scoring, and the silent auction.
Registration without the hassle.
Foursomes, dinner-only guests, mulligan packages, and sponsors, all through the event site. Anyone who still owed was squared up from the dashboard, no spreadsheet reconciliation afterward.
"We were able to reach out to golfers and sponsors alike to process payment, which made for a much smoother experience altogether."
The day ran itself.
Check-in was a name and a hole assignment. Golfers who wanted a mulligan package or a hat bought it right there, and the sale went straight onto their order. Groups posted scores from their phones and the leaderboard moved between holes. Auction items took bids from the course, the dinner tables, and supporters who could not make it but wanted to give.
"The golfers loved the live scoring feature. The check-in was seamless. This took us from a very novice event to feeling really professional."
They knew where they stood, every step of the way.
Every registration, sponsorship, bid, and donation landed in one place, so the team watched the total climb from the first sponsor to the last bid. Bidding opened before the shotgun start, and by the first tee the auction had already passed the previous year's entire auction total.
"It supported a greater understanding of where we were at, in terms of proceeds, every step of the way."
Up to speed in minutes.
The Hazy Boy Open draws every age, from first-time golfers to grandparents who came for dinner. The check-in crew learned the app in the few minutes before doors opened and were checking golfers in, adding mulligans, and selling hats without asking for help. Guests needed nothing beyond the phone in their pocket: register, bid, and pay from a browser.
"The less tech-savvy group was educated very easily, which made the day of run smoothly."
What made the difference.
One site, real-time money
"The one stop website, ease of use, and ability for real-time P&L understanding makes ChipIn a massive value add."
Nothing missing
"There is nothing that we wanted for our tournament that ChipIn didn't offer."
See you next year.
"We will be using ChipIn for all tournaments moving forward. Any friends or colleagues that I know run tournaments, we are recommending ChipIn with five stars."
