turfsand:
a simple handicap system would be helpful?
That's a pretty good start if you're planning on running a championship based on stroke play games. If you play your tourney based on gross scores or match play, you can pretty much pick who will be at the top and who will be at the bottom prior to beginning the tourney. Setup a handicap and it's anyone's game. Participation becomes the most important aspect in a "net score" championship event.
Another suggestion ... setup several major tourneys that are played every month and award points to all members that participate based on how they finish. Have a monthly carry-forward of this points leaderboard for each major. For the championship, take the points from each major and add them together for your club championship.
Be sure to weight your tourneys. If you have a single-round 9 hole tourney that you play weekly, this should have a relatively low points ranking, but awarded for each tourney. If you run an 18 hole tourney, it should be twice as much points as the 9 hole tourney.
I'm not real big on multiple-round tourneys (one game with 2, 3 or 4 rounds played). It seems you get more WD's than scores posted. Most of the time it's because the player missed the round for whatever reason. If you setup two separate tourneys for a two round event and play them for a week, you'll get more player participation and less WD's.
It also seems like 9 hole games get more participation than 18 hole games. Might I suggest setting up a "front 9" and a "back 9" event ... two different tourneys played on the same course with the same conditions, just one on the front and one on the back.
The problem that I see with this, however ... you have 10 free tourneys you can run at any one time ... so you'll have to limit the amount of free games you allow your member to create.