Rewrote the reply. Part 1 of 2.
Settings up to you one. I woulduse 3D colour matrix and af-s. Golfers dont exactly run around. They stay in one spot when they play. Unless you want to do panning of buggy moving around then use af-c
Buggy is needed for the photographer to go to different holes or follow a flight (I.e. VIP)
It is okay if buggy is not provisioned. Following a flight can be boring. It's not as if the golfers are the Tiger Woods or celebrities. And the event organizers most likely want you to take as many participants as possible.
It's difficult if you are not familiar with the game of golf and it's rules. So the risk is you might get injured or interfere with play. I would recommend you ask the organizer to attach someone who knows the game to be your assistant and follow you. That assistant can help you look out for ball as well.
For a competition of 10 flights, normally the organizer will split 5 flights to take front nine (meaning Hole No. 1) and the other 5 flights to start at back nine (meaning Hole No. 10). Note that at some courses, they may not have hole no. 10 but they use a different course No. 1. For example (just for illustration purposes as I can't remember now) in Palm Villa golf course, they have Palm (9 holes), Resort (9 holes) and Ocean (9 holes) courses. So hole 9 may be Ocean course Hole No. 1. So take note of this. All courses have their course map for download. Go to their web site and get yourself familiar with the course. On the actual day, get yourself a score card which will show the hole layouts. Start planning your shots as you will know which hole will have bunkers, hazards, ... etc. Look out for special holes like the signature hole. It can be the green is protected by a flower like pattern... etc or the most common is the green is on an island.
I would suggest you position yourself at hole 1.
Take a group shot of every flight with your 17-55 lens. Simple group shots to show off their drivers. You can get them to pose rather than the boring stand with driver beside each other type of shot. Just don't make a lot of noise because you can be sure some one else is teeing off.
Take some shots of players teeing off with your 18-200 lens at 200mm. You want to move away at 200mm because noise will affect the players' concentration. Even though for most non-professionals, this is really a convenient excuse for a bad shot. I know because I use the excuses most of the time. But I am sure you do not want to blame for that by your CEO right? Though, it is the quickest way for him/her to notice you.
For player tee off shots go for the point of impact when the club hit the ball. Generally you will see a bit of motion blur at the club head but it's okay for this kind of shot. The best is if you can capture the ball just start flying off. This kind of shot is very difficult as you need practice and fast lens will help. Shots like
this but not too much of it because this is to cover an event and not to show others that you have an eye for composition. Other samples are like
this,
this,
this and
this.
Nevertheless, the most important and much easier shot is to take the player finishing pose. I.E. their finishing position and they looking at where their ball fly. Samples are like
this,
this or
this or
this.
After taking the first 5 flights, follow the last flight of the front nine for 1st three holes to take bunker shots, hazard shots and green shots.
For bunker shots it will be good to show how deep a bunker can be. Basically you take the ground and the player standing inside the bunker. A better shot is to capture the player hitting out of bunker. So freeze the ball flying out of the bunker, some sand being kick out, ... etc. You can use your 18-200 lens at a distance.
Samples are like
this,
this,
this and
this (but I highly recommend that you don't take this shot!).