Elected to Golf Club Committee

Back9bandit

Guy's, I've been elected to the men's club committeeof my golf club. We are a championship, parkland course and one of the best in the area,ok, I'm a little biased but it is a good course and a decent test for all levels of golfer. We are based in north cork,a few minutes from the motorway and like a lot of other clubs, we could be better off financially.
I am looking for ideas to increase our take up on our open comps. Any ideas would be appreciated,maybe your club came up with a new idea?
By the way, new membership available at a very reasonable rate for 2013.
OK, sales pitch over.
Any ideas?

ShriekingSheet

Back9bandit wrote: »

Guy's, I've been elected to the men's club committeeof my golf club. We are a championship, parkland course and one of the best in the area,ok, I'm a little biased but it is a good course and a decent test for all levels of golfer. We are based in north cork,a few minutes from the motorway and like a lot of other clubs, we could be better off financially.
I am looking for ideas to increase our take up on our open comps. Any ideas would be appreciated,maybe your club came up with a new idea?
By the way, new membership available at a very reasonable rate for 2013.
OK, sales pitch over.
Any ideas?

A couple of suggesions...

Seems like everywhere in Dublin (don't know about Cork) has open singles on the same day every week - Wednesday. Why not sus out what day the popular opens are on near you, and go with a different day, eg: Thursday or Friday. Yes, Wednesday is a more traditional day, and people are used to playing on the middle day of the week, but you could have a more captive audience by choosing a new day.

Seniors (Over 50) opens can be very popular. Pick an off peak day, as many guys are retired, and you can get in a nice crowd for it. Again, watch what other clubs do the same and don't pick the same day.

You could also look at some type of coffee-shop-style loyalty scheme. Reward visiting players for regularly playing in your opens. Something like play 3 opens in the season, and your fourth one is free, or half price.

Do deals for your members to encourage invites. So a member bringing 3 guests to fill a line, doesn't just pay the fee x 3. Often the hosting members (eg: if it's business related) will be paying the green fees. Make life easy for them and they'll be more likely to invite more guests.

tommyombomb

Play north cork myself. A thing I always wonder is why courses don't sell holes to businesses for a set period. Say 5-10yrs. Each hole would then be named after a business/club etc. I would be surprised if this wasn't popular as business people traditionally play golf.

matt-dublin

start advertising on facebook and move opens to the weekend.

Seves Three Iron

ShriekingSheet wrote: »

Seems like everywhere in Dublin (don't know about Cork) has open singles on the same day every week - Wednesday. Why not sus out what day the popular opens are on near you, and go with a different day, eg: Thursday or Friday.

Good suggestion. Can't believe more clubs haven't copped onto this by now actually. My day off (before kid arrived) was Friday and I used to struggle to find an open to play in. In the whole of Leinster there was consistently only four opens; Abbeyleix, Charlesland, Kilcock and Naas. I used to end up travelling all the way down to Abbeyleix a lot of Fridays when you'd have upwards of 25 on a Wednesday.

Dr_Colossus

+1 on what ShriekingSheet said above.

Also as someone who plays their fair share of open events an important aspect is the transparency of posted scores and convenience of prizes. In terms of scores, have the winning scores posted on your website the following day if at all possible. Participants of open events don't want to have to ring the club to inquire what score won and if their 37pts was in with a shout.
If in the prizes make them convenient (personally GUI or otherwise universal vouchers that can be posted out are best). Prizes don't need to be substantial or valuable (that's up to the finances and sponsors of the club) but you shouldn't expect visitors to travel great distances back to the club to collect their prize and perhaps on another occasion to exchange it.
Good luck with the new post.

Also try and have some variety in the open events, alot of Leinster and particularly Wicklow clubs seem to be focused on fourball events during bank holiday weekends. You can't really go wrong with open singles in terms of convenience with the added benefit of having them as qualifying comps in terms of handicap adjustment but perhaps an occasional open strokes competition would entice a few golfers also if your club doesn't already hold scratch cups.

mike12

U want as many vistors as possiable or to make a bit of money out of members playing so charge members more and have a vistors prize section. So first second and third for vistors.
If u can the bacon bap included in the price even if the fee is a few quid more always goes down well.
Mike

Almaviva

Bandit, are you sure this is part of the brief of the men's club committee ? Check the scope that this committee has unless you are already familiar with what they do.
In many clubs, the "Men's Club" is responsible for mens club competitions, handicaps, interclub teams - and not much more. Opens, fundtraising, advertising, etc, are part of the general running of the club and likely the remit of a joint committee or professional management.
It may be fine in your case, but worth checking out before you go too far, and find out no one on that committee is interested in that particular topic.

ShriekingSheet

Almaviva wrote: »

Bandit, are you sure this is part of the brief of the men's club committee ? Check the scope that this committee has unless you are already familiar with what they do.
In many clubs, the "Men's Club" is responsible for mens club competitions, handicaps, interclub teams - and not much more. Opens, fundtraising, advertising, etc, are part of the general running of the club and likely the remit of a joint committee or professional management.
It may be fine in your case, but worth checking out before you go too far, and find out no one on that committee is interested in that particular topic.

Nyasus.

No one is interested? It might not be your remit?

Everyone in the club, never mind the committee or management team, has an interest in tweaking the club activities to make things better.

If there's a good idea, regardless of where it comes from, it should be implimented.

Whether the implimentation is done by a General Manager, Men's Committee, Club Pro, Board of Directors or the cleaning staff is semantics.

The OP obviously has a bit of enthusiasm and the sense to look for new ways to improve the club. Any club would be glad to have this kind of guy. Referring him to the fine print of political make-up of the club is just bananas.

You don't need a Dáil sub-committie vice-chairperson to second a motion of support, pending further investigation into the feasibility of changing open competitions to Fridays.

Just fecking do it.

ssbob

Back9bandit wrote: »

Guy's, I've been elected to the men's club committeeof my golf club. We are a championship, parkland course and one of the best in the area,ok, I'm a little biased but it is a good course and a decent test for all levels of golfer. We are based in north cork,a few minutes from the motorway and like a lot of other clubs, we could be better off financially.
I am looking for ideas to increase our take up on our open comps. Any ideas would be appreciated,maybe your club came up with a new idea?
By the way, new membership available at a very reasonable rate for 2013.
OK, sales pitch over.
Any ideas?

I know the club well based on other posts you have posted, I am originally from very local to that course, for me:

1. The club already has quite a number of open competitions running throughout the week and weekend but these are not advertised well enough.
2. You have recently updated your website which was a good step but this needs constant maintenance and links to twitter/facebook to build up a database of players who play the course regularly
3. The course has a bad name for drainage with anyone you talk with so would be worthwhile putting stat's on the website of how many days it has been closed throughout the year etc if the club(you) disagreed with this point.
4. The big thing for the course you are specifically on about would be course welcome, it can be hot and cold whenever you go there depending on who's working!

It is easier for me to comment however as I know the course in question.

lowelife

Surprised noone has mentioned this already.

Free entry fee and greenfees to all boards members who bring a guest to an open competion at your club

PARlance

Back9bandit wrote: »

OK, sales pitch over.
Any ideas?

Letting us know the course in question would be first step in a pitch

Back9bandit

Thanks for all the replys lads. There is something to be taken from all of them. Keep them coming.
It's no secret that the course in question is Mitchelstown but I wasnt sure about canvassing for business on boards.
If any boards members want to pay greenfees im sure we can come to some arrangement. Leave it with me.
I wil udae on how some of these ideas have been recieved, after our next mens club meeting

Keano

Well the boards society is always looking for good deals :pac:

Rikand

Keano A Legend wrote: »

Well the boards society is always looking for good deals :pac:

Might get ye for 3 or 4 outings in Athlone so

GreeBo

lads Boards.ie has strict rules on advertising...
back on topic please!

Rikand

Just want to thank everyone who posted all the great suggestions here. I have a committee meeting tonight myself and was asked to try and source a few ideas for promotion and I am yoinking one or two of the suggestions made here

so yeah

cheers