Stop wasting time, effort and money. Don’t have these things on the golf course.
The three biggest wastes of your time and money are certainly the three games that you already have in your event. It is time to take them out behind the barn and shoot them.
LONG DRIVE: The first reason is that the same guy wins this thing every year. He is the guy that wins the long drive contest not only at your event, but at the Rotary Club Outing, but the Chamber of Commerce Outing in all four neighboring towns and his company outing for the past two years. He is the guy that has eleven, cheap 4” long drive recognition trophies lined up in the bookcase behind the desk in his office. He is oddly proud of each of them and looking forward to “defending his title” at each next year. Everyone yells… “cheater” as he strolls up at dinner to pick up this year’s pile of plastic. Factually speaking, only 3 or 4 people have any shot at winning the thing at any event in the country. The absolute WORST part of it is that nobody on the planet ever comes to your long drive hole and says, “Sure, I’ll give you $10 to take a shot. Watch this!”. But you have to buy that stupid trophy for both the men’s and women’s division each year, which is completely opposite of your goal of making money at your event.
CLOSEST TO THE PIN: Same thing. Statistics show that only 26% of the field will actually hit the green on a par 3 that is only 125 long. When the hole gets longer, the percentage of people that can even HIT THE GREEN is far less, let alone has any real shot of getting it close. Same crappy 4” plastic trophy only goes to the most accomplished golfers in your field. Shockingly, NOBODY ever donates cash to your cause for the chance. You are losing money with this game too!
HOLE-IN-ONE CONTEST: Perhaps the single most ridiculous waste of time and effort at any golf outing anywhere in the country. I say that having been doing this daily for 44+ years straight! The argument I get back from Event Coordinators is that “but we had the local car dealer donate the car, so it didn’t cost us anything”. So what? You probably had to pay for the signage, You probably need to have a volunteer or several out there all day because Jerry can only be out there until 12:30 and Carol needs to be off the course at 2:00 to pick up the kids for soccer practice. The golf shop has to drive the car out to the Par 3, your guests/supporters stumble up to that hole and odds are, they might not even see the car because it has become so commonplace. The length of the hole needs to be over 165 yards for this event which reduces people who can legitimately hit the green to about 18% of your field and nobody, NOBODY ever drops a $20 donation to your cause to take a shot at that shiny new Mustang. To make things far, far worse, many events actually get talked into giving the car dealership who “graciously” donated the car, a free foursome in the event which, in reality, costs them money based upon the greens fee, food & drink per player. So, NOBODY donates, you had to clothe & feed your volunteer(s), you had to stress over volunteer schedules, shuttle them back and forth to the hole, maybe pay for the dealership foursome to play for their “generous donation”, and watch 90 of the 100 golfers in your outing hit balls all over the property while nobody has ever won the car in the history of your outing. Shockingly the car didn’t draw golfers for your event because everyone does that same thing.
Each of these three games are completely against your overall goal of RAISING MONEY.
It’s time to stop wasting time, effort and money. Just because, everyone has done it that way, it doesn’t make it right.