SMT Golf Outing Services

Golf Event Planning, Charity Fundraising and Memorabilia

Golf Outing Raffle Prizes

Golf Outing Raffle Prizes

I don’t care how big your golf outing is. If you are running an event to raise money for something, you absolutely need to have raffle prizes!

I am not saying that you need a metric ton of items by any means, but please do not fill whatever space you have on your raffle table with mindless donated crap.

Before making that mistake, realize that there are only three reasons people participate in raffles at any event from bingo halls to black tie affairs.

1.      They are quick, painless and require no skill to win.

2.      They are a nice simple way to support the organization with a few dollars.

And absolutely the most important one as I can prove to you any day of the week, if you ever stood at golf outing registration table for 20 minutes… People are looking to score something rather nice for a very small investment.

The question always comes up when you ask, “and would you like to buy any raffle tickets?”… “What are you raffling off” or “Where are the raffle prizes”? People want to know what is available and will spend accordingly.

The amount of tickets people buy is directly proportional to the perceived value of the items on display, and you should have the raffle items on display right at or near the registration tables. You can move them to the dining room later.

That being said… 24 silk screened beer coozies donated by the local Aflac Insurance Rep or 4 stadium seat cushions with the Loretti Brothers Pawn logo over on main street are things that you should just hand out as opposed to hope to lure paying customers into winning.

You are far better off going out and buying 3 nice pieces with your credit card at Walmart than having 50 pieces of donated junk. Again, those other pieces are what we refer to as…. “either they were gonna’ throw them out or donate them to someone else who will throw them out”.

The rule of thumb should be, if you would leave the prize in your car unlocked all night in front of your house and NOT worry, it shouldn’t be on your raffle table.

Golf outing raffles are arguably your largest source of revenue. There are some things that you cannot afford to have donated.

Golf Events – Selling is a VERB!

Having helped raise millions of dollars for charities the past couple of years, I cannot help but see so many of the same mistakes happening day after day, event after event.

So much effort and work put into an event on such absolutely trivial things. Things that others will handle for you, things that really mean nothing in the bigger scheme and things that will never even be applauded or cursed when the success of the event is eventually measured, as success will be measure with a $ sign in front of it. Not if JoAnne liked the signs at registration.

What color bags to hold player gifts? How many tables do you think we need at registration? Do we need duck tape? What happens if the wind doesn’t stop? Do the carts have roofs on them? Will Betty remember to bring donuts since she drives right by the bakery on her way to the course? Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ……….

Upon arrival at the golf course, somehow, the registration tables are set up. Elves? The wind is less that you remembered on your driveway and while Betty, amazingly, didn’t bring the all-important donuts, she sent an “emergency text” to her daughter who is supposed to work registration to grab them on her way in. Sadly, she forgets your favorite pumpkin glazed, but what the heck, she is only a teenager. Damn that Betty for forgetting something that you talked about two meetings ago!

Idle chit-chat, laughter and camaraderie among volunteers is the norm as you see that your day has finally arrived without REAL tragedy and you all somehow feel a chance to breathe a sigh of relief as if the calendar somehow wouldn’t land on your special day because it knew you intended a golf event today.

Slowly you set up what you need at registration, you run into minor setbacks. The tables are a bit too close to the wall, only one outlet, you look for help unloading the goodies from your van now that you have some helpers and you look for hot coffee and the bathrooms.

Surprisingly, players stumble in sooner than you thought. OMG, you are not quite ready for them. The laptop isn’t on, the goody bags are not set up and the gal who is supposed to be SELLING raffle tickets and mulligans is talking with the girl in the golf shop about fall fashions.

No big deal… you figure that you and Betty’s teenage daughter can handle these 4 early birds. Computer is finally booted up, you get their names, check them in and usher them down to the teenager who passes them their goody bags and ASKS them, with a “Price Is Right Model” wave of her hand, “Would you like to buy any raffle tickets or mulligans?”

As they already have waited far too long to check in due to the registration table being unprepared for their arrival, they shrug off her “more than generous offer” to invest their money in her Cause and search out the coffee for themselves.

Opportunity and over $100 in revenue lost right off the bat. The teenager’s response is the typical… “whatever”.

And that is just one group! Certainly it will get better. The law of averages guarantees it. But registration lasts only 2 hours. Now it is time to play golf.

The volunteers that spent months and months getting ready for the last two hours of their lives at registration, lean back in their chairs, smile, breathe a sigh of relief and commend each other on a job well done, even though you are still upset with Betty and the donuts and it’st almost as smooth as you planned it for the past several months, well, except for the donut thing and that one idiot group that arrived 45 minutes before registration was supposed to start. You hear a muffled “whatever” from Betty’s teenage daughter again.

But it is far from over. There are no wallets standing in front of you any longer! All of your money is now whipping around the golf course in little white plastic carts. Yet these volunteers are sitting on their collective duffs in the clubhouse! WHY?

The golf course is smart enough to know where the wallets are for the next 5+ hours and they have literally sprung into action. There are two beer carts, ONE GIRL in each, actually chasing after the money, chasing down their customers. WAIT, YOUR customers! They have one goal in mind. Relieving them of as much of their money as they can, while your group is still milling around the registration table deciding on “important things” like…. Should you put the left over goody bags in Betty’s van because you have to go to soccer practice after the event, and is it O.K. if you toss out the rest of the fliers in the golf shop garbage can.

IF and when your volunteers finally do get out in your own little white plastic golf cart, oddly, the fun and camaraderie still remains the goal, but you brought a roll of raffle tickets “just in case”, and there are 3 girls crammed into the seat. The teenager just wants to drive the cart, the girl in the middle just wants to see how her husband is playing, but really doesn’t know what hole he started on and for that matter doesn’t know the layout of the course anyway, so she is just enjoying how pretty the course is while wondering what guys get out of this stupid game. The girl hanging off the end of the seat is hoping the teenager doesn’t hit another bump in the fairway or decide to make a sharp left turn, otherwise she will dump her bucket of 12 jello shots (which, of course, she has had to sample to make sure they were alright).

Whizzing past players with a half-hearted… “Wanna but a raffle ticket”? while they were putting really does nothing for SALES, but that is O.K., she is really looking for her husband’s group anyway. Once she finds him and realizes that he is indeed still on the golf course, she will feel better. After all, it has been a whole hour since she has seen him at registration.

And it goes on and on and on……all day long. “Oh, there he is… let’s go over there……..”

The fact of the matter is… SELLING is a VERB. It is an action. It takes some degree of effort. There absolutely is a huge difference between SELLING and “offering for sale” with a cursory hand wave toward a pile of items on a table.

Player Registration is a time when you literally get to see, 90% or more of your players and they have one thing on their mind. GIVING YOU MONEY!

They are not thinking about their putting, their next shot or the location of the beverage cart. They are not thinking about their score or who is riding with them in the cart.

DO NOT greet players and guests in a seated position. If you cannot stand for the short duration of the registration process, find someone who can. Other than in medical exceptions it is absolutely disrespectful to remain seated when greeting a guest, especially a guest who has paid more money than they should to be there AND a guest that you hope to get more money from. You would not do it in your home. Do not do it at your golf event!

Smile, introduce yourself to each player, reach out and shake their hand. Now you have formed a bond with them. They know your name and you know their name, they feel they know you and that they will be seeing you more than once this day. This is a good thing. They are now your friend, at least for the next 3 minutes if not for the day. It is harder for a “friend” to say no to a request, and make no doubt, you are getting ready to make a request of your new friend.

Literally pick up the item that you want them to buy. Hand it to them so they perceive ownership. Once they hold it, touch it, feel it, they will know that it is theirs. At the same time, in this case, raffle tickets, you tell them how much they cost. Tell them that you accept cash, check or charge and hold out your empty hand casually in wait. DO NOT ASK THEM if they would like to purchase them. They already have them in their fingertips. Those raffle tickets are theirs, you are now just discussing price and waiting for payment.

The very second that registration slows down because there are only 6 more players to register, leave, as there are more “wallets” outside than will ever be at your section of the registration table. Again, follow the money. Get a cart, grab EVERYTHING that you can to sell on the course, a money bag for making change and head right down to the staging area where all of the golfers are sitting.

Leave your fellow committee members behind. You do not need them. You are a grownup and this is business. And your business only will last for the next 6 hours.

Walk cart to cart, SMILING, laughing, talking, offering raffle tickets, 50/50’s, strings, mulligans, whatever you have, touting what the money will benefit for the day and thanking everyone that you come in contact with for being there supporting your event, remembering as many names as you can from 30 minutes ago at the registration tables.

If you are a guy, don’t do this job, go get a girl to do it. Sorry, but girls sell more than guys.

SELLING is a VERB….. Offering something for sale is a waste of time.

Golf Outing Secrets of Success

Bug repellent is neither a condiment or an aphrodisiac.

The golf outing dinner or dare I say “dinner” is a unique yet very important part of the golf outing day. Some see it as a nice gesture for the non golfer in your life, especially since you have been gone all day playing golf. Go ahead and check off that little box to let them know you will have someone coming and pay the extra twenty five dollars, even though you know that the dinner will be little more than someone grilling burgers and brats, or at best, a buffet line inside the clubhouse. But your heart was in the right place when you checked off that little box, and that is all that matters. Or is it?

As a committee member you are excited to see as many little boxes checked as possible because you both make money on the meals and bodies bring money to spend, yet you are far too often disappointed that you never have as many joining you for dinner as you had hoped, but we both know that you really didn’t work all that hard on it, did you?
Since the dinner is such a strong part of your overall golf outing revenue, it always surprises me that committee’s have not seen the reality of what the golf outing “dinner” is or rather should be.

For the sake of this article, let us assume that all of the golfers in your outing are men. They are away from the office, out in the sun, and more than likely with their buddies as opposed to clients. For them, it is really not as much about the golf, but about everything that goes along with it. Drinking, cigar smoking having some fun and cutting loose for a day.
Looking at their buddies, they realize the sun has started to do a pretty good job on their skin, so they must be in the same condition. Surely it is time to slather on that sunscreen that was conveniently forgotten in the clubhouse bar. More is certainly better at this time as you are already 5 holes into the round and things can only get worse from here, and the more you apply now might actually reverse the damage done. At least that is what the beer cart girl said.

But you also cannot help notice that the mosquitoes are out in full force. You wonder for a moment how that sunscreen will react or even work with the healthy dose of bug repellent that you are thinking about applying. After all, you really don’t want to lose that oily sheen that you just protected yourself with moments ago, let alone your putting stroke… but these bugs are fierce! So you start spraying it on, right over the top of the sunscreen. Content with your new level of protection, you wave the beer cart girl over for another round.

But in the back of your mind, you happen to recall or worse yet, were reminded by your playing partners that you had actually checked off that little box that the committee was so thoughtful to put on their registration form. Reality has now begun to creep in and thoughts are no longer on making the next six foot putt, but the very stark realization that your wife will be there at the end of your adventure ready to greet you for the evening meal. You better start to calculate when to stop drinking so you are not tipsy for the arrival of your wife.

All this time, golf outing coordinators are either taking advantage of the downtime to catch their breath from the morning rush or the ambitious ones are setting up things like the silent auction, raffle prize table and making sure that there are enough napkins to go around. They are counting on this next big influx of cash to measure their success. The problem is, their players are going to arrive for the after golf festivities sunburned, tired, sore, miserable from golfing poorly, sweaty and slathered in either sunscreen, bug spray or perhaps both, worrying about missing work that day and probably a bit drunk. But there, all dressed up, looking great, smelling pretty, hair combed to perfection is the realization of that little box that they checked before the round. Your wife, wondering why she came to this mess after seeing you with your shirt untucked and sweat stained, cargo shorts wrinkled and one sock rolled up while the other inexplicably rolled down to your shoe top. Oddly you are wondering why there are only 9 other wives in the room when the field was 144.

As a golf outing coordinator you might have wondered why golf outing dinners last only forty five minutes? You wonder why you get only 20% of the field to bring their spouse to the after round dinner? You wonder why wives are not too thrilled that their husbands play in golf outings? You wonder why silent auction offerings are not bid on?

The problem is that golf outing coordinators look at the outing through the eyes of the golfer, but use those very same eyes to view the dinner. But the reality clearly shows this “customer” is not at all the same as their golfing customer and this one deserves more than a checkbox on a registration form!

The answer is a simple one. Golf outings are not at all about golf. They are about making money and nothing else! Hold your dinner, raffle, silent or live auction and all fundraising activities the night before the actual game of golf.
Think about it this way… All of a sudden, everyone is clean, hair combed, dressed for the occasion and there for one reason, to spend money supporting your cause.

The spouses actually get a night out with their partners without sitting next to several sweat stained golf shirts. Perhaps there is a band playing, dancing, karaoke or other lively activity meant to keep interest and attendees on hand. There is a reason to interact, spend money and support your cause.

You will find that the dinner actually will last more than 45 minutes and the spouses don’t have to sit through the inane awards for closest to the pin on #15 and the long drive on hole #7. You will notice a participation rate of nearly 100% or more if families are invited. You will see smiling faces, laughter and you will only be left counting your money from the success that you have brought to your golf outing.

And, oh yeah… the next day is golf for those guys, nothing more. The same sweating, cigar smoking, sunburned, over served guys that you would have had playing in your event are still there, but now they are there on their time, with no concern for having to calculate when to stop indulging themselves. When they are done with golf, you hand out the trophies and thank them for coming. You have allowed boys to be boys for the entire round, not for an abbreviated portion because they had to be presentable for their wives. You have made their spouses happy with a nice evening out, you have run a financially successful event and you don’t have to worry about being behind the fat guy in the buffet line, covered in bug repellant that decided to go fishing for the serving spoon in the macaroni salad with the same hand that he used to apply sunscreen to the back of his hairy neck.

Golf Outing Games

Mulligans, Yardsticks and Strings… Oh My!

Golf committees often find themselves concerned about or at least discussing pace of play in their meetings. It is recognized as a problem and sometimes field sizes are limited due the fear that the game of golf will simply take too long. After all, there are dinner and prizes to think about.

The day of your golf outing arrives. It is a beautiful day, everyone is in a good mood as they tend to be at a golf outing, and you are hoping for smooth sailing.

But at the registration table, players are stumbling through the stations, filling in last minute names and player substitutions, picking up goody bags, scorecards, cart keys, picking up range tokens, spending some early money here and there… and then they come to the girl selling them “a longer day” or “guaranteed slow play”, of course it is not called that, but that’s what it is. Your committee never saw it coming. Heck, every event has it, so you must need it at your event, even though you wanted your golf outing to be different.

The girl selling Mulligans is a charming volunteer, one that has all the best intentions… “Get your Mulligans fella’s, $5.00 a piece, limit of five per player, money goes directly to the _____________”.

Typically, 60% of the field buys into this. That means that in your typical full field of 144 golfers, 86 players are going to take advantage of a full compliment of cheating, errrrrr… Mulligans. In this example, that means 430 extra shots taken during your golf outing. Think about THAT number for a second.

Dare I say it is not so much the 430 extra shots taken, rather HOW they are taken. Some player gets up there, 5 beers in him, two clubs less than he could ever hope to use successfully on his best day, the island green par 3 and shockingly, dumps it 20 yards short into the water. Instead of quickly reaching into his pocket for a second ball, his first mulligan, he waits to see what his playing partners will do before deciding if he should burn one of his pre-purchased bonus shots. After some teasing of his group for faring no better, he decides to have another go at it, but needs to go back to the cart for another ball. But realizing the demise of his first ball and being fully aware that golf balls are not cheap, he takes another moment to dig for a lesser quality sphere instead of grabbing more club or better yet, simply playing from the drop area. Arriving back at the tee, he also realizes that he is out of golf tees, asking his playing partners to toss him one of theirs which he has to pick up off the ground because the wind grabbed it and took it out of his reach. Two well intended practice swings later, he addresses the ball sending it toward his target, its destination is not important as this story is all about math.

This little decision-making scenario added 3 minutes to this group’s time on this one single tee box. Now, multiply that 3 minutes by the 430 extra shots happening all around the golf course this afternoon your committee sold before the round started and what you have is……

A buffet dinner getting cold and a rushed awards ceremony because people need to get the heck out of there.

Not quite what you had envisioned 6 months ago when you set out to have a golf outing for your charity.

What you can do is simply increase every player’s green fee by the same $25, sell your outing as “the quickest golf outing they will play in” or an “all inclusive registration” as you will not need to hit players up for that extra donation upon arrival. Oh, and the math on this one is… you have secured money from 100% of the field instead of the average 60% who would have slowed things down anyway. You are up 40% in revenue and the ENTIRE field enjoys both a faster day on the links and less nickel and diming at registration so they have more to spend on raffle tickets and silent auction items at dinner.

Golf Outing Fundraising

“Networking and Camaraderie”

Three minutes into the meeting and the very first words out of my mouth to the golf outing committee were, “why are you having a golf outing”?

It was Earl, sitting opposite of me who proudly chimed in with what he had believed was the only reply necessary. “It’s about networking and camaraderie, that is why we hold a golf outing each year” he said.

Now I am perched on the edge of my seat, ready to make a point to Earl not even knowing the man, but based off 44+ years in the PGA and in the golf industry, I felt more than comfortable formulating a few opinions in my head during his one sentence remark. “Let me guess Earl, your Chamber outing is about 8 weeks out and I’m sure that you will be playing in it, am I right?” Earl said “I am and I have played in the outing each year for the past five years.”  “Awesome” I replied. “I bet you already have your team picked out”. He said, “same team each year, it’s a no-brainer.”

I couldn’t stop, I said “let me guess, this is the same group you play with every week, right”? Earl said, “every weekend, we have a permanent tee time at 8:52 am”. I said “Earl, knowing that and knowing that you are on the golf committee for this outing, I am going to guess that you guys play the same course that the outing will be playing in August, am I right”?

Earl confirmed my suspicions and I said, “So, to summarize, you are playing with the same three players that you have played in this outing with for the past five years. You are playing with the same guys that you play with every weekend, and are doing it on the same course that you have played forever… only now, you are getting a worse tee time, as the outing starts at 1 pm, which is a tee time your group would NEVER even dream of playing, and you guys are going to pay $125 each to play it when it normally would cost you $42 each. Tell me about the Networking and Camaraderie thing again”.

I went on to explain to Earl and the group that golf outings should only held to make money. They are really kind of terrible for “networking and camaraderie” as you are stuck with the same 3 people all day and more often than not, one guys leaves before the dinner anyway. That means you have lost 33% of your networking possibilities within your very own foursome, let alone the entire field.

Every task the committee undertakes should be handled as if you had to report to only two people, your accountant and your banker.