SMT Golf Outing Services

Golf Event Planning, Charity Fundraising and Memorabilia

The Better Approach: Ask, Don’t Tell

The most successful golf fundraiser organizers approach corporate sponsorship from an entirely different psychological angle. Instead of presenting a menu of pre-set options, they explain their fundraiser and ask questions:

“Our event will have 144 players—primarily business owners, corporate executives, and professional decision-makers from our community. They’ll be engaged with our event for a full day. What would be most valuable to you? How would you like to interact with these participants? What would make this a successful marketing investment for your business?”

This approach accomplishes several psychological objectives:

  1. It positions the sponsor as the customer, not the charity. You’re offering them something valuable, a position of power in the event, not asking for a handout.
  2. It demonstrates respect for their business acumen and marketing expertise. You’re acknowledging that they know their business better than you do.
  3. It opens creative possibilities that your predetermined packages would never accommodate. A craft brewery might want to sponsor the beverage cart exclusively and will pay to do so. A wealth management firm might want to sponsor a skills clinic before the tournament. A medical practice might want to provide free blood pressure screenings at the turn.
  4. It naturally leads to higher investment and engagement because sponsors are purchasing exactly what they want rather than compromising on a package that sort-of fits their needs.

The psychology here is powerful: People place higher value on solutions they help design than on pre-packaged options presented to them.

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.