Education is Good Business
By Frank Guastella
For those of you who did not attend the 2006 Michigan Golf Business Annual Conference and Vendor Fair you not only missed a good time, but you also missed an opportunity to learn from some of the best educators in the golf business. In my opinion, the MGCOA Annual Conference should be a priority of attendance on all golf course owners’ schedules. Keeping abreast of the latest trends and programs in the golf industry can help improve your bottom line.
On October 30-31, 2006, more than 240 golf industry leaders converged in St. Augustine, Florida for the Seventh Annual GOLF 20/20 Conference. This strategic alliance of the golf industry combines insightful research with the strategies designed to further the industry’s knowledge and create new programs for expansion in golf. According to the GOLF 20/20 website: “It’s mission is to align the golf industry behind a plan that addresses the future of the golf in a strategic manner, with an emphasis on accelerating growth and participation, and creating new avenues of access into the game.”
One of the programs that were introduced at the GOLF 20/20 Conference that caught my attention was the “Link Up 2 Golf Corporate Program”. This new program is a corporate player development program that provides companies with a turn – key, cost – effective way to place employees in a game of golf while at the same time enhance and promote team building skills, promote camaraderie in the work place and increase job satisfaction and performance. The program was actually started by Club Car at its Augusta, Georgia facility.
It is programs such as this that can be incorporated into our facilities to attract and retain players. It is an “out of the box” or non-traditional idea that can increase play at your facility and add dollars to your bottom line. These are the types of ideas that we can learn about by attending local and national industry conferences. |
