Hello everyone!

I am currently an Assistant Golf Pro and wanted to hear some feedback from you guys/gals that are members at private clubs.

1. How does your club make your big Member/Guest special?

Meaning what type of cool tee gifts have you received in past? What were some bad tee gifts you recieved in the past?

2. What type if games did the course set up for you and your guest?

3. Do you have a practice round? If so again what type of game did your pro set up? Was it tee times or a shotgun start?


I just wanted to get some feed back from some of you. We are starting to put together our tournament book for next season and we started to brainstorm a little to try and take our Member/Guest to the next level. Thanks in advance for your time.

Bill

- games should be pretty standard - the “goofy” set-ups should be reserved for members only fun events
- have played in many and get bored of the billfolds w/logo / wine glasses w/logo / watch w/logo pretty quickly
- last 2 events featured items “golfers” prefer - footjoy flipflops and titty sunday bags (things i can use on regular basis)

good luck

Um... what?

This also took me a while to figure out last year when I first joined. Titty = Titleist. It still kinda makes me cringe/laugh every single time.

I played in one last year at Old Palm Golf Club. It was the first year for the new Raymond Floyd course in Palm Beach Gardens, where Tiger, (and many other pros), own some property. You, too, can own a house here for between $2 million and $15 million. Townhouses starting from $1 million. I'm a Realtor, so contact me if interested. Fairways stimp out at about 6 and greens at about 12.

It was 2 BB out of 4. Two closest to pins for members and two closest to pins for guests. I won one of them last year and received a new set of Callaway woods and fitting. This year, (now that more homes and memberships have been sold), I think it was a free pass for a foursome at the course.

Tee gifts were either a hat or a shirt and 1 dozen ProV1's or 1x's. Of course, it also included top shelf drinks and fantastic lunch and dinner.

This was for their 1-day member/guest. I'm sure their 3-day is even better, but I haven't been invited to that one.

At our club, they usually have a great deal setup with a major OEM who provides great tee gifts and prizes are gift cert.'s with that OEM at deep discounts. They are also at the range to let you demo anything they have.

The member guest at my club is a 3 day event. Practice round on Thursday afternoon (normally a money game), 36 holes on Friday, 18 on Saturday and a nice dinner on Saturday night. The past two years there was a 9 hole glow ball night golf tournament on friday night that was a lot of fun. The gifts are normally a nice polo shirt or a putter headcover along with some tees and ball marker/divot tools.

Name of the guest on locker of member. Special events for spouse on Friday afternoon. Complete program of events, matches, itinary for the 3 days. Food and Bev are complimentary the moment you come thru the gates on Thursday.

Gifts:
Shoes, Titleist/ Footjoy "pro shop" where member and guest each have $150 credit to purchase whatever they want..shoes, balls, clubs, luggage etc...
Sweaters, Zero, Ray Ban, jewerly boxes with signature hole on it.

Format is:

Thursday practice round no tee times. Net skins game. ne sponsored by club for credit the other by members for cash. After the practice round they have some type of skills challenge be it putting course or short game shot. Cash and credit as described above.

Friday 3 nine hole matches, Saturday 2 nine matches. Flight winners go into shoot out and play holes 1,2,3 an 9 in true alternate shot format i.e whoever holes out the next player tees off.

teams eliminated until only 2 teams on last holes. any ties determined by chip offs from designated areas. players cannot watch to see where competitors finished.


BTW the ticket for this is $1200

In other words, a friendly little round of golf with some of your buddies.

My old club in Michigan did as follows, and for the most part both the members and guests loved it. We had a sold out field and a waiting list every year.

The whole event is better ball. Seeded within the flight, Lowest combined handicap playing the highest and so on......

Day #1: (Thursday) After practice round followed by stag night. Which was made up of a buffet, a few card games and assorted casino games like dice and such. Ad well as the typical trash talking and bets on the field.

Day #2: (Friday) 18 hole match either in the morning or afternoon tee off. When we signed up everyone put down if they had a preference. If arrangements could be made to accomidate they were made on Friday only!!

Friday evening semi - formal cocktail reception and dinner for player and guest.

Day #3: (Saturday) 18 holes match play, consolation matches in the morning and winners played in the afternoon. This was done for the benefit of the club to get more members involved in watching matches. This would also generate more business for the halfway house and clubhouse.

Saturday evening was a buffet dinner for players only followed by the typical players B.S session and card games. Typically those that had a chance to win made it an early night and others would close the club in the early a.m. hours.

Day #4: (Sunday) 18 hole matche play, again consolation matches played in the morning and flight Championship matches went off in reverse order. Championship flight to tee off last.

After the matches were all in the players had a buffet and a couple hours of open bar.

The club did not really give out gifts, they chose to put that money towards food, beverage and entertainment for the players and guests. They figured most people that belonged to private clubs had all the luggage, sweaters and crap for the house they needed.

And like I said above, it sold out fast every year!!

I am on the Men's club committee at my club here in Northern California. I was also on the invitational tournament committee as well last year.

1. Tee prizes are for dolts, IMHO. We spoke to the adidas rep, who got us a good deal on doing shirts and short sleeve windshirts. You can use these for years to come, are cheap, and keep overall costs down.

2. The game was a points based best-ball match, 10 points total. 1 point for winning a hole, 1/2 point for halving. One point, etc. added onto the end for the match.

We played 5 9 hole matches in our "flight" by handicap, and in our flight, we played "half handicaps". Then of course there was the horserace for the flight winners.

The course was set up the best it was all year, OTHER than the club championship. Lightning fast greens and tough pins.

2. (a) As for "games", there was a Net par 3 tournament inside the big tournament ($40 per team buy-in), buy-in for the horserace (you bet on yourself)--$200/team.

3. Thursday was a practice round where you had to start your round by 1:00, where there was a $20 gross/net skins game. Thursday we had a reception outside where we had drinks and some appetizers where there was a long drive contest off the 10th tee ($20/team, combined distance/in fairway, best 1 of 3), and putting contest ($20 team, 9 holes, all putts make-able).

Friday was men's stag dinner (steak) and saturday was the thing w/ the women. Every day (fri/saturday) there was breakfast and lunch (buffet style).

Hey

I am not a member or a guest, but a shop worker, who spent nearly everyday at the course including winters from age 11-27, in that time I beacame very close to the membership, and was involved with Member-Guests, helping to run them and set them up. At my old club we use to give out a favor everyday, with the first day being the biggest favor. Shoes are always good, but can be a b**** if you have to special order any crazy sizes. I've seen wedges, putters, leather embrodered luggage, it all seems to go over very well, on the other days, small favors like hats and towels that were logoed were given. The other thing that was done was what they called a big deal double steal. The deal was the 2 longest par 3's were set up for closest to the pins. Who ever wanted to put a designated amount of money into the pot, what ever you choose money wise, each person who won the designated holes split the pot, and if anyone got whole in one they won the entire pot. Obviously, the first hole in one reported one, if there happened to be 2 in one day, which has happened.

The other thing that went on is what we called a calcutta. Totally illegal, but some club managers look the other way. Teams would bid on other teams in an auction type manner in each flight. 10% of each flights money went to the house to cover expenses of the weekend, and what was left was split 70% 30% with first and second place of that flight. Sometimes the overall money taken in on that first night for teams was crazy, 50-75 thousand in bets.

I also didn't read any of the other posts, but we found that playing nassau matches worked real well, so everyone get's to play 18 hole matches: 1pt for front, 1pt for back, 1pt for overall, and 1/2 for ties.