2013 Tournament Guide

2013tournamentguide For planners & players

COLORADO NATIONAL GOLF CLUB h o m e o f t h e c . u. buffa l o e s ‌ a n d yo u r n e x t e v e n t Co l o r a d o A v i d G o l f e r. c o m

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tournament guide

the TeN commandments of tournament planning 1. Thou Shalt Plan Ahead.

Give yourself at least six to nine months to determine and document the tournament’s objectives and purposes, prepare preliminary specifications (date, time, estimated number of participants, number of meal functions, tournament format, potential sponsors, etc.) and establish a timeline.

2. Thou Shalt Know Thine Purpose and Keep It Wholly.

5. Thou Shalt Shop Around.

Choosing the right course can make or break your event. But what makes it “right”?

A site-visit impression of a facility and its staff is important, but it really comes down to four considerations: price, reputation, location and amenities.

• Price: Don’t jump at the lowest offer until confirming what the contract includes.

Those “extras” add up! Also, more established courses often command higher prices and aren’t as flexible as newer courses are.

• Reputation: What you have heard about the course? Have people in your office mentioned how they loved a particular course or want to play it? Float a couple of course names by your golf buddies and gauge the response. A course that’s considered hard might not be the best for a bunch of high-

Your tournament must have a charity with a clear-cut vision you can passionately communicate. Individuals and corporate sponsors want to align themselves with causes that have a strong, well-defined mission.

Invest in strong marketing material—DVD, Website—that can be presented personally to decision makers.

3. Thou Shalt Not Go It Alone.

Committees are imperative for running a great event. Determine one lead chairperson and assign responsibilities to specific individuals. You need people to solicit players, sponsors and gift items. You need people to register people at the event, collect money and perform other functions. Meet regularly for status updates and keep morale high with events like a pre-event gift-bag-filling pizza party.

4. Thou Shalt Know Thine Budget and Keep to It.

To reach your fund-raising goal, you first need to cover your costs. Do not do this through entry fees alone; higher prices discourage participants. Sell mulligans, string, drink coupons. Get at least one sponsor for every hole and contest (hole-in-one, closestto-the-pin, longest drive, etc.). Drawings, betting holes and silent auctions also add to the bottom line.

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Golf Club and Longmont’s Fox Hill Club have had skydivers drop onto the course with a sponsor’s banner or plant the flag for a post-round closest-to-the-pin contest.

Consider a fireworks display. “It’s a great incentive for people to stick around and participate in the silent auctions,” says Matt Schalk, the general manager of both courses.

7. Know Thine Players.

Your guests are not likely all going to be single-digit handicaps. Make sure to communicate to the course representatives the level of play you expect from the field. They can set up the course and format accordingly. Your players also might not all be carnivores, so ask them about any dietary restrictions and communicate them in advance to the course. Be sure, too, to collect as much data as you can (cell, email, auction items purchased, clothing measurements) for future marketing.

8. Get Thine Word Out.

FLIGHTED TOURNAMENT: Skydivers, like this one at Colorado National, can help distinguish your event.

handicap players. A course that’s considered easy might not • Location: If most of your potential attendees live in, say, Longmont, don’t select a course in Colorado Springs, no matter its price or reputation.

• Amenities: It’s about much more than golf. Ask the club to walk you through the event. Are there multiple beverage carts?

Carts with scoring and GPS capability? Will the dining room hold all your guests, rain or shine? Are locker rooms available? Can menus be customized?

6. Thine Event Shall Be Unlike All Others.

Distinguishing your tournament from the 200-plus golf events out there is paramount.

Work with the course to come up with different formats and added value. For example, tournaments at Erie’s Colorado National

Use social networking, emails, your website and hold pre-event functions such as pairings parties (get a restaurant to donate a meal in exchange for a sponsorship). Ask sponsors for reciprocal links on their websites. Create “early bird” pricing and a sense of urgency as the event date approaches. Make a radio or TV station your title or presenting sponsor in trade for promotion of the event. Keep the message positive and steadily beat the drum.

9. Thou Shalt Not Be Shy.

Garner support from your company or the charity’s board of directors, but also make sure they are soliciting each of their vendors, boards and everyone else affiliated with them for players, sponsors and silent auction items. Charge all committe members with signing up at least one paying foursome.

10. Thou Shalt Treat Thine Guests Royally.

Go the extra mile to take care of your players. Feed them before the event. Provide food or water on every hole. Unique gifts, prizes and other expressions of thanks—including hand-written follow-up thank-you notes—will keep your charity top of mind and bring them back next year.

ColoradoAvidG o lf e r.c o m

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HOW TO MAKE YOUR EVENT MEMORABLE

H

ow can you differentiate your charity tournament from the 200-plus others out there? Take some pointers from these case studies:

Don’t Fear the Funny

No matter how earnest or serious the cause, keep the mood light and the message consistent.

When Castle Pines resident Bill Meyn succumbed to prostate cancer in 2010, his widow, Cheri, and their son, Brad, created Please Save Another (pleasesaveanother.org), a 501(c)(3) organization that shares an acronym with the Prostate-Specific Antigen test used to screen for the disease. PSA benefits the William R. Meyn Foundation.

But when the PSA board members created a golf tournament to raise money for Prostate Cancer Research at CU Cancer Center and the PSA Family Outreach Program, they made sure it conveyed the buoyant spirit of the man whose memory it honors.

The result was the Don’t Fear the Finger Tournament, “a day full of laughter and quality golf,” says Cheri Meyn. “Since we are a charity focused on a disease men don’t want to talk about—but affects one in every six guys—we packed the day with good humor and an unforgettable experience for all our guests.”

For two years now, Don’t Fear the Finger has lived up to her goal. Bill Meyn wore the garish John Daly-inspired Loudmouth Apparel whenever he played, so Loudmouth sponsors the event and a Loudmouth-attired Foundation board member greets guests with custom golf attire—which they were strongly encouraged to wear.

Before teeing up, every male participant receives a free blood test to screen for the disease, and during the round, dozens of hole prizes, lighthearted competitions and subtle messaging reinforces the theme and keeps players engaged. After golf, the participants gather to watch golf entertainer Dan Boever, followed by the arrival of a helicopter carrying

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a PSA family member who drops hundreds of golf balls on a practice green, with the person whose name appears on the ball closest to the pin winning a fabulous prize.

These activities keep guests around for the silent auction, dinner and ceremonies. In just two years, Don’t Fear the Finger has raised more than $340,000. This year’s tournament will take place at Sanctuary, Cheri Meyn reports, “and we will continue to make it as unforgettable as possible.”

Ace the 19th Hole

Drinking adult beverages might be the de rigueur après-golf activity, but that’s not a reason not to engage your guests in more friendly competition. In fact, it might be a very good reason—especially if their team didn’t finish “in the money.”

Enter BirdieBall (birdieball.com), the limited distance golf practice ball that resembles

until only one remains and wins.

“It usually takes about three rounds to get through 100 players,” says Breaker, who last year did a tournament at Colorado Golf Club.

“It goes quickly and the players, who pay between $50 and $100 to participate, are betting on themselves.”

BirdieBall’s other AirTargets include customizable models with holes worth certain values. They transport in a small carry bag, set up easily and always draw a crowd.

“And you don’t even need a golf course,” Breaker says, citing tournaments in parks with disk golf courses (he’s developed a hoop to retrofit disk golf baskets for BirdieBall play) and in populated downtown areas, like Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where a full field played along car-lined streets to raise funds for historic preservation.

Mashie Bash

Don’t get your knickers in a knot. Take a cue from the Pikes Peak Hickory Classic (pikespeakhickoryclassic.com), a fun-loving 1920’s-style fundraiser that has been played on historic courses like Patty Jewett and Broadmoor (East). Players dress in 1920s knickers attire, use hickory-shaft golf clubs and reproduction 1915 golf balls. Don’t expect any 300yard drives, just plenty of great photos and a sense of how far the game has come.

CHIP-INS: BirdieBall AirTarget competitions add to the fun and the bottom line.

a napkin ring but behaves exactly like a golf ball. Since its 2003 debut, the Colorado company’s product has become an international phenomenon.

More than just a way to practice, however, BirdieBall has become— among myriad other things—a way for charities to raise funds. Using custom-built AirTargets, company co-founder John Breaker stages competitions like “blackjack,” where players pay to chip BirdieBalls (often emblazoned with the charity’s logo) off plastic StrikePads to large inflatable targets with pie-shaped holes assigned different “card” values. Computer sensors keep score as players either “hold” or go for it after their first two shots. Players who “bust” are eliminated; those who score the highest proceed to the next round LOUD AND PROUD: A “Don’t Fear the Finger” foursome.

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Many Happy Returns

U

nlike in golf itself, there’s no such thing as a “good miss” when it comes to raising money at golf tournaments. Although many tournaments benefit worthy causes, they often fizzle after a season or two because they

just don’t generate enough of a return on the investment of time, effort and money to continue.

The tournaments that always hit the sweet spot are the ones that generate enthusiasm from their organizers, participants and sponsors. In turn, these events generate increasing amounts of money and awareness for the charity.

These four tips will help you generate bigger returns for your charity.

1. Target an amount.

There once was a tournament that was generating less than $10,000 before the 12-person organizing committee decided to move it to a bigger club and set a goal of taking it to $100,000. To reach that objective, the group created a system by which each committee member was required to bring in a certain number of sponsors and dollars. In turn, each sponsor he or she brought in would have a goal of bringing in some of its sponsors. And so on, down the line. It’s something like the multilevel marketing model, with the benefits trickling up to the charity.

2. Find the right people.

Some people find it difficult to ask other people for money. Others, especially those in sales, thrive on it. The rainmakers for your charity event need to believe wholeheartedly in your efforts, articulate the vision, generate excitement and, above all, have solid contacts in the business community.

3. Don’t confine the experience to golf.

It’s all about networking and having sponsors build relationships with each other. Therefore, it’s important to find all the ways to entertain committee members and sponsors before, during and after your tournament. This isn’t just at a silent auction the night before the event, and an after-golf barbecue. About eight weeks out, hold a dinner for committee members, sponsors and potential sponsors at a restaurant, in exchange for a sponsorship listing. This way, at the golf event, people will already know one another and have a better time. A month after the event, do another dinner. The goal is to maintain relationships and commitments for the following year. Sustain the momentum from the event, build on its success and establish higher goals than the year before.

4. Don’t stop when the event ends.

Wiithin a week of the event, write thankyous detailing the amount of money raised.

Make sure your committee meets monthly to reaffirm commitments and alert participants to save the date for the following year’s event. Facebook updates and regular e-mails to sponsors will keep them excited about the charity as well as the event.

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How to make it work

T

he dream of every charity tournament planner is to have perfect weather and 144 players who each buy a half-dozen mulligans, bid up the auction items and enjoy themselves so much that every player immediately signs up for next year and promises to bring a friend. And as you prepare to drive into the sunset in the $100,000 sports car you won in the hole-in-one contest (and will sell to give the money to the charity), the course’s tournament director slips you the bill. If you’ve budgeted, planned and forecasted well, the total won’t surprise you.

Whether you’re organizing a fundraiser, providing a memorable outing for clients or you got cornered into running a buddy trip, remember diligent planning and accurate forecasting can prevent unexpected and unnecessary expenses.

In the case of a charity golf tournament, know how much money you want to raise?

“A boatload” isn’t specific enough. Set a challenging goal, then back it out from there.

How many golfers can participate in your event? Can you reasonably sell out the event?

If you hope to clear $5,000 on a 120-player event, you will have to make about $42 per person after expenses. Add up the costs for golf, food and beverages, prizes, gifts, and, of course, gratuities. Don’t forget printing, advertising, signage, transportation, accommodations and other potential budget-busting expenses.

Here are a few tips to raise funds while sharpening your pencil on costs: • Get the best course you can afford.

Hold your event when the course is most hungry for your business—off-season, midweek or afternoons—and you’ll usually be rewarded with a better rate.

• Evaluate your priorities based on the golfers you hope to attract. Do your prospective players really care about getting chilled towels at every green?

• Collect donated items for live or silent auctions.

• Add mulligans and contests to the event for an additional fee. Consider packaging them all together at check-in so that your guests don’t have to reach into their wallets

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on every tee box.

• Look for sponsors who will donate to your charity in exchange for advertising at the event and in all your promotional literature. If your event is attractive enough, you might get your entire $5,000 goal in one check! Just don’t let them turn the event into a trade show; golfers don’t want to collect stuff on every hole. Give all sponsor collateral in a gift bag at the end of the tournament.

• Buy hole-in-one insurance to offer spectacular prizes at very little cost. Even better, find a sponsor for this, too.

• Recruit volunteers to help with setup, check-in and stuffing gift bags. They can also help recruit sponsors and players. They might invite a celebrity or a big contributor to the charity who would love some exposure for his or her business. These volunteers already believe in your cause, so they can be your greatest assets.

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MAKE IT A TECH OF A GOOD TIME

try, companies like My Custom Event (mycustomevent.com) and Auctions by Cellular (auctionsbycellular.com) have automated and streamlined just about every process and function related to staging a tournament.

Few sports have welcomed the inexorable march of technology as openly as golf. It’s not only about improvements in equipment. We make tee times online, “shoot” distances to the pin, and receive texts on the eighth green about ordering food at the turn. Lessons are captured on tablets. Scores from every tournament—both professional and amateur—appear instantly on Internet leaderboards.

If you’ve had your tee shot measured with a rangefinder at a “long-drive” hole or punched in your score from a GPS-enabled cart, you know technology has also revolutionized the world of charity golf tournaments.

And on the event planning and organizing side, the appearance of tournament announcements, updates, testimonials and photographs on social networking sites has virally spread the word about numerous events.

But there’s a lot more. Across the coun-

My Custom Event

True to its name, 10-year-old My Custom Event exists to create for clients a fully customized Web-based system that allows a tournament organizer to register players and gather as much information as needed about them. The site looks, feels and functions as that of the charity, not a third-party provider.

“It’s about data automation and centralization,” says company president Bob Bailey, who ticks off an impressive list of his company’s powerful attributes. “Once you define what information you want to include when people register, we create searchable databases through which you can know your participants better. When they register we capture their IP address, which allows us to show visually where your players are coming from, using MapPoint. This allows you to

TECH, YEAH!: GPS can provide info on the yardage, the sponsors, the charity and choice auction items.

target your audience, recruit new players and market to existing ones.

You can build in legal releases, track players and sponsors, whether they donated items to the silent auction and how much they spent.

“We can data-mine and integrate SEO so potential sponsors will see you,” he points out.

“We’re also plugged into almost 300 social network channels. We will tie all the all the information into Google analytics to extract rich data on participants.”

The program precludes the need for spreadsheets and paper. Their relationship with nearly 100 financial gateways also allows the event organizer to use its own merchant ac-

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The financial automation and going to a credit card system, Bailey says, plays an enormous role in the success of tournaments. “For one, it eliminates the human element of errors, which happens when you have a lot of people collecting checks and running registry tapes; and two, when you switch to an automated system it frees your staff to focus on what they’re good at—working the event itself.”

Mycustomevent.com’s interface automatically and completely scales to different devices, including phones, tablets and laptops.

You can set it up to text all participants about auction items, dinner selections and any other happy happenings during the event. “You can also target individual participants about auction items that might be of particular interest,” says Bailey. “It’s a powerful tool.”

while bidding on products, services and vacations. Living up to its tagline, “The Future of Fundraising,” Auctions by Cellular organizes your auction, cataloguing the items

Auctions By Cellular

Technology has also wrought significant changes on the silent auction front. Texting may be dangerous while driving, but not

CELL AND BUY: At the post-round silent auction, let your fingers do your bidding.

and getting out the word to attendees.

Upon registration (or before), each guest provides his or her cell phone number and receives easy instructions on how to bid. An on-site ABC representative can assist Luddites and the odd player without a cell phone.

This eliminates those sheets of paper below each item listing the names of bidders and creating competition or resentment among participants. Using their phones, participants bid and instantly receive updates. ABC can even televise a fundraising thermometer to track bidding.

The flawless and fast checkout process typically completes all transactions and prints receipts within 15 minutes of the auction’s close.

Within 48 hours, ABC provides a detailed financial analysis and reporting. You’ll come away with more than a fundraising success story, a robust and invaluable database of names, numbers and emails for use in future campaigns, including who did the most bidding, who didn’t do any, and which items received the most bids and which received the highest.

G O L F A S I T WA S I N T E N D E D T O B E .

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Excellence Playing It Exists at Red Hawk Ridge forward A Golf Digest Top 100, Jim Engh course minutes from the Denver Tech Center, in Castle Rock

W

ith more than 200 charity golf tournaments scheduled every year in Colorado, even the most charitable golfer needs to ask a few simple questions to keep a realistic tournament schedule.

Where?

COUNTRY CLUB

conditions

At public course prices.

What golfer wouldn’t want to play Cherry Hills, Castle Pines, Denver Country Club, Colorado Golf Club or Sanctuary? Charity tournaments often provide the only chance many of us get to play some exclusive courses. That conversation-piece bag tag might cost as much as $5,000 but it goes to supporting a charity.

Price?

MOUNTAIN-STYLE

play

Along I-25 in the Front Range.

Tournaments held at exclusive courses may command higher entry fees than you might ordinarily pay. But tournament entryfees cover more than a green fee. It comes down to value. Nicer clubs often provide more comfortable facilities, elevating the experience.

Look for the biggest bang for your buck.

Cause?

Did you lose a close friend or relative to cancer? Does someone you know have AIDS or Alzheimer’s? Do you want to help wounded veterans or end homelessness, poverty and child abuse? Pick the causes to which you have a personal connection and play in the tournaments that support them.

Connection?

Playing an event where clients or a prospective employer will be can advance your career, while declining one that benefits a friend’s favorite cause may create a rift. One option: play in the business one and donate to your friend’s charity.

Prestige?

Let us host your 2013 tournament.

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Whether it’s the status of playing alongside a celebrity or just being part of an elite event, certain tournaments carry more clout. Never undervalue the power of bragging rights—and having your photo taken with a famous athlete, actor or television personality.

PLUS FOURsome: A novelty like the Pikes Peak Hickory Classic can inspire you to play.

Format?

A scramble can frustrate better players who prefer to play their own ball and can grow impatient with the protracted pace of play.

Unless it’s a handicapped event—and they have an official USGA handicap—casual players may want to shy away from tournaments with more competitive formats.

Trade?

Tournament organizers often accept inkind donations in exchange for entry fees, making barter a great way to stretch your charity tournament dollar.

Fun?

Does the tournament offer anything more than 18 holes of golf, some auction items and a meal? The most successful events often have an event the night before or after the golf, creating a party atmosphere that convinces players to include friends and family.

Tradition?

Whether it’s to support a cause, spend time with good friends, or out of sheer force of habit, many people play the same tournaments year after year. If you like the event and the people, there’s nothing better than teeing it up with friends in the name of a worthwhile cause.

Remember: Even if you don’t do well, you’re doing good.

Team-Building

F

orget fun, camaraderie and charity.

The best part about scramble tournaments is winning them. For that, you need to put together a fearsome foursome.

The Short-Game Master

With an arsenal of chips, pitches and putts, “The Short-Game Master” can set up scoring opportunities, finishing mid-range birdie putts, and get up and down from anywhere. You usually need to birdie or eagle every hole to win, so this player needs to have nerves of steel.

Strategy: Have him or her hit last on every putt and chip. If one of the other team members knocks it in, great. If everyone misses, he or she will “go to school” on his teammates’ putts and drain it.

The Bomber

He can’t chip, hit irons or putt, but his ugly swing can send a golf ball 325 yards.

Strategy: Have your long-hitter play last on each tee shot. Once a team member has placed a drive in the fairway, he can give it a rip. If he finds his rhythm, you’ll be enjoying a day of eagle putts and approach chips.

The Safety Net

Usually a 10-15 handicap, this player plays often, plays well, and plays it safe.

While the other members of the team are taking ill-advised risks, this player’s laying back, hitting fairways and greens all day.

Strategy: Let this player hit first on every shot. Once he or she has played it safe, the other members of your team are free to play aggressively.

The IRONWORKER

This player’s incessant practicing has resulted in superior ball-striking and control. He or she doesn’t drive the ball far, and rarely makes a long putt, but you can count on this player to place the ball in the center of the fairway and hit every green.

Strategy: He or she should hit last on every par three and mid-range iron shot.

Once another teammate has placed the ball on the green, the grinder can fire at tucked pins. The other two “specialists” can take care of the driving and putting.

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