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Facility of the Year â€” The Players Club The Players Club is a very unique facility. Still relatively new to the Nebraska golf scene, it is on the radar for future Nebraska golf championships. The 27-hole Arnold Palmer Design is a great test of golf. Tees range from over 7000 yards on the original layout from the Palmer Tees, to 5600 yards for the senior golfer and 5300 yards for ladies. The Players Club recently installed a short game area to enhance the practice facilities and Green Superintendent, Ahren Wonderlich, maintains tournament conditions daily. There is more to The Players Club than just golf. The club has a family-oriented schedule of events ranging from Easter egg hunts to the Summer Slam fireworks extravaganza to Yoga by the pool. General Manager, Tim Halpine, who was a finalist for Golf Inc. Magazines, OPERATOR of the YEAR, has created a fun, family atmosphere. The strength of the Players Club is the membership. Over 750 golf and social members enthusiastically support their club and make it a great place to be part of.

Join us as we thank our local Nebraska PGA Professionals. Click here to say #ThxPGAPro

2016

Tournament Schedule 4-Apr 11-Apr 25-Apr 2-May May 9 - Aug 17 May 9 - Sep 14 16-May 23-May 31-May 6-Jun 13-Jun 20-Jun 27-Jun 11-Jul 18-Jul Jul 23-24 1-Aug Aug 1-2 Aug 8-9 22-Aug Sep 9-11 19-Sep 26-Sep 10-Oct

Club Car Pro/Pro/Pro Harris Yamaha Golf Cars 27 Hole Pro - 3 Am National Car Rental Pro - 3 Am Club Car Pro - 3 Am Nebraska Section PGA Assistant Match Play Nebraska Section PGA Match Play Champ Club Car / Peter Millar Pro 3 - Am E-Z-GO Facility Championship Mizuno Pro/Assistant Championship All Star Pro Golf Pro - 3 Am National Car Rental Pro-3 AM Nebraska Section PGA Foundation Pro-Am HCIS Pro - 3 AM Siouxland Golf Charities Pro - 3 Am Golf Fore The Troops TaylorMade 36 Hole Pro - 3 Am Nebraska Assistants Championship NE PGA Senior Professional Championship Nebraska PGA Professional Championship E-Z-GO/Bushnell Pro 3-Am Wells Fargo Nebraska Open Nebraska PGA Cup Series Championship All Star Pro Golf Team Championship Nebraska Section PGA Pro-Am Championship

The Players Club at Deer Tiburon Golf Club - MGW Hillcrest Champions Run Tiburon GC - GWH Tiburon GC - GWH The Country Club of Linco Shadow Ridge CC Oak Hills Fremont GC Wilderness Ridge Happy Hollow ArborLinks Whispering Creek Firethorn GC Green Valley GC Riverside GC Riverside GC ArborLinks Oak Hills Elks Country Club Quarry Oaks Fremont GC Omaha CC

Omaha, NE Omaha, NE Lincoln, NE Omaha, NE Omaha, NE Omaha, NE Lincoln, NE Omaha, NE Omaha, NE Fremont, NE Lincoln, NE Omaha, NE Nebraska City, NE Sioux City, IA Lincoln, NE Sioux City , IA Grand Island, NE Grand Island, NE Nebraska City, NE Omaha, NE Columbus, NE Ashland, NE Fremont, NE Omaha, NE

Click here to Register

Local Qualifiers: Saturday, June 4, 2016 - Hillcrest Country Club, Lincoln Friday, July 8, 2016 - Riverside Golf Club, Grand Island Saturday, July 9, 2016 - The Players Club, Omaha

Date

Site

City

Deadline

Player Memo

June 1

Crooked Creek

Lincoln, NE

May 24

Information

June 7

Shoreline

Carter Lake, IA

May 30

Information

June 10

The Bluffs

Vermillion, SD

June 2

Information

June 14

Knolls

Omaha, NE

June 6

Information

June 16

Wilderness Ridge -

Lincoln, NE

June 8

Information

June 21

Miracle Hill

Omaha, NE

June 13

Information

June 22

Floyd Park

Sioux City, IA

June 14

Information

June 24

Riverside

Grand Island, NE

June 16

Information

June 28

Hidden Valley

Lincoln, NE

June 20

Information

June 29

Tara Hills

Papillion, NE

June 21

Information

June 30

Jackrabbit Run

Grand Island, NE

June 22

Information

July 6

Jim Ager

Lincoln, NE

June 28

Information

July 11

Fox Run

Council Bluffs, IA

July 3

Information

July 12

Awarii Dunes

Axtell, NE

July 4

Information

July 13

Dodge Riverside

Council Bluffs, IA

July 5

Information

July 15

Sioux City CC

Sioux City, IA

July 7

Information

July 19

Pacific Springs

Omaha, NE

July 11

Information

July 20

HiMark

Lincoln, NE

July 12

Information

July 21

Two Rivers

North Sioux City, SD

July 13

Information

July 25

Mahoney

Lincoln, NE

July 17

Information

July 28

Lochland CC

Hastings, NE

July 20

Information

August 3

Championship @

Fremont, NE

Invitation

Pictured Above: PGA Junior Series alum, Jordan Spieth

Serving Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois & Wisconsin

MARK STAVA, PGA Sales Representative Iowa & Nebraska (402) 917-1116 mstava@harrisgolfcars.com

Harris Golf cars is extremely excited to announce that Mark Stava, PGA will represent Harris Golf Cars in course fleet sales in Western Iowa and Nebraska. Mark comes highly recommended by many in the industry. He will be stopping out to visit all of you this spring. Please let Mark know if he can help you in anyway and for all Yamaha Golf Car facilities he will get you signed up for the New Yamatrack Mobile GPS Personalized for your course. Itâ€™s awesome and has many features. Mark will work out of our new location at 1020 S. Highway 30 Blair Neb 68008 and can be reached at 402-917-1116 or mstava@harrisgolfcars.com. Mark has been an active PGA Member since graduating from UNLâ€˜s PGA Golf Management Program in 2011. He began his career as a teaching professional where he was able to spread his passion and love for the game to the hundreds of men, women, and children he coached. In his current position working with Harris Yamaha Golf Car Company he is able to continue to foster his love of the game along with living out his passion for helping people through exemplary customer service and loyalty. Mark and his wife, Mykala, were both born and raised in the Omaha area. They both enjoy golf along with many other outdoor activities in their free time. We look forward to having Mark be a part of our team! Scott Harris President, Harris Golf Cars 563.580.8940 Cell Find out why 1,400 courses have switched to YAMAHA www.harrisgolfcars.com

Assistants Championship – August 1 – Riverside Country Club, Grand Island, NE

Senior Championship – August 1-2 – Riverside Country Club, Grand Island, NE

Section Championship – August 8-9 – ArborLinks, Nebraska City, NE

PGA PerformanceTrak Notice of Cancellation The PGA of America has discontinued the monthly PGA PerformanceTrak service as of March 1, 2016. We understand that PGA PerformanceTrak has been an important benchmarking tool for many of you. Rest assured that the PGA will continue to take the lead in facility operations research and performance benchmarking through the PGA Annual Operations Survey, which receives strong participation each spring. Click here to access the PGA Annual Operations Survey. Should you wish to report and track monthly golf rounds, the research group, Golf Datatech LLC has extended an offer to PGA Professionals and other industry operators to participate in their rounds played reporting service free of charge. If you are interested, click here to get started or contact Suzie Phillips at sphillips@golfdatatech.com and she will be happy to help you. The PGA of America will continue to host the PerformanceTrak reporting tool on PGA.org for those interested in accessing historical reports. Beginning March 1, you will also have the ability to download data entered on behalf of your facility should you wish to retain this information. The PGA continues to focus on directing resources to measurable, high-impact member-based programming and initiatives. Your continued support of these programs is greatly appreciated. Should you have any questions regarding this service change, please contact the PGA Membership Department at (800) 474-2776.

LifeLock Offers 15% Discount

The PGA of America is proud to announce a partnership deal with LifeLock as the latest addition to our member benefits portfolio. LifeLock is one of the leading Identity Theft Protection Services in the United States. While LifeLock cannot guarantee or prevent ID theft, they can help protect against it. Here are the key elements to the LifeLock program:

1. Detection: LifeLock monitors trillions of data points every day to help detect suspicious use of a customer's identity information to get loans, credit and services.

2. Alert: The LifeLock Identity AlertÂŽ Systemâ€ sends fraud alerts by text, phone or email. If confirmed by the member to be 3.

fraudulent, an Identity Restoration Specialist is there to help. Restore:LifeLock has access to U.S.-based Identity Restoration Specialists to help resolve identity theft issues and are backed by a $1 Million Total Service Guarantee, in which LifeLock will spend up to a $1 million if necessary to hire experts to help fix identity theft problems.

CLICK HERE for more information. 15

Back Row: Don Germer, PGA; Troy Harder, PGA; Nick Muller, PGA; Tom Johnson, PGA; James Sieckmann, PGA; Bob Baber, PGA; Tony Pesavento, PGA; Matt Shaner, PGA Front Row: Ryan Vermeer; Joe Sutter, PGA; Karrie Van Ravenswaay, PGA; Brad Wuhs, PGA; Jim White, PGA; Nathan Kalin, PGA Not Pictured: Shane Zywiec, PGA

Education Corner  

Access the 2016 PGA Merchandise Show videos Access the 2015 PGA Merchandise Show videos  Update PGA.org Profile  Player Development MSR Reporting Form

Chris Clover, PGA Head Golf Professional Happy Hollow Club Here at Happy Hollow Club, we pride ourselves on having a great outside service staff. This stays constant despite losing key staff members from year to year. This does not happen by coincidence, due to systems we have in place, we put our bag staff in a position that they ensure success. All of this is achieved through a high level of communication. We constantly let our bag staff know what our expectations are for them. We do this by verbally telling them, while also leaving reminders in areas they frequent. Posters and flyers with relevant information are left in a spot for all to see in case verbal communication isn’t possible at the moment. Email is also a very important tool we utilize. Emails are used as a way to communicate important reminders when gathering the whole staff isn’t possible. They are always reminded of our service slogan, “Anything for Anyone at Anytime”. The staff is trained on what service means from their opening orientation until the golf season ends. Every year we identify our outside staff leaders at the beginning of the year. Usually these leaders have a few years of experience and can be trusted with on the job training of younger staff, as well as closing duties. We try to have a closing leader on duty every evening. This ensures we do not put younger staff personnel in positions where they cannot succeed. These closing leaders use our closing checklists, as well as many years of experience to help train our younger staff on how to properly close our bag room at night. Communication is key to our success. We relay our expectations both verbally and visually. Placing this kind of importance on service creates a culture in our bag room that transfers from year to year. By taking these actions, we place our staff in situations where they will succeed. This makes for a great experience for our members, guests and our staff.

My wife loves Oreos. She has her stable of favorites that are purchased often and she is always at the store the day they launch a seasonal or new Oreo flavor. When I tell you Oreo I mean the brand Oreo. Don’t try and push Joe Joe’s, Market Pantry or any other generic brand that costs half as much on her. The interesting thing is when you ask her why she only wants the brand name Oreos she can’t give me definable reasons such as size, taste, or even cookie to filling ratio which I would all find acceptable. The reason she loves Oreos and will always stick with Oreos is because they have become a lovemark to her. Lovemarks are things that deliver far beyond your expectations and bring out an emotional connection that you cannot live without. Being a brand no longer means as much. Every morning we expect the coffee we purchase to be hot and we expect our car to start the first time. If we all expect this than why do many of us refuse to go anywhere but Starbucks for that hot coffee when it is far more expensive and why will some only look at a Ford F150 if all start and get us to work on time? Similarly a brand can be taken away and we will find a replacement. But the second you take away a lovemark we have people protesting….like when they changed to New Coke.

PING for life. What we want as golf professionals is to have our golf courses serve as lovemarks and to be lovemarks ourselves. The best part about this is that for every one of you I think this is easy! You are the experts in the game and business of golf. There is a high respect there. Similarly you run great golf courses that provide consistently wonderful customer service. The next step is to provide the marketing which creates emotion. Reasons lead to conclusion; emotions lead to action.” Kevin Roberts in the book, Lovemarks We referred to trucks earlier so to provide a few examples we will stick with automotive marketing. Big companies with big bucks invested in marketing. When you watch a truck commercial today you don’t see a truck on a street while a person reads off features. Today we see families, we see people we aspire to look like looking good driving in a place we’d love to visit, we see those things that tug on our emotions. Look at the Ford F150 ad from the past versus the Ford F150 ad of today. Looks like Ford has figured out that emotion drives business.

A great way to understand exactly what a lovemark is, is to see the Respect V Love Axis below describing the goods and services we buy. We have products which are at the bottom left because we don’t have high expectations of them and they don’t bring any feeling out in us. At your golf course this may be as simple as a golf tee. It can last many rounds or four holes…you really don’t care. Next are fads which draw some emotion from us that encourages mass purchases but we soon develop low respect and they go away. There are a million examples of these but golf training aids may be the best. Promises of embarrassing your friends off the tee with increased distance leads to a quick buy but we soon find out it is useless. In golf we have to think the same way. We need to focus less on the where, what and how much and work to create that same lovemark that many of these top companies have. Which one of the below advertisements gets you excited:

Next we have brands which have often been around for a while due to a high respect from consumers. This can be any brand of golf equipment such as Taylormade, Titleist and PING. They all make a great product but many of them don’t excite consumers enough to purchase the newest one every year and go all one brand in the bag. Then we have lovemarks which have high respect and high love. These are those same brands of golf clubs that have consistently good quality but something extra made us fall in love. A great example is PING who introduced the color fitting chart. Yes they had a great product that was fit for you….but it was that marketing of every golfer being just as important as the PGA Tour Professional and that feeling of being special that led to an extremely loyal customer base that even many years after the PING EYE 2 are still

So as you begin working on your website or marketing your golf course, lesson packages, golf clubs, apparel and the like please make sure to remember the goal of creating an emotional reaction in the reader. Don’t get bogged down with facts, figures, performance features and focus on the social, family and other aspects that made you an avid golfer and made you choose to turn it into a career. Consider what imagery will be on your materials. Does a picture of the clubhouse or challenging hole attract as many people as images of friends who couldn’t be having a better time anywhere else? Just like at prior PGA Section Meetings we covered the “Why” of what we do as a business; with customers focus on emotional connections that develop a “Why” for them. Not WHAT but WHY. I can tell you that if you maintain a consistently great product and pair that with customers who feel special, appreciated and like they are part of something wonderful you will become a lovemark. In turn you will have more loyal customers who play more often, stay longer and are so proud to be part of the golf course family, they will be purchasing and wearing your product everywhere and telling all their friends. For more information on lovemarks, further examples in various industries and best practices I encourage you to look into Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands by Kevin Roberts. 18

What is the Revenue Scorecard? The PGA Revenue Scorecard is a valuable business tool designed to quantify and report additional revenue derived from your Player Development Programming. What are the benefits of the Revenue Scorecard? The end calculation and output of the revenue scorecard is the incremental revenue generated by your Player Development Programming on an annual basis. This number is a key business measure that can be shared with your facility ownership or supervisor to demonstrate the value you drive to your local facility. It can also be used to benchmark your programming success year-over-year. How do I complete a Revenue Scorecard? As of January 2016, the Revenue Scorecard has been redesigned into a new, user-friendly online survey that should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

START What information do I need to input? Before beginning we suggest you gather the following information to assist with the completion:

Private Facilities Number of adults and juniors participating in programmed lessons Average instruction spend Total number of members Number of new members Number of members whoâ€™ve resigned

Public Facilities Number of adults and juniors participating in programmed lessons Average green fees New player spend Total number of rounds played by new golfers All the information you provide will be kept strictly confidential. Who can I speak to for assistance? Please contact the Player Development Regional Manager in, or in closest proximity to your local market. Access the list of managers here.

Employment Changes Employee

Class

Current Fac

Scott Carlson, PGA

A-1

Holmes Park Golf Course

Kalan Fread, PGA

A-1

Awarii Dunes Golf Club

Casey W. Hefner, PGA

A-8

Indian Creek Golf Course

Mark Mooberry, PGA

A-8

Bent Tree Golf Club

Mark L. Stava, PGA

A-20

Harris Golf Cars

Terry Riordan, PGA Bob Walker, PGA Nick Wanderscheid, PGA Mike Schuchart, PGA Todd Boeve, PGA Scott Allacher, PGA Robert Thomason, PGA Kenneth Evans Hank McFarland, PGA Bill Scarborough, PGA Brett Evans, PGA Scott Martin Ky Molholm, PGA

David Honnens, PGA Executive Director dhonnens@pgahq.com

1-Apr 2-Apr 2-Apr 6-Apr 7-Apr 8-Apr 8-Apr 9-Apr 11-Apr 11-Apr 12-Apr 12-Apr 14-Apr

Sean Oâ€™Neill, PGA Tournament Director soneill@pgahq.com

Tom Nelson, PGA Jonathan Beaver, PGA Gerald Fitzpatrick, PGA Sean O'Neill, PGA Jim White, PGA Cale D. Cournoyer Cody Gorsett, PGA

15-Apr 16-Apr 16-Apr 16-Apr 16-Apr 21-Apr 22-Apr

Don Kruse, PGA Britt Ward, PGA Jeff Kuhn Jon Petersen, PGA David James, PGA Mitch Merrill, PGA Mike Cornell, PGA Jen Smith, PGA

22-Apr 23-Apr 24-Apr 24-Apr 25-Apr 25-Apr 26-Apr 28-Apr

Joe Canny, PGA Junior Golf Director/ Player Development Coordinator jcanny@pgahq.com

Renee Tyson Operations Manager rtyson@pgahq.com