PGA Best Practices: Women & Golf

Lisa Miller is the PGA director of golf and the golf operations manager for the four public courses of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Special Events Show Women They Matter

Lisa on the importance of special women’s events:
Having regular women’s clinics or women’s leagues is great, and an important component of any women’s program, but often it is not enough to stop there and consider your women’s golf program a success. Rather, we’ve seen that it is also important to hold special women-specific events, to help show ladies that they are meaningful and appreciated. A successful program we launched last year was adding value to our two-day Best Shot competition, which we marketed to our Ladies Association at each of our four courses through our Web site and in a weekly e-mail blast. The women’s two-person best shot tournament is played at two different courses on each day culminating with a barbecue lunch. Perhaps the most important part of last year’s event, at least in terms of proving our commitment to the ladies, was a women-only demo event at the end of the first day. Demo days aren’t uncommon at golf courses, but this was the first time we organized one specifically aimed at our female demographic. For this first event we only brought in Callaway Golf and gave our ladies a great opportunity to take a look at all the women’s golf products the company offers. It was a great success and we had a greater turnout than we initially expected, all of which has led us to begin organizing a larger event for next year where we’ll bring in more companies to make everything bigger and better.

Lisa on the business impact of special women’s events:
In just the one evening, we were able to bring in an additional $2,400 in merchandise sales. Additionally, many of the participants will be contacted when the Callaway 2009 shoe line becomes available, and will be offerered the opportunity to special-order shoes for their coming golf season. More importantly, we will have the opportunity to build relationships and a loyalty factor with our women golfers. Many of the purchases at the women’s demo day were special orders and when the customers came in to pick up their purchases they commented on how easy a process it was, which we believe will lead to more purchases in the future.

This article was published January 8, 2009 on PGA Magazine.com