Kelly Kranstuber is PGA Head Golf Professional at Wooster Country Club in Wooster, Ohio.
For six years, we have been offering an incentive to charity and corporate outings held at our private club. If an event has 100 players or more, we give each player a special replay pass. It offers the player a free round of golf at our club, requiring payment of only the cart fee. The golfer can play alone or, if he wants to bring a friend, the guest would pay the greens fee in addition to the cart fee. We have found this incentive to be effective in encouraging more golfers to sign up for tournaments at our club. The only marketing we do of this initiative is direct communication in meetings with the outing directors. Nonetheless, word has spread. Each printed certificate measures 8 ½ inches by 4 inches, resembling an oversize coupon. The expiration date for all the certificates is October 31, which is when our regular season ends each year.
We have noticed that 30 percent of our tournament players use their passes to return to our club to play a round. In addition, the size of the fields in our corporate and charity tournaments has increased, as a result of the guest-round incentive and the way we conduct our events. And over the last three years, our tournament guest-pass program has brought in five new members to our club. This program is proving very successful for us.