Susan Bond, the New England PGA Section vice president and winner of the Section’s 2012 Bill Strausbaugh Award, is the PGA head professional at Weekapaug Golf Club in Westerly, R.I.

 

For the past four years, we have done something fun for our members during the Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend. The first event we ran was “Wine and Wedges,” where I brought in my Titleist representative to talk about bounce, lie angle and the loft of wedges before I gave a clinic on how to execute a bunker shot. At the time, we were renovating the course and added or replaced bunkers to create a total of more than 60 for nine holes; learning how to be more successful in the bunkers helped to make our members less afraid of the new course challenges. After the clinic, my bar manager set up a tent with tables and all of the new wines for the season. This event was a huge success and led to the “Putters and Pinot” event we ran the following year. For this outing, we created a mini golf course where each hole had a different theme and more wines were introduced after the contest. Last year, we put on a “Short Game and Sauvignon” event, which was a combo of pitching, chipping, bunker play and putting. For 2014, we are going to introduce the “Weekapaug Challenge” as our version of Golf Channel’s Big Break. Trying something new every year is a great way to open the season up on a fresh note!

For the “Wine and Wedges” we were able to sell 12 wedges that evening, and for the “Putters and Pinot” we sold four Scotty Cameron putters that night. The outings have been great for equipment sales, but they also really promote a family atmosphere at our club. It is a lot of fun for all of our members who participate and generates some great excitement jumping into the new season.

If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email Cslcbond@aol.com