Tim Garvin is the PGA head professional at South Fork Country Club in Amagansett, New York.

At South Fork Country Club, we have been working to alter our tournament program by enhancing our more popular tournaments and discontinuing stale events. In the 10 years I have been at South Fork Country Club, I have eliminated six tournaments, revamped two others, including our club championship and member-member, which now requires participants to set up their own matches throughout the season. We made these changes because many of our events were closing the course, or even the entire club and food & beverage operation for whole weekends. In other words, we weren’t maximizing the use of our facility or tee sheet. Additionally, many of the events were not selling out. Furthermore, the fun aspect is always a premium as I have changed a vast amount of our tournament formats from stroke play to scrambles and better balls. Tournaments are now reaching maxing capacity on a regular basis and members and their guests are having more fun now than ever!

Tim Garvin on the business impact of redesigning your tournament program:
The initiative in redesigning our tournament program has been an exciting process. The initiative has guided our club to several events being sold out with increased golf shop sales and membership inquires. For this first time in nine years we have a membership waiting list. In addition, for comparison, I ran a women’s stroke play event, which captured 21 female members. In the following weeks I unveiled a women’s team scramble, which attracted 88 female members. Counting individual strokes, putting everything out, rules officials and high levels of competition and stress is making its way quickly out-of-bounds. Our initiative of redesigned club tournaments format has increased and driven all revenue streams as we will continue to enhance fun, fast, low-stress club tournaments throughout the future.

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Editor’s note: The above comments reflect the opinion and experiences of the submitting PGA Professional and are not endorsed by PGA Magazine or the PGA of America.