John Kennedy is PGA director of golf at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York.
We have had success using our golf scoreboard to develop a community atmosphere at our private club. With a 1,000-family membership, communication can be challenging. After we put a permanent scoreboard in front of the golf shop two years ago, communication was enhanced greatly. We have two eight-foot-long scoreboards positioned together for a 16-foot long space. It’s like an old-fashioned community bulletin board, except that it’s white ceramic and magnetized. We write on it with Sharpies and use little clips to attach score sheets and other information. It’s not digital; we are a traditional club. We post scores for concluded tournaments, and flyers announcing future events. Graphic artists in our publicity department add artwork to the materials. For example, on score sheets for our member-guest tournament, each guest’s club logo is printed next to his or her name. Members appreciate seeing tournament results and information on upcoming events. Parents and grandparents like seeing what’s going on in junior golf. It’s a somewhat unusual but fairly simplistic way to bring people together and inform them at the same time.
The dynamics of the scoreboard are that members seem to enjoy spending time gathered around it, often getting to know other members. And they are apt to enter the golf shop more often, increasing our traffic. In each of the past two years since we installed the permanent scoreboard in front of the golf shop, the additional member traffic as a result accounted for 750 more visits to the shop, with an average sale of $20 and an increase in gross sales of $15,000. The scoreboard has become a focal point at our club.