Neil Maurer is the PGA director of golf and club operations at Bear Trap Dunes in Ocean View, Delaware.

We recently started incorporating music into some of our retail events, such as our demo days and sidewalk sales, and received very positive feedback from our members and guests. So we decided to use music to help personalize our member-guest tournaments. We allow our teams (for both our men’s and women’s member-guest) to pick a team theme song when they register. We purchase all of the songs from iTunes and incorporate them into a playlist that loops all weekend around the grounds. Our teams get so excited when they hear their songs playing.

Neil Maurer on the business impact of using music to personalize tournaments:
We play the winning teams’ songs during the champions dinner and awards ceremony, which gives teams an extra incentive to play well. While this fun twist isn’t fully responsible for our increase in member-guest participation, I have had members tell me that they’re already thinking about what their theme song will be this year. It’s helped create a lot of buzz around an older event, which always helps!

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

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.