When hosting a charity golf tournament, celebrity golf tournament or any event where there is a need for sponsors, you can use the following ideas to help attract more involvement.

Getting celebrities to attend is one of the best ways to increase the size of your tournament.  You already knew that, but how about getting several celebrities from different areas of fame?  Baseball players, musicians, actors, football players, all lending their time and talent for a day of fun for a good cause.

There is a tournament in Southern California for the past four years called Hack n’ Smack.  This charity golf event benefits The Melanoma Foundation with 10% of its net proceeds.  Here’s who they had listed on their web site scheduled to appear in 2007: Joe Pesci, James Woods, Lorenzo Neal, Patrick Warburton, Gregory Itzin, Christopher Gorham, Dennis Haysbert, Anthony Anderson, Tom Everett Scott, James Hyde, Jeremy Ratchford, Jeffrey Nordling, Shawn Ryan, Richard Schiff, Chad Brown, Bill Smitrovich, Kevin Dobson, David Naughton, Chris Chandler, Alfonso Ribeiro, Denny Hocking, Paul Logan, and Dan Moriarty.  Now that’s a celebrity, charity golf tournament!

I was curious, with so many golf tournaments, how the organizers keep filling the foursomes and getting sponsors and celebrities to participate.  So, I asked an expert from the Golf Tournament Association of America (GTAA), how the successful tournaments maintain, grow, and attract new blood each year.

One of the things I remember from my conversation with Doug Webber, Executive Director of the GTAA, (and I am paraphrasing), is that you have to look at the advertising of the event, and the PR associated with the event as two equally important activities.

He told me about a tournament in Phoenix that employed a neat public relations plan that worked well.  The tournament was for a charity and they wanted to not only sell out the flight, but also attract good sponsorship.  In addition, they wanted to have it open to public spectators.  Some charity tournaments do this to allow the public to bid on auction items and buy raffle tickets, dinner, etc.

Before the event, the tournament coordinators came up with a fun record setting event that actually got free airplay on local radio stations.  Don’t forget newspapers, and radio stations will mention not-for-profit events.  They contacted all the local radio affiliates and told them of their event and they were trying to set a world record for the fastest round of 18 holes ever played. 

The plan was to have a pre-determined number golfer stationed at each tee, in the fairways and on the greens.  There would be an official timer with an air-horn and when the horn sounded, the person on the first tee would swing away.  Then, the person in the fairway would take the next shot towards the green.  Once on the green, the putter would putt and then get the ball to the next tee as fast as possible. 

This would be repeated throughout the course until the same ball rolled in on the 18th hole.

The net result was a very quick round of golf (I believe it was under 30 minutes), many spectators and a lot of free advertising for the event and more importantly, for the charity.

I have heard other stories of night golf being popular with some groups opting for glow-in-the-dark golf over traditional tournament play. 

There are a number of different ways you can keep score in tournament golf to ensure that players of all skill levels have fun.  If people have fun, they are more inclined to participate again next year.

Lastly, I think the idea of opening up the event to spectators, and  having a portion of the day for golf and the dinner afterwards open to the public is becoming both popular and cost-effective considering the growing amounts of money tournaments seek to raise.

Live music goes well after a day of golf; awards ceremonies and a great meal help make an event enjoyable and memorable.

Keep it fun…Enjoy Golf!

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