The White Lake Golf Club is a private membership golf club that allows outside golf outings. For information about a future golf outing please call Director of Golf Bill Borgman, PGA at (231) 893-4232 or e-mail him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Play Golf…More Often!
All outings include the following:
- Green fees and cart fees.
- Practice range use.
- Personalized cart signs.
- Beverage cart service.
- Event scoring.
- Professional outing coordinator working with you every step of the way.
- Prizes from the pro-shop
Outing Best Practices
People play in a golf tournament because of the following reasons:
- To support you because they are a friend or relative or they believe in your cause.
- To play a golf course that they usually wouldn’t play.
- Because your prizes are substantial and they feel they have a chance at winning one. Form a committee of nine people:
Tips to Fill Your Field (144 players)
- You – make all of the final decisions.
- Honorary Chairperson (i.e. mayor, sports figure, local newscaster, local actor, etc.). Someone who supports your cause.
- Logistics Chairperson – handles coordination of day of events.
- Volunteer Chairperson – gets volunteers to help with check in, witness the hole in one contest, etc.
- Prize Chairperson – visits local restaurants, taverns, businesses and asks for donations (gift certificates and merchandise) for outing prizes and raffles.
- Golf Course Intermediary – works with golf course personnel to make all arrangements and negotiate fees.
- Treasurer – collects all of the entry fees and manages the finances.
- Sponsorship Chairperson – approaches businesses with regard to sponsoring the beverage cart, meals, hole-in-one contest, etc. Also sell hole sponsorships. Approach people you or someone on the committee knows. People tend to support their friends or relatives.
- PR Chairperson – works with local media to try to get PR on your event. Also in charge of outing website and sending out invitations to potential guests (golfers).
If you can hold each of these committee members responsible for only four four-somes, you will have a full field of 36 teams or 144 players.
Other tips:
- Start your tournament preparation at least nine months prior to the event. The more time you put into organizing the event, the better the event will be.
- Make sure that you acknowledge all sponsors. You can do so with signs, banners, announcements, handouts, collateral, etc. You can give a sponsor a four-some in the tournament to persuade them to make a significant donation.
- Don’t significantly overcharge the golfers – make the event a good value to ensure your participants will return in the following years. The sponsors should generate the majority of the revenue.
- Keep the post-outing dinner and awards ceremony to no more than 90 minutes. Keep the outing moving. Time is a valuable commodity.
- Golfers enjoy on-course contests – longest drive, closest to the pin, and straightest drive are a few common contests. The more prizes you give out the better the chance your golfers will return the following year. People love to win prizes.
- Other ways to generate revenue – mulligan packages, sell raffle tickets, silent auctions and 50/50 drawings.
- Get your pairings and guaranteed number of players to the golf course at least seven days prior to the event.
- Download a copy of the Golf Tournament Association of America’s Tournament Guide. It includes forms that will make organizing your tournament a snap.