Planning a Golf Outing
There are four key factors to consider when planning a Golf Outing. Once you nail these elements, the rest is a breeze. The factors are Season, Size, Day of the Week and Course Amenities. When contacting area golf courses the prices quoted and availablilty will depend on these 4 factors.
SEASON….Outing prices can vary depending on the time of year. While weather can be less reliable in the Spring or Fall, many courses offer a slight discount on green fees during the Spring or Fall. For Southeast Michigan Golf Outings, for example, the Spring season runs approximately April 1 - Memorial Day. The Fall season would be mid September until snow fall, mid November.
DAY OF WEEK…Common sense would make this an obvious factor. Golf Courses like to fill their course, like an Airline works to fill their planes prior to take off. Saturday and Sunday are the busiest golf days and often require less work in filling tee times. For this reason, booking outings on the weekends are less desirable for many golf courses because they know their tee times can be easily filled by daily fee golfers. However, there are many golf courses that are more than willing to guarantee their tee times are filled by booking a Golf Outing. To book an outing on a weekend, however, the outing planner may be forgoing a larger outing discount in exchange for securing a Saturday or Sunday date. One way to receive a weekend date as well as a discount would be to schedule the outing during the beginning or end of the season. In this case you would be locking in a Saturday or Sunday but taking a chance on weather.
SIZE…..Size does matter. A small outing would be considered 24 golfers or less. A large outing would be 90 plus golfers. Both would look forward to recieving some kind of a discount off of posted green fees. For a small outing, a course would block off a series of tee times in an hour time frame on the schedule. Discounts would not be huge, but for a golf course to ‘pre-sell’ that block of times the group could look forward to some kind of incentive for bringing their group to the course. A larger outing of 90 or more golfers has two options. The first is to organize a ‘Shotgun Start’, the second is to block the course for the estimated number of golfers. What is a Shotgun Start? This is when the golf course shuts the course down and clears the course prior to the outing to allow all golfers to begin at the same time. All 90 plus golfers are led onto the course at the appointed start time. Each group of four golfers is placed at a series of holes on the course. Play begins at the same time which is generally denoted by a blast from the Golf Course warning siren. The golfers progress around the course until they have played all 18-holes in progression. A shotgun start is the best option when dinner follows the outing because all golfers end play at approximately the same time. The alternative to a ‘Shotgun Start’ is to book individual tee times for each foursome and the outing players finish at ten minute intervals throughout the day.
COURSE AMENITIES…When organizing a Charity Golf Outing, you want to offer golfers value. The higher the perceived value, the higher price they are willing to pay for playing in the outing. High end golf courses, like Stonebridge Golf Club in Ann Arbor, can offer amenities that are automatically part of their golf experience and will cost the outing planner little to no additional cost. Amenities to look for include: Full banquet facilities, practice facilities (practice green, chipping bunker, driving range), locker facilities, Pro Shop with name brand merchandise, on course beverage carts and guest bag handling services. At Stonebridge Golf Course, for example, a unique draw is the outdoor Tiki Bar. Value added amenities can be promoted in a Charity Outing to draw golfers for little added cost to the planner’s budget.
By: Stonebridge Golf Club - Ann Arbor’s Premier Public Golf Course & Driving Range
