Matt Creech, PGA is the Owner of The Golf Dome, and is the PGA Ambassador at the Mayfield Sand Ridge Club Chardon, Ohio.

Matt Creech on the importance of exploring opportunities to partner with local schools:

Our best range program from 2022 was our Middle School Series. We partnered with eight local middle and high schools to give students an introduction to golf and help them achieve skills that could allow them to try the game for the first time or ideally tryout for a varsity/junior varsity/or freshman team in high school. We partnered with the Northern Ohio PGA Foundation to provide equipment for those in need, and in all we gave away 12 full sets of clubs to deserving juniors. We wanted to be a place to help facilitate a junior feeling like they could tryout for a team.

Matt Creech on the business impact of exploring opportunities to partner with local schools:

A total of 70 players from those eight schools had their parents drop them off over four weeks on Mondays or Wednesdays, 18 kids at a time. It was with myself, another instructor and a high school age assistant, leading to a 6:1 student to teacher ratio. The sessions were from either 4:30pm-5:45pm or 6pm-7:15pm. The program cost $100 per child. I love thinking outside the box and being ambitious so we put this out there to our club’s email database, on social media and were very pleased with the response. We got the parents beginning to play with us – or take lessons – and the juniors are also enrolled in other clinics and classes. For us as at the Dome, the impact was income for the instructors and to aid in awareness, as we had only been open here for 13 months when the program began. But ultimately it was, and continues to be, about these 70 juniors who now have a chance to play competitively and potentially get college scholarships and who knows what else. The sky is the limit.

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