Shane Warawa a PGA apprentice, is the head professional at The Georgia Trail at Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga.

Shane Warawa on the importance of always promoting your facility:
As a public facility we’re always looking for ways to attract more customers to our course. We have a practice facility, a nine-hole course that’s beginner-friendly, a teaching academy, a mini-golf course, restaurant and more. So the ability to host a local qualifier for the inaugural Drive, Chip, & Putt Championship, which leads to the finals at Augusta National Golf Club, was a huge opportunity for us. While a lot of our focus was on making sure everything was ready for the event itself, we didn’t forget about taking the opportunity to make sure we looked our best. We made sure the golf shop and the surrounding facility was clean and looking sharp, with grasses cut, bunkers raked, and the golf shop fully stocked. We brought in veterans from the surrounding area to run parking, brought in extra staff to help things run smoothly, made sure everyone wore the same colored shirts for ease of use when customers had questions, and tried to make crowd flow as simple and consistent as possible. It paid off.

Shane Warawa on the business impact of always promoting your facility:
More than 120 players participated. Coupled with their parents and other family members who came to watch, there were a lot of people who got to see everything we had to offer. From what we can tell, probably 90 percent had never been on our property before, with some of them saying they didn’t even realize our facility, a public facility they could use, even existed. Since our local qualifier, which took place on June 4, we’ve seen 10-15 percent of them come back to use our practice facility, play our golf course, eat at our restaurant and play mini-golf. We’ve also taken the opportunity to remind them that we have trained professionals on staff ready to help them get better at our golf academy. It’s the greatest bit of free advertising we could have ever asked for, and truly shows that for any facility who may be hosting an event like this down the line, they have an opportunity they absolutely cannot afford to squander.

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