Like any organization, growing a golf club can be difficult with many unforeseen roadblocks and challenges. From scheduling and running tournaments, recruiting members, managing rosters, and all the other responsibilities that come with running a club, it can feel like a full-time job. And often it can feel like when your club grows, your workload grows with it. Thankfully, as you add more members to your roster, one of the ways to mitigate these challenges is to recruit support from within your own network or club to take on various club roles and responsibilities. We recommend that, at a minimum, you have find different people to fill these roles:
3 Key Roles in Your Club
Handicap Chair / President
Handicap Chair is technically the only REQUIRED role in your club as a means to provide oversight and education regarding the World Handicap System™. If you’re reading this blog, it is distinctly possible this is you. One member of your club must be proficient in the World Handicap System so that all club events and tournaments can be fairly and equitably managed. If you want to assign the Handicap Chair role to another member, it is important that someone completes the World Handicap System education course at the beginning of every system cycle, approximately every four years.
Membership Director
This role manages your club roster. Most of the club administration tasks can be handled automatically through Golf Nations (Joins, Renews and all associated communications). The real challenge is recruiting new members. Ideally, your membership director is someone that is familiar with marketing and has a grasp of social media do’s and don’ts. Check out this blog (or send to a fellow member) to get acclimated with the basics of growing your club roster.
Tournament Director
This role manages your events or tournaments. Ideally, this individual should be pretty tech savvy because Golf Genius (tournament software provided by the SCGA) makes tournament management fun and easy, especially with access to the Knowledge Base for assistance on essentially any element. Tournament managers also have a good grasp of the Rules of golf and are very detail oriented by nature. Got someone in mind? Give them the rundown on running a killer tournament and have them check out this walkthrough of the Golf Genius software.
Tips and Tricks for Recruiting and Retaining Club Leaders
Rewards
Photo: Golf Digest
Everyone loves free stuff. Make sure your crew is feeling valued for their time: volunteers should be rewarded with reduced membership fees, reduced tournament fees, or club swag (hats, t-shirt, bag tags, etc.).
Match members to their interests
Send out a survey to your group to find out who is good at what and who might be interested in specific aspects of your club. For instance, perhaps there is somebody in your group that loves social media and can run your Instagram account. Perhaps a member is an expert on the Rules of Golf and can manage the responsibility of managing your tournaments. It never hurts to ask.
Acknowledge Volunteers Every Chance You Get
Give these club roles prestige and visibility within your club communications or on your website/social media pages. A little bit of recognition can go a long way.
Pursue younger members for leadership.
Photo: Getty Images
Since most club roles require the use of technology to maximize efficiency, many of your younger members might be a great fit. Club officials that are good with technology will often be the longest serving members of club leadership. This is because when club tasks can be automated or simplified down to a manageable level, it alleviates a lot of the time and burden for the official. These officials are then less likely to feel overworked and underappreciated.
As always, if any of you or your recruits have any questions or reservations, the SCGA is here to help. We have a myriad of online resources on demand and we are available for live phone calls or virtual trainings.
Thank you for all you do to make your club successful and to keep club golf thriving in Southern California!
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