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President's ReportOver the winter break, your Pacific Northwest Section Board of Directors completed a new, long term Strategic Plan. With a Special Task Force that spearheaded the initial efforts, invaluable input from our CEO Jeff Ellison and his staff, and countless hours of input and edits by the entire 14 PGA Member Board, we have a crystal clear, long term strategic plan for the next 3 to 5 years. As members, you too can view the document and how it will help steer the decisions, focus, and business plans of YOUR Board and future Boards to follow. To view it, visit the Members Only side of our website using your PGA.org login. We encourage your feedback and comments, as we strive to address the issues and questions from our 1100 plus Members and Apprentices of the Pacific Northwest Section PGA. As we head into spring and a robust event calendar throughout our 5 Chapters and Section, I hope you take the time to carve out some time for yourself and your staffs to play some events this year, attend some great PGA education opportunities that have been coordinated throughout the Northwest, and attend one of YOUR Association meetings. The "even" years are even more important to our Section, as we elect a new Secretary in the Fall in our Section and Nationally a new Officer is also elected. Locally, please congratulate your fellow PGA Members, Sean Fredrickson and Dan Harrington. Sean is the Head Professional at Tualatin CC in the Portland metro area, and Dan is the Head Professional at The Home Course in the Tacoma metro area. Both are experienced leaders in their areas, have served as Presidents and through the chairs of their respective Chapter Boards, and are well spoken and prepared at our Board meetings. This will be a tough race, but in the end, we will be in good hands no matter who the membership votes as our next Secretary. I applaud you both for putting yourselves out there and taking on a rigorous process of campaigning. Stay tuned for monthly questions and interaction with our two candidates in the Foreward Press. Nationally, three candidates for Secretary have come forward and entered the race to become a National Officer. Russ Libby from North Florida PGA, Rick Murphy from the Carolinas PGA, and Jim Richerson from the Wisconsin PGA have begun the campaigning process this year. The PNWPGA Section Officers are attending a “Super Regional” meeting at the LA International Airport in early March to spend time with the 3 candidates. We would love to hear any input the membership has about these three individuals. They all seem to be very strong communicators, have great leadership qualities, and carry themselves in a professional manner. If you have any opinions, please feel free to reach out to myself (bryan.tunstill@cecc.com) or the other Officers. Bryan Tunstill, PGA |
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CEO's ReportThis month I simply want to share with you the results of my trip to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. It was a busy few days of meetings with PGA staff and connecting with our sponsors. First, the Business Development team at National delivers a fantastic sponsor base each year in support from National Car Rental, Omega, Mercedes, ClubCar, TaylorMade-adidas, Nike Golf, Titleist-FootJoy, Jani-King, Pepsi and PGA National Resort. We connected with many of these folks during the meetings. We start most of our sponsor conversations prior to the Show and use the Show to finalize on-going relationships and develop new opportunities. This year I’m happy to report we will see support from: Pacific Golf & Turf (E-Z Go), Club Car, Yamaha, Bushnell, Bridgestone, Sterling Cut Glass, Hole-In-One USA, Holcomb-In-One (Antigua, Sun Mountain, Imperial, Voodoo Performance Towel, Range Servant), Greg Norman, Haas Jordan, TaylorMade-adidas-Ashworth-Adams, AMA/SunDog, Nike Golf, Winner’s Award Group, Birdies2Eagles, PTE Golf, Pro-Tag, CaddyX, Lorente, Cutter & Buck, Sun Mountain, Sunice, Pelzer, and ClubGlove. In the coming weeks we will be finalizing relationships with Columbia Sportswear, Martin Golf, Orange Whip, and a few others. An impressive list and the number one reason is the support Pacific Northwest Section professionals show for their sponsors. There are two things you can do to help maintain this list: 1) send a thank you email to every sponsor and 2) if your position allows, buy from our sponsors. Make it a goal to thank every sponsor at some point during the year. Your recognition of their support is so critical. Budgets will continue to shrink and the Sections that show support are the ones who will receive support. Thanks for the help.
The PGA Centennial kicked off at the Merchandise Show. You’ll see PGA Sections spotlighted on Golf Channel during the first 100 days. I’ll give you a heads up when we know ours will be running. Promotions will be active during this span then quiet down during the Majors-Olympics-Ryder Cup and then fire up again as we approach the 100th Annual Meeting in November. A special promotion called #ThxPGAPro has been launched where professionals and amateurs alike can thank a PGA Professional who’s played a role in their life. Use the #ThxPGAPro on any social media channel to send your message. Mine is already out there. Thanks, Don Bails, PGA. #ThxPGAPro. The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is just four months away. We have a meeting at Sahalee on February 5 to finalize our Section operations. Look for an email next week to begin recruitment for our 158 volunteer shifts we need to fill. Most of these will be the highly prized practice area duties so you can watch the best female players in the world prepare for a major championship. It should be an exciting week. Angela Hinzpeter will take the lead managing this project for us. Thanks, Angela. PGA Junior League will see a significant upgrade in operational structure in 2016. The new web site will work, player registration will be on–line to facilitate the all-important parental releases required when working with juniors, and uniforms will be improved. To assist you Monte Koch will be an 'official' resource this year with additional PGA Junior League responsibilities and Dominic Marconi attended a PGA Junior League Summit at HQ in January and will assist as needed. This is a great program for kids of all abilities that the PARENTS love. If you are new to PGA Junior League, please consider hosting a team in 2016. If you are returning, please read the details on the changes so you don’t get surprised along the way. Monte is planning a “Captains Tour” this spring….plan to attend. The PGA Financial Assistance Scholarship application is now available. Open to children and grandchildren of PGA members, these scholarships help incoming college freshmen as well as existing college students with much needed funding for their education. Simply go to PGA.org and information is on the home page before you log in. Finally, Bryan mentioned our new Strategic Plan in his article. I encourage you to review it and offer your feedback to your officers. This high-level view will serve as the guide to the comprehensive Business Plan that is being developed. These two documents will be so important in guiding our future and keeping us on a consistent and well planned path. One final request: before you get too busy with the season, please take a few minutes to complete the PGA Compensation Survey. This survey provides CONFIDENTIAL information that is extremely valuable to our Employment Consultant Carol Pence as she works to help everyone in the Section elevate their employment. Only large sample sizes can be reported so your participation in the survey helps provide a large sample size of fairly specific criteria. This restriction keeps individual information masked, making it impossible to determine individual numbers. Help us all out and complete the survey today. A link should be in your Member Alerts on PGA.org. Have a great February, I hope to see you soon. Jeff Ellison, PGA
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Start the Season with the PNW Pro-Assistant Championship
Entries are now available for the PNW PGA Pro-Assistant Championship at Tualatin CC on March 21-22. Head PGA Professional Sean Fredrickson is excited to host this year and invites you to join us for both the tournament and our Spring General Meeting, which will immediately follow our first round at 7:00 pm. You may wear golf attire to the meeting! CLICK HERE to download the Pro-Assistant entry. What are you waiting for? Get your entry in and get the 2016 PNW PGA golf season started! |
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Celebrate the 2015 PNW PGA Special Award Winners
Fourteen outstanding PGA Professionals will be honored at the Pacific Northwest Section Special Awards Ceremony, March 20 at Tualatin Country Club in Tualatin, OR. The winners listed below represent the very best of the Pacific Northwest Section’s 1,100 PGA Professionals in Washington, Oregon, Northern Idaho, Western Montana and Alaska.
Please join us for a night of celebration, hors d'oeuvres and no-host cocktails as we honor these outstanding Golf Professionals. |
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Attend the PNW PGA Spring MeetingThe 2015 PNW PGA Spring Meeting will be held March 21, 2016 at 7:00 pm at Tualatin Country Club. The meeting will be worth at least 2 MSR credits, and it’s the only Section meeting where you can wear golf attire (although a jacket is also acceptable)! For hotel block information, please visit the PNW Pro-Assistant Championship web page and click "Hotel Hotels". |
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The 41st Hawai'i Pro-Am
Team Champions: Matt Hartill, Jamie Kessler, Rick Larson, Leann Richardson, Rick Richardson The Pacific Northwest Hawai’i Pro-Am presented by State Farm – Jim Ostrander Agency just completed the tournament week at Mauna Lani Resort. We had 16 teams in Hawai’i for seven days, enjoying the sunshine and hospitality of the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel on the Big Island for the 41st Annual Pacific Northwest PGA Winter Pro-Am. Host professional Tom Sursely welcomed the players to an awesome experience, and temperatures were around 80 degrees all week. Next year, get a team together! The team with PGA Professional Rick Larson of Fairwood G&CC, Rick Richardson, Liann Richardson, Matt Hartill and Jamie Kessler came out on top as the team champions of the 41st Winter Pro-Amateur Championship. PGA Professional Jason Aichele of Meadow Springs CC won low professional honors, while Koll Farman of The Golf Club at Newcastle finished three shots back of Aichele. Congratulations! Teams played Saturday, January 16 at Mauna Lani – South Course, Monday, January 18 on the North Course before returning to the South Course on Tuesday, January 19. The Pacific Northwest Hawai’i Pro-Am presented by State Farm – Jim Ostrander Agency is a five-man team, of one professional and four amateurs playing stableford competitions. There are daily team prizes, daily professional prizes, daily amateur gross and net prizes as well as overall prizes for the professionals and teams. There are many different ways a player could cash! Mauna Lani Resort’s two championship golf courses, Mauna Lani North and South, offer a challenging experience to novice and professional golf enthusiasts alike. Mauna Lani has received Golf Magazine’s Gold Medal Award every year since 1988 and was host to the Senior Skins Golf Game for 11 years. The courses are masterpieces of design, each strikingly different, yet equally challenging. Each course is a world apart geographically, and in playing experience. |
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Holk's Highlights
Brett is known for being the pro's pro in northwestern Washington. He attributes his success to Wayne Clark, head PGA professional at Homestead G&CC in 1994, who hired Brett to work in the golf shop and mentored him throughout PGA Business School. "Wayne taught me how to succeed at running all aspects of a golf operation: day-to-day operation, merchandising, teaching, and member-guest relations," said Brett. Brett takes member-guest relations to a whole new level, something he honed at a Hawaiian resort. "After completing business school in 1998, I had the opportunity to work as an Assistant Golf Professional at the Bay Course at Kapalua Resort under Marty Keiter," said Brett."Marty was very engaging with members and guests." Not only did Brett gain valuable insight from Marty and experience hosting major golf championships such as the Mercedes Championship and U.S. Amateur Women's Public Links Championship, but he now uses his connections to make an awesome Hawai'i trip for over 20 of his members each year. "He treats his members to a spectacular trip with plenty of non-golf activities lined up for the non-golfers," said Brian Kruhlak. Brett creates many of the same types of events that other Golf Professionals do for their members, but executes them at a higher level. "His demo days are among the best in the region," said Brian. Each spring, Semiahmoo offers a multi-day Demo Day featuring seven golf club vendors. "Our goal was to create an environment which welcomed not just the Country Club golfer, but also the casual golfer, tennis player, and resort guest who is looking for everyday wear. This past spring’s annual demo day exceeded $40,000 in sales for one day. In addition, the foot traffic we create during demo day benefits our food & beverage operation," said Brett. |
Brett EatonNominated by: Brian Kruhlak Facility: Director of Golf at Semiahmoo Resort since 2006 Hometown: Bellingham, WA PGA Member Since: 2000 Here are some of the other ways Brett connects with customers:
We also asked Brett, who was the 2014 PNW PGA Merchandiser of the Year in the Resort category, to tell us what his merchandising for his two golf shops is like: "Our philosophy is to bring in smaller groupings of soft good merchandise which creates more opportunity to appeal to all our guests. By bringing in smaller groupings, it helps to keep the golf shops looking fresh and new every time guests visit. Eye-catching displays are built to coincide with holidays and Club events. We also bring in unique items, such as lifestyle pieces, logoed glassware, and logoed travel luggage. These items appeal to both golfers and non-golfers. Each golf shop showcases different clothing line manufacturers. This promotes foot traffic to visit both golf shops," said Brett. If you would like to nominate someone for Holk's Highlights, please e-mail mcannon@pgahq.com. Brought to you by Grant Holcomb and:  |
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7 Simple Steps to Creating a Useful Membership SurveyCarol Pence, PGA | PGA Employment Consultant | CPence@pgahq.com The distinctive challenge for club managers is meeting the needs of one customer/owner at the expense of another customer/owner. All clubs have those who are vocal with their opinions, however do not represent the view of the entire membership. The most valuable resource for a club manager is to gather those opinions and collect factual data. As the culture and the demographics of the club constantly change, gathering the data and keeping it current can be challenging. Surveying the membership is one great way to measure their satisfaction and wants. It is also an excellent way for a new manager at a club to not only gather some input, but is a way to introduce themselves to the membership and open up dialogue. However, developing a survey that actually generates usable and actionable data is more difficult than it might appear. While it needs to be viewed as a tool used to gather data to be used in decision-making, what is gathered does not represent a conclusion in itself. It is not the answers to the surveys that are truly of interest, but rather how these answers provide insight into the larger issue or question that necessitated the survey in the first place. To develop a survey that generates useful and actionable results, consider the following seven steps: 1. RECEIVE PERMISSION This may be the most important step of them all. Permission must be granted from the owner, Board of Directors, General Manager or immediate supervisor to create and send out the survey. Employers do not like surprises and negative feedback from the members especially when they are unaware that a survey has been sent. 2. DETERMINE THE OBJECTIVE Determining a main goal is pretty obvious, but many clubs spend time, resources and funds to send out a survey to the membership without a clear statement of what they are trying to accomplish. This will usually result in meaningless data and misleads the members. As a rule, survey objectives need to be deep and narrow instead of broad and shallow. The survey should focus on the issues so the results will be specific enough to be actionable and a plan can be developed. For example, if a club is realizing an unsustainable operating loss, club management may decide to solicit input of the membership to determine why members are not using certain billable amenities (such as catering, dining room, private functions, tennis, fitness, golf, and entertaining outside guests, etc.) This survey will be considered to be too broad and shallow, it will cover a lot of area but very little of the results will be specific enough to be actionable. With some analysis from the manager or committee, they could narrow down the losses to identify the primary source or sources. For example, if the food and beverage operation is identified as the main source of losses, a highly specific survey focused on the level of importance and the level of satisfaction that members have with specific areas within the food and beverage operation could then be created. This type of objective would be considered to be deep and narrow with the results being specific enough to generate an action plan. 3. DEVELOP A LIST OF QUESTIONS Once a survey objective has been created, develop an unedited list of all of the questions that are desired to get answered. The only rule should be that every question should address the objective. This rough draft process of developing questions is best accomplished with a designated committee. Each member will have a different perspective on the issue in question and these perspectives will make for a more thorough survey and create leadership “buy in” into the process. Also, the questions should specifically address the survey objective, but you may want to identify “demographic” questions that will be needed to segment the results and make them more actionable. For example, is there need to understand the responses by age, gender, years of membership, category of membership? |
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#THXPGAPRO Is More than a Hashtag, It's a Legacy
One of the best parts of the kickoff to the Celebration was the #ThePGAPro hashtag concept. Seeing images (with Jordan Spieth and Cameron Doan, PGA) where the best players, PGA professionals and celebrities are showing gratitude for the investment a PGA professional has made (or still making) in their lives is very cool and heartwarming. On the surface, it could end there as a feel-good concept that shows the power of a PGA professional to impact people in countless ways. As I tend to do, I ask that you and I go beyond the hashtag, beyond the feel-good and think about the true value and true opportunity that is wrapped up in #ThePGAPro concept. Every day, I live out the impact of the PGA professionals and their investment in me by paying it forward as I invest myself (and some of them) in others, including PGA professionals. MY #ThxPGAPro List:
The names on my list are all still mentors and coaches of mine. Some are my heroes from when I picked up the game, some are fairly recent. For some, the standards they set for themselves are the ones I borrowed for my life, my professional approach. For others, the thanks is in the way they make me grow, develop and think today so that I can be more effective in my role here in the PNWPGA Section. Some of them inspire me by their amazing ingenuity, resourcefulness and more. I’m sure I’ve accidentally omitted someone from that list above, and equally sure the list will be growing. It’s gotta be, or else I am going backwards. As I often find myself doing. I have some questions for you – for me? Besides my tightened focus on PGA Junior League Golf for 2016, I am also going to be looking for opportunities to tell stories of #ThxPGAPro. If you’ve got one to share with our Section, I am asking you to share it with me. For now, I would like to thank all of you who have joined our “coalition of the willing” for the opportunity to work with you, your facilities and to share in your success. Monte Koch, PGA | Player Development Regional Manager | mkoch@pgahq.com |
Mon, Jan 25, 2016: As I was on my flight home from team meetings and training in south Florida, my only regret was that I would miss the start of the PGA Merchandise Show and the beginning of our Centennial Celebration.
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Pros on the MoveMichelle Parish | Tournament & Membership Assistant Employment Changes
Classification Changes
New Apprentices
Newly Elected Members
Transfers INTO the Section
Transfers OUT of the Section
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Every Dollar Has a PurposeBlake Parrish | BP Financial Associates | blake@bpfinancialassoc.com
Each payday, we all have a choice on where each dollar will go (after taxes have been ripped out of course), and many smart investors know how this works. For example, utility bills, car payments, mortgage/rent, food, credit card payments, insurance, entertainment all show up to collect a share of that total paycheck. I believe this is budgeting and that every dollar has a purpose. Go ahead and name each dollar, like “this dollar is going toward a trip this summer to play golf at one of the PNW finest golf courses”. But don’t forget savings and charitable giving. In a first-of-its-kind survey, the Almanac of American Philanthropy showcases how Americans are a charitable group, in fact the most generous in the world. The Almanac found that Americans out-donate Britain and Canada two-to-one and nations like Italy and Germany 20-to-one. Even better, more than half of every single income class except those earning less than $25,000 donate to charity. It’s easy, amid press stories about greedy corporate profiteers, to forget that the vast bulk of American philanthropy is carried out by individuals. You and me. Between individual donations and bequests in wills, personal gifts come to over four times as much, every year, as what behemoths like the Gates, Ford, Walton, etc. foundations plus corporations give away. Americans also have high hopes for charities, choosing them over government agencies to solve the nation’s social problems, by a wide margin. And as a result, they want to protect tax deductions for charity so that they continue to decide the purpose for every dollar they earn. |
