One of the Core Components of the PNWPGA Strategic Plan is Community Outreach and Charity. Your Board of Directors recognizes the importance of being active in our local communities, as it assists in helping grow the game and bettering the employment of individual PGA members.
Here is where you can help: if you or your club host or coordinate an event (or several) that benefits a local charity or organization, please take the time after the event to promote that success. Too often we forget to “toot our own horn”’ Please don’t be afraid to write about the tournament or event that you just hosted, take some pictures of the fun people are having playing golf, and get the article published. Whether it is simply asking for insertion in your club’s newsletter or sending as a press release to local newspapers or media, the small amount of time that it takes to wrap up the event will prove invaluable to you and to our entire organization. The publicity that is created will benefit you, your local course or club, and the entire association of PGA Professionals. Your efforts are appreciated – please let others know about them.
There are countless ways to become involved in your community. Many charitable organizations utilize golf as a fundraising vehicle currently, through charity tournaments and the like. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of fundraising events in the Pacific Northwest annually. But there are many organizations that are held back from doing so, often because they are uneducated on the benefits of what golf can do for them.
Give this a try, it worked for me: block off 30 minutes one rainy day, I’m sure we will have one this spring. Google “charity [your town, state]” and pick a few. Contact them and introduce yourself, letting them know where you work and what you do for a living. Offer to have them out to your course, tour them around, and show them what a fundraising tournament would look like at your facility. Track the leads, see if one comes to fruition. If/when it does, then you can track the success of the event and you have something to talk about! Your club owner or Board will thank you later, when it shows up on your bottom line as a net gain.
Make it a great spring!
Bryan Tunstill, PGA