The 2018 season is in full swing. Chapters are getting started with meetings and events, the Section programming kicks into high gear and National initiatives require your attention as well. Ready or not, the golf season is here.
The Section Spring Meeting is scheduled for March 19, 7:00 PM at Willamette Valley CC in Canby, Oregon. John Grothe, PGA is looking forward to welcoming you the meeting and the Pro-Assistant Championship, as well as a great education program and our Special Awards banquet. I hope you plan to join us.
The Pro-Assistant Championship is one of our most popular events thanks to our sponsors – Bushnell, Cutter & Buck, Hole In One U.S.A., PTE Golf and Strideline. These supporters really make this a special event, like a $29,000 purse! Please join us. Click here for complete details or to enter the Pro-Assistant Championship.
We’ve added education before the Spring Meeting on Sunday, March 18. The PGA of America is bringing their Business Simulation program and will offer a morning program focused on private facilities and a public facility focused offering in the afternoon. These simulations are interactive, team projects where you work together to solve business challenges. Based on the solution you choose, the computer calculates results and then delivers the next scenario to solve. Reviews are great from those who have taken these in other sections. We also have Birk Nelson of Orange Whip offering a one hour seminar opposite each of the simulations; join us for Birk as well. Click here for more information or to register for Spring Education.
This year is an election year at the National, Section and Chapter level. I can report that the chapters have nominated two candidates for Section Secretary – Marcus King and Howie Pruitt. We’ll begin the campaign with the next issue of ForeWord Press with these two answering questions for you. Please be informed and prepared to vote when the candidates visit each chapter this fall.
Player Development is a very personal task for each golf professional and their own facility. I encourage you to develop players into regular customers at your place. Treat them right, show them a good time and you will have a loyal customer for life. We offer three tools to help you out. First, our Yamaha Player Development Grants and the Junior Fund program for Youth Player Development. Between them we are offering $24,000. Click here for more information on the 2018 grants programs.
You should have registered your PGA Jr. League team by now. If not, do it today. Our PGA Junior League Regional Manager, Branden Thompson will be finalizing leagues and playoff regions very shortly so please sign up today. We are also scheduling local playoffs and the Sectional, look for the schedule soon. I’m happy to report the Regional will be at The Home Course on September 29-30. No trip south!
The final Player Development tool is Drive Chip and Putt. This unique program is for every kid of every ability. While the top flight players appear to have an advantage, every year we have kids of all abilities advance up the ladder. DCP is fun, it’s just an hour and a great concept to build a junior event around. Host a prep clinic or just a club competition. Capitalize on the marketing power of this National event to grow your business.
We are lucky to have Monte Koch serve as our PGA Employment Consultant. Monte does a great job but needs your help. You all did a great job completing the Compensation Survey last year and the data was very helpful to Monte as he worked to upgrade not only the compensation of open positions but of those who sought his help. Please help us out again this year and complete the survey before March 31. The better and more current the data, the more valuable it is to you and me! Simply log into your PGA.org account to complete the survey.
Tournament season is upon us. We head off to Vegas and the Holcomb-In-One in just 10 days and upon our return it’s Pro-Assistant time. Entries are still open for the Pro-Assistant Championship. Entries are also open for the Senior Players’ Championship on April 17-18 at Wine Valley GC. Ken Allen and Club Glove continue their support of the senior set. Entries just went out on the Muckleshoot Casino Washington Open Invitational, May 21-23 at Meridian Valley Country Club. Please share this entry with your top amateurs as well.
In each issue of Foreword Press I try to highlight our sponsors. We are very lucky to receive such great support. As I mentioned above, Ken Allen and Club Glove are back to support the Senior Players Championship. We just confirmed the return of Bridgestone to the Oregon Open Invitational and we have two new sponsors to add to the team – first Strideline, a custom sock company will support the Pro-Assistant Championship and Jason Fenton and Honma are joining the team supporting the Bandon Dunes education seminar. We have a few more in the hopper we’ll be rolling out soon.
Finally, we are working with ForeTees on an app for the Section and Chapters. We have a few tweaks for the programmer to add and it will be ready for prime time. Watch your email for updates.
Have a great spring and I hope to see you at Willamette Valley for the Spring Meeting.
Jeff Ellison, PGA
CEO, Pacific NW Section PGA