Week 5: Hardwork and Dedication

In today's economy not many industries are doing very well and struggling to keep their head above water week in and week out.  It just so happens that the golf industry has been one of the hardest in the sports industry.  At Pipestone we have not got by without being scathed by this recession.  Which is why lately I have been called upon to cover multiple jobs the are crucial to the function of the golf course.  While earlier in the summer I was mostly in the pro shop or doing behind the scenes work, now I have been picking the range, washing golf carts and even doing some food and beverage jobs.  It has been more work on my part, but it is more cost effective for the course to have myself do multiple jobs, rather than have 2 or 3 other people spread out doing three different task.  It is understandable for my supervisor to do this, and honestly I would have initiated this much earlier in the summer to help out the bottom line.  If there has been one thing that I have learned in this past week is that in a small operation such as Pipestone is, you must have dedicated staff members willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.  This speaks true for every one of my co-workers, we all work very hard because we realize if the course were to get into money trouble each and everyone of us would be out of work.  I just hope when I get into my first supervisor role that I have employees as dedicated as the ones at Pipestone.

Week 4: Inventory

This past week was the end of the month of July and the beginning of August, which means the course must file paperwork with the city and Kemper Sports on the monthly revenue.  Part of this monthly revenue report has to do with how much appearal and equipment we have sold and have left to sell in our pro shop.  This report is extremely important because we have to know how many things are missing and how much money was made off the items sold.  We first start out by counting every item that we have in stock in the shop.  This includes items such as shirts, sleeves of golf balls and all the way down to golf tees that we sell.  After counting every item in the shop we have to go into the FORE! system where we have the last count of every item the month before.  After going through and editing the numbers from what we counted, the computer goes through and analyzes the numbers you put in compared to what has been rang in and sold.  When it is done it prints out a report with all the variances in the number of items we counted and the actual number we should have. If there are any instances where the counted number is different from what the computer says we should have, we must go back and count to make sure we did not miscount.  This happened this month one time and it was with Under Armour golf Polo's.  We were missing three Under Armour Polo's, and we had no clue where they were.  After searching around the shop and offices we had found the tags to the shirts on the Head Professional's desk.  What we found out had happened was he had donated the shirts to a fundraising outing at the course two weeks earlier.  This was really the only speed bump we ran into through out this long process.  While this may be a long and dreadful process, it has to be done in order for the course to make sure items are not being stolen and the city of Miamisburg and Kemper Sports know how much we are making off equipment and apparel sales.

Week Three: 9 Dine and 9

This past weekend we held one of the most unique golf outings we will host the entire summer, and it is called 9 Dine and 9.  It is unique in that this is an outting that originated from the club and is not another groups outting that we house.  It is also unique in that part of the nine holes is in the day time and the other nine holes is played in the dark with glow golf equipment.  As well, dinner is served to all the participants between the two nines, and this year we had a full field of forty participants.  There was much detail that needed to be accomplished so this event could go on with out a hitch.  These details included making sure that we order enough glow sticks and glow balls for all the participants.  We then ended up buying over one hundred and twenty glow golf balls (three per person)and over two hundred glow sticks and necklaces to light up the holes for directional purposes.  Thereafter the group completed the first nine holes the Assistant Golf Professional raced out on to the course to start putting glow sticks on the tees, fairways and flag sticks.  This was the key part to pulling this off because we only had about thirty five minutes before they were to start the last nine holes of glow golf.  Thankfully we finished setting up the the golf course with about ten minutes to spare and were able to get the group off for the second nine after dinner exactly at 9:30.  This was only the second time the club has ever done this event, and the overall feed back from the participants was great.  They loved the event and some even mentioned to us about possible doing a full eighteen holes of glow golf, or doing a 9 Dine and 9 once every month.  This was a huge success for the club because of the focus on the finer details.  The things that I want to change about the event is to order more than three glow balls per person, as well as order more extra glow sticks to light up the golf carts so people are easier to find and see.  Other than that this event was a huge success and we received mostly positive feed back from the participants.

Week 2: The art of event planning in small facilities and my role as a manager

This week I began to finally settle in to my roll in the management of tournaments and events the course holds throughout the busy months of summer.  My job when the course holds tournaments and outings is to make sure all paper work is completed, golf carts are in line and customers are checked in and are taken care of.  This week has really stretched my imagination as far as getting multiple events arranged and take place at the same time in our small facility.  On Friday we had a 144 person outing on the golf course that teed off nine o'clock and were scheduled to eat at five o'clock.  At five thirty we had a wedding planed in our event tent, so there was no where we could put the golf outting to eat.  I called around to different tent rental places and found a company that would allow us to rent tables, chairs, large fans and most importantly a tent big enough for 144 people.  My idea was to set the tent up on the range out of the way of the wedding so we could please both of our parties without having the clutter of more than 300 people.  This was a great success, I managed to please both of our events and pull them off successfully with out a glitch.  The key lesson that I have learned through this week's experience is that you must have an imagination.  My supervisors said that they would never had imagined having people eat on the driving range, but it is what needed to be done to pull this off.  When your working with limited resources you must use everything that you have at your disposal.

As well this, past week I was given a key to the building so I can begin closing the facility down and taking care of the money and deposit for that day.  My duties when I close down the building is to count the money, make a deposit slip, and make sure the building is all locked up and the alarm is set.  I have not begun to close by myself yet because I still need some guidance, but next week I am suppose to begin closing all by myself.

The Beginning - Week One

This week I began my internship with Pipestone Golf Club, which is located in Miamisburg, Ohio.  After I graduate this next Spring I attend on becoming a PGA Professional and going into the business side of golf, which consist of running a golf course such as Pipestone.  I was excited to finally get to start my internship because I knew that I would obtain valuable skills for a successful future in this field.  This week mostly consisted of training.  Since the golf club is owned by the city of Miamisburg, but managed by Kemper Sports I had to go through training programs offered by both.  The training that I endured through the city mostly consisted of how to use their online terminal.  Their online terminal is very complex and is where the budget reports for the course are filled and completed, and it is also a place where you stay connected to other offices in the city.  The training that attended this week for Kemper Sports consisted of learning how to use the computer program FORE.  This program is used for the computers at the front desk for checking guest in, as well it is used for booking tee times.  The best part about this program is it helps the course keep track of inventory and also does a sales report at the end of everyday.  This week might not have been the most hands on week, but it was a vital part to get understanding how this certain course operates.  In the coming weeks I hope to gain enough understanding so I can begin to close the course down by myself, as well to start assisting with the many events and tournaments that the golf club host.  The course has a great management team and I look forward to the following weeks and learning from their leadership and my own experiences throughout the internship.

Final Post.....For Now

As we begin to round up the end of the semester,  I want to take the time to write on a new sport that I have not mentioned in the past, and that is Major League Soccer.  The reason that I am choosing the MLS to write about is because this league will start to struggle getting sponsors.  Since the league formed it has taken a back seat to the other leagues such as the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NBA to name a few.  As well the lack of television spots, are not exactly appealing to sponsors looking to put their name on a team or stadium.  With that problem already in place for the league, the economy slowing getting worse it will only lead to less sponsorship money for the league and its teams.  The future of the league looks really grim right now, just when after the World Cup everyone thought that American soccer was on the rise.  The problem of lack of sponsorships also leads to low pay for many of the players in the league.  If the player is really good, they pack their things and go over seas to play in bigger and better leagues, and mostly importantly they are paid more over there.  While the economy will have a negative impact on the the future of the MLS, the technology may help their cause a little bit.  Now that it is possible to stream live feeds over the Internet, the league has many options compared to just trying to find a station on television to show their games.  The advancement of online television will help the league gain more viewers, and most importantly more selling points for future sponsors.  There are still people who want to watch the games, however like I said before it is hard because very few games are shown.  This will now make it easier for people who want to watch the games have chance to watch.  The end result will possible give the MLS more of a chance to add more sponsors to their list.

Sports Writing and Promotions

During my time of studying the elements and examples of sports writing and promotions, I have realized how complex it can really be.  There are so many elements that go into marketing an event of any size, weather it be the Super Bowl or a local charity basketball game, every element and characteristic of the event must be considered.  After doing my own marketing plan in this class it helped me gain a new understanding that an event must be marketed to the correct market segmentation and at the appropriate time.  Any flaw in the marketing plan could lead to the disapproval of the event and the worst outcome of the event being a complete failure.  That point brings me to the next thing that I have realized after this class, you can't be afraid of your event or idea failing.  There are hundreds of thousand ideas and events that have failed, do you think that Bill Veck was afraid of his corky ideas failing?  Of course not!  He had confidence in everyone of his ideas because they were well planned and well marketed.  This leads me to the my last point and that is about sponsorships.  The last part of the semester I have realized that companies are more than willing to sponsor just about any kind of sporting event, as long as the benefits fit with what they are trying accomplish.  While the size of the event does matter in how much the company will be willing to pay, it does not affect their decision on wether or not to sponsor the event.  The key is to make sure that they know the value they will get with the money they will be spending.

Aside from what I learned from the material that was covered in the book, I have recieved real world knowledge of sports writing and promotions through the various real marketing plans and promotions we got to talk about.  Along with the links that Dr. Tiell put up on the course page, she talked about her experiences of being on a committee planning the Women's Leadership Symposium that is associated with the NCAA.  Not only is this a huge event for the NCAA, but to have someone who is in charge of gaining sponsorships and marketing the event really adds to the complete experience that every student in the class will leave with.  Learning happens every day, but learning through real world events and happenings is the best way to obtain knowledge about a given field.  I feel that given the oppurtunity to do a real marketing plan or given the task of gaining sponsorships, I would be able to succeed after what I have gained from this class.