Proven Practices for Great Pace of Play
With the popularity of golf comes pace of play challenges for both management and golfers. This class will offer students opportunities to share their experiences with colleagues and quiz a panel of golf professionals about their creative solutions to address this all-important course issue.

Golf Car Operations
Golf Car Operations is a business in itself! Golf car operations is a pivotal facet of the overall operations.  It affects bottom line revenues and golfer satisfaction dictating that managers and staff make sensible operational decisions relating to golf cars. This program provides you with the necessary information required to assist you in determining what the best option is for you facility.

Food, Beverage & Hospitality
Food and Beverage services can create and define the “personality” of your course.  This program will provide you with the tools necessary to effectively choose the right food and beverage services for your facility.  You will learn how to offer a customer experience that will keep your customers coming back.  Students will explore the benefits of having value based pricing strategies for all products skid at at your facilities in addition to learning the importance and impact of effective cost control procedures.  To ensure that you can deliver an exceptional guest experience, time will be committed to a review of best practices relating to quality training and delivery principles.

Greenside Up
Superintendents play a critical role in the overall success of any golf facility. Managing the largest asset (the course itself) and often the largest budget and staff  is an indication of the skills superintendents bring to the management team. A partner in delivering economic viability and enjoyment of the game for golfers, use this class to integrate the superintendent into additional facets of golf operations.

Liability and Risk Management
Understanding some of the legal responsibilities inherent to the game of golf and how to deal with them can help you avoid future court dates and time-consuming legal issues.  Learn how to conduct a risk assessment for your operation and manage risks that are inherent to the golf business.

Tournaments, Leagues, Outings and Special Events
Tournaments, leagues, outings and special events when executed correctly can be highly profitable for any organization.  This program will provide you with some tools and resources to increase your knowledge and drive additional revenue opportunities.  You will learn ways to market your facility for events with little or no marketing dollars.  We will show you how to leverage your resources to full capacity and provide your golfers/guests an exceptional experience. 

Making Money Through Marketing
Applying marketing practices to golf course operations is a new responsibility for many managers. However, it is a process that can be learned and shared, as ultimately all staff are key to the delivery of a sound marketing plan and a golfer experience that delivers the distinctive qualities of your course.  Class discussion will center on building a meaningful plan with an overview of tools, tips and programs to both attract new golfers and help retain them for the long term.

Creating an Effective Policies and Procedures Manual
A sound Policy and Procedures Manual can make an enormous difference to both internal and external perceptions and operations.  Become skilled at creating and maintaining an operations manual that will give life and structure to your staff and course. This is yet another extremely useful class that has proven to be immensely valuable to students due to its overall approach your entire golf facility.

Golf Industry Overview & Player Development Programs
Provides a summary of recent trends in golf participation, rounds played, golf course development and equipment sales.  The class will also focus on strategic initiatives that cultivate the growth of participation and interest in the game, and ways to create new avenues of access to golf. 

Right Person-Right Job – Hiring Smart
This program will provide you with insight into staffing a golf course operation effectively. This interactive class will take a team approach to forecasting and identifying the resources required to properly staff a predetermined golf course. The topics covered during this session will include: organization charts, job descriptions, staffing levels, and performance expectations.

Leadership/Team Building and Customer Service
In order to provide outstanding customer service, you, as the leader of your organization, must be able to inspire and motivate your staff. It is only through your direction, and a team committed to customer service excellence, that will enable your organization to differentiate itself from its competitors. This seminar focuses on the principles of leadership and what it means to be a leader, how to build an energetic, committed team, and how to translate your organization’s vision into an unsurpassed experience for your customers. Throughout this interactive session students will be asked to offer and develop leadership, team building and customer service strategies they can readily implement at their home course.   

Golf Shop Operations
Opportunity knocks for those who implement sound retail practices.  Examine the golf shop policies, procedures and practices of successful golf shops – such as developing a purchasing plan, setting a pricing philosophy, characteristics of effective displays, proven selling techniques, and establishing profit-centered inventory control.

Cash & Fiscal Controls
So often the numbers say it all!  Learn how to develop and present the financial plan:  establishing the budget…using the budget as a financial monitoring tool…selecting unobtrusive but effective cash controls and tracking inventory.  Attention will be given to meaningful interpretation of the numbers to aid your decision making process.

Self & Staff Management
The demands on time and energy in this industry are increasing at record pace.  Doing more with less is a common theme while competition for business is stiffer than ever.  Customer expectations are at an all time high but quality employees who understand and commit themselves to consistent service are harder than ever to find.  Whether you work in a one person shop or a multi course operation, there’s simply more work for most of us than we can possibly accomplish and a healthy work / life balance seems further and further out of reach.

This class provides effective concepts for coping with the world of modern day influences on your time and energy and offers tried and true methods for successfully managing staff.  You will leave with a better sense of your own core values, tools to determine priorities in life and work, an understanding of leadership competencies, and a new perspective on managing yourself and your staff.

Motivating Staff Year Round
Employees are the number one asset in all of our operations, regardless of size with immediate and direct impact on customer experiences.  Given the broad implications of the changing population and work force for golf facility managers and supervisors, this class will focus on identification of the characteristics found in this work force and the implications for recruitment and retention of quality employees. 

Internal Quality Assurance Strategies
The “How To’s” of planning, implementing and evaluating a Secret Shopper program!  This is a valuable program that can be readily adapted for use at your course and when established, will provide performance incentives to enhance quality services, through the establishment of measurable standards for any type of golf course operation. Past students have ranked this as a valuable “take away” for immediate implementation at their home courses.

Emerging Trends in Human Resources
This two hour program provides you with leading edge human resource trends which are, or about to, emerge.  By being one step ahead of these rapidly progressing trends, we can properly and comfortably plan and manage business and employee expectations.

Tools to Attract and Retain Customers
The pressure to be responsive and competitive is immense in the current golf marketplace.  The economics of this business demand that you embrace initiatives that will meet revenue targets.  How do you not only attract new customers, but also keep them coming back?  Through class discussions relative to delivery of innovative and creative programs, services and facility designs, students will develop a lengthy list of effective tools and ideas for on-going use.

Using Technology & E-Marketing
The opportunities to provide “cutting edge” service by utilizing technology continue to change almost daily.  Whether it is the installation of GPS systems on golf carts, the development and enhancement of web sites, computerized tee times, virtual reality or point of sale systems, most golf courses today continue to grapple with how to best take advantage of current technology in the most cost effective and efficient manner.  This session will explore how technology opportunities are impacting every area of golf course operations and how they should be used to make a difference in your operation’s bottom line.

Building Your Brand
Brand awareness can be a more complex process than most people anticipate. Join instructors with experience in research, the basis of all brand planning, and customized golf course marketing experience to learn what steps should be taken to create a readily identifiable brand in a busy golf marketplace.  Often the direction needed to establish a course identity that nets results in a niche market is easily accessible through your golfing customers, members, staff, affiliated organizations and the broader community.  Applying your information gathering exercise to develop strategies and creative messaging offers the path to success and is an essential ingredient in business planning for any golf operation today.

Strategies for Environmental Stewardship
The heightened awareness surrounding environmental issues demands that golf industry personnel monitor and manage environmental concerns as they evolve and change. This class includes a brief review of environmental legislation and regulations with significant focus on the impact these laws and regulations have on our operations and facilities. It’s knowledge that is important enough for all to know.  Additional content will cover practical approaches to ensuring environmentally friendly courses and development of partnerships for mutual understanding between those involved in golf course development and environmentalists.

Strategic Planning
One of the most important responsibilities of a manager is to lead their organization to higher achievement.  This is done most efficiently through a strategic planning process that examines the organizations core values, sets a clear vision and articulates the mission of the business.  This session will help golf managers to develop a strategic plan based on this framework and more.  With a well developed strategic plan in place, the task of forecasting and budgeting to accomplish organizational goals will be more meaningful and achievable.

Renovating/Re-modeling your Course
A plan is the essential ingredient of success in any project. Whether it's rebuilding a few bunkers or a complete renovation, a Golf Course Master Plan will insure aesthetic and structural continuity. Renovating Your Course will discuss the process of a master plan from gathering simple ideas, forming a team of experts, developing the plan, presenting the plan for funding, the bid process and project oversight.

Securing Funding through Sponsorships and Grants
A comprehensive review of funding vehicles & strategies that may assist Golf Agencies in the pursuit of Alternative Funds for capital improvements, capital maintenance projects, & programming. The session will feature the successes of The Oglebay Foundation as they relate to the Golf Sector. It will feature strategies for naming rights, sponsorships, legacy gifts, private foundation grants & specialty funding opportunities...such as cell tower leasing. Ample time will be allowed for questions & creative thinking & interaction with the presenters.