California Mini Tour????!!!!

[Scarpydooooo]

Im thinking of Starting a Mini Tour in Ca that actually GIVES A CRAP about the players. I keep seeing 300 dollar entry 130 guaranteed to go to prize fund. Or even better 550 entry we will strive to do our best to make $300 go into the prize fund. Ugghhhh

Im done with it. And on top of all that $800 for first place!! ridiculous! Web Pages suck balls and aren't updated often enough. How are golfers who want to test their skills and develop into a true pro going to do so when the Mini Tours are for profit and just offer no help with hotels or housing or any of that stuff. Oh yeah and food! At least something should be done about this so i m going to get a webpage going in the next week to compete with these crappy Pepi and Golden State mini theft tours!

Also iwhy aren't these mini tours spending 5 dollars a week or 10 dollars to promote the top 25 players on each tournament on FB or other social media outlets!! ?????????

 

Anywhooo that was my rant! it will be in the Sacramento ares which is in the middle of Ca. We have more golf courses per Capita than any place except maybe Florida. Also great weather. I just want people opinions on this! Please have experience with Mini Tours before responding!

[rangersgoalie]

Did the same thing years ago....

 

Good luck

 

Courses, websites,expenses for travel, gas, rules officials cost money.

 

And there are some interesting attitudes among some players that will make you crazy.

 

Starting a mini tour is a good way to spend money if you want to help players for real.

 

I’m teaching now,mand talk to players a lot. You have a lot of fractured approaches you have to find a way to bring together

[Obee]

Yep. Golf in California is expensive. Sorry it's a struggle. Wish I was well off. I'd start a tour (and then not be so well off later!).

[b.helts]

Did the same thing years ago....

 

Good luck

 

Courses, websites,expenses for travel, gas, rules officials cost money.

 

And there are some interesting attitudes among some players that will make you crazy.

 

Starting a mini tour is a good way to spend money if you want to help players for real.

 

I’m teaching now,mand talk to players a lot. You have a lot of fractured approaches you have to find a way to bring together

 

Hey bud. Which were you a part of?

 

First mini tour I played on was the Zero Golf Professional Golfer’s Series. It went belly up pretty quick. Kept having tournaments with no payouts.

 

They still owe me some money. lol. Not like poor Jeff Sanday though. I think he got shorted about $30K.

[rangersgoalie]

We started a tour called the pacific tour

Guaranteed 80% minimum payback on entries.

 

We also ran a one year california series for the gateway tour, but that was a mess.

 

I just found some flyers from the pacific tour days and it still amazes me that we had a hard time getting guys to play

 

Some of my favorite questions/comments from players

What’s last place money?

Before committing to play.......who’s playing?

Can I play with (x)?....we are traveling together

I have to play in the first group or can’t play.

 

And my favorite comments were always

We should get/we deserve/ and you should pay out more

 

It’s a very tough customer base to figure out.

 

My favorite event I ran was a two day event in the desert. We got some sponsor money and guaranteed $2000 first place.(485$ entry)

It was the old Landmark course in Indio.

We had a grand total of 4 players!

The guy that won couldn’t believe his $2500 check cleared!

 

The next couple events we offered didn’t get enough players so we put our resources elsewhere. I still believe it would have been a great place to develop for players, but, we obviously didn’t capture the players trust and commitments

 

[golfandfishing]

I wish you terrific luck OP. A mini tour is almost impossible to operate successfully. You need to be near a “hub” of potential tour players to even have a chance - Phoenix and Florida areas have made some noteworthy runs with the Gateway Tour in AZ and a million choices in FL. Hooters tour had a remarkable run for a mini tour. The Carolinas have had a few. I don’t know enough about Sacramento to say - are there 150-200 guys within a 3 hour drive that want to be and can be tour players?

 

You need a corporate level sponsor(s) on a long term commitment to have a chance. Otherwise let’s break down the math on a 75 player field, 2 days at $500 entry fee:

 

$37,500 in entries

$10,000 course rental fee (this is generous on the course’s behalf). Players pay cart fee if they ride.

$2000 for continental breakfast and box lunch (said you want to help with food, again this is the course helping you on cost)

$1000 for staff (on site rules, starter, scoreboard, etc)

$1000 for expenses - rules sheets, scoring, gas, etc

 

Pay half the field with your now $23,500. The other half of the field hates you and thinks you are a crook. Their 84-79 should return something! The half that got paid also think you are a crook, they just don’t say anything because they want their check to clear.

 

This math is missing some tournament related expenses and assumes ZERO administrative costs, insurance or marketing. The tournament director hasn’t been paid and the tour is uninsured as well. California is a sue happy state, if you have 200 members at least 1 of them will sue you and 1 or more people from outside your tour will litigate for various reasons, just because that’s what they do for a living. You also have no website yet.

 

As TD - do you get paid? Do you have any employees? Are you providing an audit to your players and accounting for their entry fees, tournament expenses and payout? How are you communicating with your tour members? How are you growing membership and field sizes? Corporate level sponsors need some “run” for their investment. What is your deliverable to them?

 

[the bishop]

I wish you terrific luck OP. A mini tour is almost impossible to operate successfully. You need to be near a "hub" of potential tour players to even have a chance - Phoenix and Florida areas have made some noteworthy runs with the Gateway Tour in AZ and a million choices in FL. Hooters tour had a remarkable run for a mini tour. The Carolinas have had a few. I don't know enough about Sacramento to say - are there 150-200 guys within a 3 hour drive that want to be and can be tour players?

 

I was thinking this as well. I think SoCal would be a better option for a Tour like this. You could spread that tour out around Orange, LA, Riverside, SD, and San Bernardino counties. Much larger talent pool to draw from with easy travel.

[NPVWhiz]

We started a tour called the pacific tour

Guaranteed 80% minimum payback on entries.

 

We also ran a one year california series for the gateway tour, but that was a mess.

 

I just found some flyers from the pacific tour days and it still amazes me that we had a hard time getting guys to play

 

Some of my favorite questions/comments from players

What’s last place money?

Before committing to play.......who’s playing?

Can I play with (x)?....we are traveling together

I have to play in the first group or can’t play.

 

And my favorite comments were always

We should get/we deserve/ and you should pay out more

 

It’s a very tough customer base to figure out.

 

My favorite event I ran was a two day event in the desert. We got some sponsor money and guaranteed $2000 first place.(485$ entry)

It was the old Landmark course in Indio.

We had a grand total of 4 players!

The guy that won couldn’t believe his $2500 check cleared!

 

The next couple events we offered didn’t get enough players so we put our resources elsewhere. I still believe it would have been a great place to develop for players, but, we obviously didn’t capture the players trust and commitments

 

It may well be that expectations that mini-tour players can demonstrate trust and commitment are a bit misplaced. Coming on to a golf board and whining about how your mini tour event can’t be more like the big tours is demonstrative of a lack of understanding about the details involved in funding, organizing and running a deep in the weeds minor league series. My advice to the OP is simply “Don’t”. Surely someone with that kind of attitude and understanding is much less likely to succeed than the dedicated, sincere, hard-working folks that have committed their time and effort over the decades to providing players at that level some opportunity to walk a path toward greater success.

[BrianMcG]

Mini tours are like pyramid schemes. Everyone pays in, but then it usually just falls apart. Lol.

[GolfingBro]

Hello,

 

I have some thoughts being one of those players that is always looking for a place to play.

 

Tours are extremely tough to start and keep successful. Over my 4 years of playing professional I have seen a couple tours have extremely high payouts and great fields such as the E Tour. There are a few issues with starting a new tour.

 

1. Guys will believe its too good to be true and won't sign up unless the field is full or close to full. This leads first time events to get no where close to the max fields. It takes word of mouth the following years to get big fields. A good example is a golden state tour in Borrego Springs (middle of nowhere). Event promised extra sponsor money but they only got 45 guys to play. The next year once everyone learned it was legit they got over 100 to play (exact same event and time). Another example of a great tournament trying to get off the ground floor is the Napa Open Jan 16-18 (in 1 week). It has high promises of full payback and possibly Safeway Open PGA tour exemption in a few years but no one is playing it. Guys see that only 15 or 20 guys sign up so they decide not to play.

 

2. Guaranteeing money is the only way to get full fields. A great example of this happening is the Scottsdale Open at Talking Stick Resort. This tournament got a title sponsor (desert financial) to put up money for the event. They had a guaranteed purse of 125,000 dollars its first year. Filled up no problem and has continued to fill up each year. Arizona is a great place to have events since there are a lot of golfers int he area.

 

3. Too many "small tours". Being a California resident I see there are Pepsi Tours, Bo Tour and Golden State Tour events in my state. Golden state being the largest and most well run of the bunch. Arizona has the Gateway, Outlaw, and Pepsi Tours as well. Florida has numerous tours also. Too many. Instead of such an abundance of smaller tours there needs to be either 1 elite "mini tour" that follows Web.com Mondays around and plays the Wednesday thru Friday in the same towns as those Mondays. Also along with the 1 elite tour there should be 4 or 5 regional large tours. For example a West Coast Regional Mini Tour (AZ, CA) Midwest (TX,MS and such) Northern Tour (Dakotas-they do a great job already here, they have it set up here already) South East (FL) and North East.

 

 

Don't know what others thoughts on this are but I have my own personal experiences on a lot of tours. Its all about the payback multiplier (i want the winners check to be the highest multiplier of my entry fee) For example an 800 dollar entry and a 8000 first place is a 10X multiplier (thats a good one for a mini tour).

[agatha]

Adding to my son's post above I recall the scottsdale open had this great idea about earlier sign ups meant lower entry fee. So the first 50 paid say $750 then the next 50 paid $800 and so on. I thought that was brilliant because these guys are also looking at how to save a few bucks as well.

[MichaelJScott]

Im thinking of Starting a Mini Tour in Ca that actually GIVES A CRAP about the players. I keep seeing 300 dollar entry 130 guaranteed to go to prize fund. Or even better 550 entry we will strive to do our best to make $300 go into the prize fund. Ugghhhh

Im done with it. And on top of all that $800 for first place!! ridiculous! Web Pages suck balls and aren't updated often enough. How are golfers who want to test their skills and develop into a true pro going to do so when the Mini Tours are for profit and just offer no help with hotels or housing or any of that stuff. Oh yeah and food! At least something should be done about this so i m going to get a webpage going in the next week to compete with these crappy Pepi and Golden State mini theft tours!

Also iwhy aren't these mini tours spending 5 dollars a week or 10 dollars to promote the top 25 players on each tournament on FB or other social media outlets!! ?????????

 

Anywhooo that was my rant! it will be in the Sacramento ares which is in the middle of Ca. We have more golf courses per Capita than any place except maybe Florida. Also great weather. I just want people opinions on this! Please have experience with Mini Tours before responding!

 

Make sure you have some tournaments down here in Monterey!!!

[UncleJohn’sBand]

Hello,

 

I have some thoughts being one of those players that is always looking for a place to play.

 

Tours are extremely tough to start and keep successful. Over my 4 years of playing professional I have seen a couple tours have extremely high payouts and great fields such as the E Tour. There are a few issues with starting a new tour.

 

1. Guys will believe its too good to be true and won't sign up unless the field is full or close to full. This leads first time events to get no where close to the max fields. It takes word of mouth the following years to get big fields. A good example is a golden state tour in Borrego Springs (middle of nowhere). Event promised extra sponsor money but they only got 45 guys to play. The next year once everywhere learned it was legit they got over 100 to play (exact same event and time). Another example of a great tournament trying to get off the ground floor is the Napa Open Jan 16-18 (in 1 week). It has high promises of full payback and possibly Safeway Open PGA tour exemption in a few years but no one is playing it. Guys see that only 15 or 20 guys sign up so they decide not to play.

 

2. Guaranteeing money is the only way to get full fields. A great example of this happening is the Scottsdale Open at Talking Stick Resort. This tournament got a title sponsor (desert financial) to put up money for the event. They had a guaranteed purse of 125,000 dollars its first year. Filled up no problem and has continued to fill up each year. Arizona is a great place to have events since there are a lot of golfers int he area.

 

3. Too many "small tours". Being a California resident I see there are Pepsi Tours, Bo Tour and Golden State Tour events in my state. Golden state being the largest and most well run of the bunch. Arizona has the Gateway, Outlaw, and Pepsi Tours as well. Florida has numerous tours also. Too many. Instead of such an abundance of smaller tours there needs to be either 1 elite "mini tour" that follows Web.com Mondays around and plays the Wednesday thru Friday in the same towns as those Mondays. Also along with the 1 elite tour there should be 4 or 5 regional large tours. For example a West Coast Regional Mini Tour (AZ, CA) Midwest (TX,MS and such) Northern Tour (Dakotas-they do a great job already here, they have it set up here already) South East (FL) and North East.

 

 

Don't know what others thoughts on this are but I have my own personal experiences on a lot of tours. Its all about the payback multiplier (i want the winners check to be the highest multiplier of my entry fee) For example an 800 dollar entry and a 8000 first place is a 10X multiplier (thats a good one for a mini tour).

 

This. Having played with Matt and on the same tours, it’s all about the payout. Guys don’t care about what your morals and ideas are as long as you pay out. And it has to be fairly lucrative to spend my time and money getting to/playing in an event.

 

I know the Adams Tour kind of covers the Louisiana, OK TX area but they follow a few Monday’s for the web and pay about as well as the Canadian did.

 

The Dakotas is solid. The G-Pro in the Carolinas is growing. A lot of guys talked about the Great Lakes Tour.

 

Professional golf at the small level takes money. And to have money to spend, I have to be able to win money, and if you can’t provide an avenue for me to win enough money to sustain myself to pay for clubs, balls, gas, food, hotels, cell phone, practice rounds, q school then another tour somewhere will be able to. You have to make it worth it for US.

[MichaelJScott]

I think there could be a great opportunity as well for this. If you used social media correctly you could be onto something here. You could run it all through social media. You wouldnt really even need that great of a website. You could offer live scoring/live updates through live streaming on apps like twitter and instagram. Please make this happen.

[straightshot7]

I think there could be a great opportunity as well for this. If you used social media correctly you could be onto something here. You could run it all through social media. You wouldnt really even need that great of a website. You could offer live scoring/live updates through live streaming on apps like twitter and instagram. Please make this happen.

 

No offense, but why would more than a dozen people care about score updates covering guys they've never heard of on a mini, mini tour they've barely heard of?

 

Most people don't even care about live updates on PGA Tour events unless it's the back 9 on Sunday.

 

You'd have to get really creative to make a mini tour work. I wouldn't count on mass fan adoption. I would focus exclusively on how to make it beneficial for local businesses to be sponsors.

 

Maybe partner with 2-3 courses and make them equity partners in exchange for course use. Try with all your might to partner with a talented TV producer that can maybe sell a show about it to Golf Channel (long shot).

 

Beg and somehow incentivize a Web or PGA tour event to give a sponsor's exemption to the winner of your annual tour championship.

 

The rub is that the real value of a mini Tour is to the players, so they are in a way the product and the customer. You may have to doctor the format and make it appealing for local fans to show up and pay $5 to watch.

 

Start each tournament with a long drive tournament. Have a drive up movie with cocktail waitresses serving drinks after the round. A poker tournament tied to the event. Something to get locals involved and opening their wallets.

 

Let them caddie for the "pros". Make part of the event a family thing where you can pay to play with the pros and get tips. Have each pro play with a local father/mom and son/daughter who's looking to improve their game and learn from a pro.

 

If it's in a relatively affluent area, there are families who will pay $100+ to play 9 holes with a plus handicap and get tips. All that money can go towards the purse and it's good for your course partner.

 

That kind of thing. Outside the box. I'm not saying any of the above would certainly work. I just mean it's that type of unconventional thinking that would help.

[Matt J]

It makes a lot of sense to organize something for the guys who don't Monday into the web.com events.

 

The whole thing is a hustle. I wish, for the players like Matt Hanson, that the PGA and Web would get involved and bring some real organization to some of the regional tours.

[MichaelJScott]

I think there could be a great opportunity as well for this. If you used social media correctly you could be onto something here. You could run it all through social media. You wouldnt really even need that great of a website. You could offer live scoring/live updates through live streaming on apps like twitter and instagram. Please make this happen.

 

No offense, but why would more than a dozen people care about score updates covering guys they've never heard of on a mini, mini tour they've barely heard of?

 

Most people don't even care about live updates on PGA Tour events unless it's the back 9 on Sunday.

 

You'd have to get really creative to make a mini tour work. I wouldn't count on mass fan adoption. I would focus exclusively on how to make it beneficial for local businesses to be sponsors.

 

Maybe partner with 2-3 courses and make them equity partners in exchange for course use. Try with all your might to partner with a talented TV producer that can maybe sell a show about it to Golf Channel (long shot).

 

Beg and somehow incentivize a Web or PGA tour event to give a sponsor's exemption to the winner of your annual tour championship.

 

The rub is that the real value of a mini Tour is to the players, so they are in a way the product and the customer. You may have to doctor the format and make it appealing for local fans to show up and pay $5 to watch.

 

Start each tournament with a long drive tournament. Have a drive up movie with cocktail waitresses serving drinks after the round. A poker tournament tied to the event. Something to get locals involved and opening their wallets.

 

Let them caddie for the "pros". Make part of the event a family thing where you can pay to play with the pros and get tips. Have each pro play with a local father/mom and son/daughter who's looking to improve their game and learn from a pro.

 

If it's in a relatively affluent area, there are families who will pay $100+ to play 9 holes with a plus handicap and get tips. All that money can go towards the purse and it's good for your course partner.

 

That kind of thing. Outside the box.

 

Live scoring would give people the option to see the rounds from wherever they are. It would make it more exciting and would be easy to do. Im not saying live scoring alone would make it more popular or make a mini tour automatically work. The point I was trying to make was that with social media you can give mini tour events so much more coverage and exposure. It gives you so many marketing tools with the ability to reach millions of viewers all at your finger tips. People love watching golf. I know my main complaint about the golf channel is they don't show enough golf. I think you could find a way using social media that could generate a lot of interest.

 

But if you want a real game changer just get a beer sponsor and offer dollar beers.

[rangersgoalie]

It makes a lot of sense to organize something for the guys who don't Monday into the web.com events.

 

The whole thing is a hustle. I wish, for the players like Matt Hanson, that the PGA and Web would get involved and bring some real organization to some of the regional tours.

 

Problem with the tour getting involved, is that they already subsidize the web.com

I’m not certain what the financials of Canada, LatinAmerica. Or China are.

Even Champions plays for more than they take in as I understood it.

 

They aren’t looking to take more money out of the main tour

[Aaronwilson_95]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-back-of-the-range-golf-podcast/id1324297751?mt=2&i=1000425647869

This podcast is worth listening too. The checks clear and live scoring gives you an update on the field and what you have to do.

Very well run tour

 

https://www.minorleaguegolf.com

[the bishop]

It makes a lot of sense to organize something for the guys who don't Monday into the web.com events.

 

The whole thing is a hustle. I wish, for the players like Matt Hanson, that the PGA and Web would get involved and bring some real organization to some of the regional tours.

 

Problem with the tour getting involved, is that they already subsidize the web.com

I’m not certain what the financials of Canada, LatinAmerica. Or China are.

Even Champions plays for more than they take in as I understood it.

 

They aren’t looking to take more money out of the main tour

Yes I agree completely here. The talent streams into the PGA Tour are many, varied and deep. In addition to what you mentioned the players coming out of college right now are increasingly more talented. Strictly from a biz standpoint it is not worth their time or money to invest in these regional and sub-regional tours.

[straightshot7]

I think there could be a great opportunity as well for this. If you used social media correctly you could be onto something here. You could run it all through social media. You wouldnt really even need that great of a website. You could offer live scoring/live updates through live streaming on apps like twitter and instagram. Please make this happen.

 

No offense, but why would more than a dozen people care about score updates covering guys they've never heard of on a mini, mini tour they've barely heard of?

 

Most people don't even care about live updates on PGA Tour events unless it's the back 9 on Sunday.

 

You'd have to get really creative to make a mini tour work. I wouldn't count on mass fan adoption. I would focus exclusively on how to make it beneficial for local businesses to be sponsors.

 

Maybe partner with 2-3 courses and make them equity partners in exchange for course use. Try with all your might to partner with a talented TV producer that can maybe sell a show about it to Golf Channel (long shot).

 

Beg and somehow incentivize a Web or PGA tour event to give a sponsor's exemption to the winner of your annual tour championship.

 

The rub is that the real value of a mini Tour is to the players, so they are in a way the product and the customer. You may have to doctor the format and make it appealing for local fans to show up and pay $5 to watch.

 

Start each tournament with a long drive tournament. Have a drive up movie with cocktail waitresses serving drinks after the round. A poker tournament tied to the event. Something to get locals involved and opening their wallets.

 

Let them caddie for the "pros". Make part of the event a family thing where you can pay to play with the pros and get tips. Have each pro play with a local father/mom and son/daughter who's looking to improve their game and learn from a pro.

 

If it's in a relatively affluent area, there are families who will pay $100+ to play 9 holes with a plus handicap and get tips. All that money can go towards the purse and it's good for your course partner.

 

That kind of thing. Outside the box.

 

Live scoring would give people the option to see the rounds from wherever they are. It would make it more exciting and would be easy to do. Im not saying live scoring alone would make it more popular or make a mini tour automatically work. The point I was trying to make was that with social media you can give mini tour events so much more coverage and exposure. It gives you so many marketing tools with the ability to reach millions of viewers all at your finger tips. People love watching golf. I know my main complaint about the golf channel is they don't show enough golf. I think you could find a way using social media that could generate a lot of interest.

 

But if you want a real game changer just get a beer sponsor and offer dollar beers.

 

Yeah I agree social media can be used creatively to drive interest. But I think you would have to do a whole lot more than post score updates. No one cares about live scoring unless they already have a connection/interest in the player. Why do I care what John Smilightly scores on hole 8? I don't. I've never heard of him.

 

First you have to build the stories and get people to engage with and like the players somehow. Live video using periscope or Twitter or Instagram would help.

 

With a mini-Tour, you're never going to capture people because of the fame or appeal of the golfers themselves (when the alternative is the PGA Tour). So you have to create a format that "lets people in" and gives them a close up look or some entertaining look at the game that the PGA Tour doesn't offer.

 

I still think getting the local community is the lower hanging fruit. I don't see why the average person on social media is going to care about an unknown mini Tour in Sacramento, California. Again, unless you make it really entertaining somehow.

 

For example, the Golden State Tour has an Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldenstategolftour/?hl=en

 

They post pretty good updates, but no one is lining up to see them.

[Aaronwilson_95]

The best you can really do with mini tours is the model Canada uses and basically try to get the local community extremely involved. Think practice round pro ams for multi day events & try to get local fans out . Even set up some roping around 18 and some fan fold chairs etc. just my 2 cents.

At the end of the day , the owners of mini tours aren’t getting RICH off the players and likely whether they were there or that’s their job know the struggles players go through.

 

You have to decide between really good golf courses & a smaller purse or decent enough golf courses and a better purse.

 

Also should be noted that to be successful I think you need to run a lot of events and not just a couple to keep players engaged & playing often.

[b.helts]

Live scoring is important to the players. For watching the cut line, for watching a friend finish or whatever. It is a sign of a well run tour and one that cares about the details. I guarantee players watch the live scoring after a morning round just like the big guys on the pga tour watch the golf channel.

 

But live scoring is not inexpensive. You need the web infrastructure but then you also need boots on the ground to get the scores and internet access to update the live leaderboard.

[Scarpydooooo]

Jeez I wasn't expecting all the feedback. Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

So payout is numero uno from what i gather. Also i've spoken with Marriott and the casino here that owns one of the courses. Both parties are willing to help with housing. Also this won't be a huge thing for the first year. Webpage and insurances and all that stuff is free for me. I spoke with PXG and Bridgestone and they both said they would help anyway they could once im ready, they're the only two sponsors i called.

here is an example of the first event i want to put on.

 

144 players.

4 days

50% cut after day 2.

1/3 of the field gets paid out.

membership would be $200 per 12 months.

Entry for everyone is 1,500 includes

also have games like chipping and putting and stuff like that going on so everyone that doesn't want to sleep can hang out and get to know each other.

Whitney Oaks Golf Course Rocklin Ca

 

here is example of payout roughy.

 

1 20k

2 12k

3 8k

4 7k

5 6k

6 5k

7 4800

8 4600

9 4400

10 4200

11 4k

12 3800

13 3600

14 3400

15 3200

16 3000

17 2900

18 2800

19 2700

20 2600

21 2500

22 2400

23 2100

24 1900

25 1600

26 1600

27 1600

28 1600

29 1600

30 1600

31 1600

32 1500

33 1500

34 1500

35 1500

36 1500

37 1500

38 1500

39 1500

40 1500

41 600

42 500

43 400

44 300

45 250

46 200

47 150

48 100

i still have 8k left in purse at this point and i also have 30k left for event costs. What am i missing?

I have people all over the country wanting to play in events like this. doesn't matter if your ammeter or pro. If your not good enough or don't have balls to compete with other good players in the country then go play your local skins game with strokes. This is for good players who want to play against real competition not just a scratch golfer at some random country club. Also the course we will be playing at only had one player on the canadian tour go under par to give you an idea. Like I said this is for good players that want to compete and develop their game for a future. Also want to promote the winners on social media and try and help them get there name out. Also any whiners out there please don't respond with negativity just facts, concerns and ideas please. Also i spoke with southwest airlines today about helping players with 50% off flights if they're members! That and marriott should make traveling easy!

 

I appreciate all the info please give me more.

[Scarpydooooo]

I think there could be a great opportunity as well for this. If you used social media correctly you could be onto something here. You could run it all through social media. You wouldnt really even need that great of a website. You could offer live scoring/live updates through live streaming on apps like twitter and instagram. Please make this happen.

 

No offense, but why would more than a dozen people care about score updates covering guys they've never heard of on a mini, mini tour they've barely heard of?

 

Most people don't even care about live updates on PGA Tour events unless it's the back 9 on Sunday.

 

You'd have to get really creative to make a mini tour work. I wouldn't count on mass fan adoption. I would focus exclusively on how to make it beneficial for local businesses to be sponsors.

 

Maybe partner with 2-3 courses and make them equity partners in exchange for course use. Try with all your might to partner with a talented TV producer that can maybe sell a show about it to Golf Channel (long shot).

 

Beg and somehow incentivize a Web or PGA tour event to give a sponsor's exemption to the winner of your annual tour championship.

 

The rub is that the real value of a mini Tour is to the players, so they are in a way the product and the customer. You may have to doctor the format and make it appealing for local fans to show up and pay $5 to watch.

 

Start each tournament with a long drive tournament. Have a drive up movie with cocktail waitresses serving drinks after the round. A poker tournament tied to the event. Something to get locals involved and opening their wallets.

 

Let them caddie for the "pros". Make part of the event a family thing where you can pay to play with the pros and get tips. Have each pro play with a local father/mom and son/daughter who's looking to improve their game and learn from a pro.

 

If it's in a relatively affluent area, there are families who will pay $100+ to play 9 holes with a plus handicap and get tips. All that money can go towards the purse and it's good for your course partner.

 

That kind of thing. Outside the box.

 

Live scoring would give people the option to see the rounds from wherever they are. It would make it more exciting and would be easy to do. Im not saying live scoring alone would make it more popular or make a mini tour automatically work. The point I was trying to make was that with social media you can give mini tour events so much more coverage and exposure. It gives you so many marketing tools with the ability to reach millions of viewers all at your finger tips. People love watching golf. I know my main complaint about the golf channel is they don't show enough golf. I think you could find a way using social media that could generate a lot of interest.

 

But if you want a real game changer just get a beer sponsor and offer dollar beers.

 

I aree 100% Mike. I see these mini tours charging 700 and only giving out 1500 for 1st its criminal. Social media is a huge audience and even though it will take time to get it rolling i think this could work with all the live scoring and daily pics and videos this could build quickly. also i want to do a senior division 50 plus they need some love

[Scarpydooooo]

Also i grew up with owner go Six Rivers brewing, they are already going to be a sponsor with dollar beers! Obviously I doubt players would be drinking with 1500 on the line and a 1st place prize of 20k ish. But who knows!

[Scarpydooooo]

The best you can really do with mini tours is the model Canada uses and basically try to get the local community extremely involved. Think practice round pro ams for multi day events & try to get local fans out . Even set up some roping around 18 and some fan fold chairs etc. just my 2 cents.

At the end of the day , the owners of mini tours aren't getting RICH off the players and likely whether they were there or that's their job know the struggles players go through.

 

You have to decide between really good golf courses & a smaller purse or decent enough golf courses and a better purse.

 

Also should be noted that to be successful I think you need to run a lot of events and not just a couple to keep players engaged & playing often.

So i was going to get stands on hole 18 with beer sponsor and 20 dollar admission lol Should get a ton of people for sure.

[lowheel]

Im thinking of Starting a Mini Tour in Ca that actually GIVES A CRAP about the players. I keep seeing 300 dollar entry 130 guaranteed to go to prize fund. Or even better 550 entry we will strive to do our best to make $300 go into the prize fund. Ugghhhh

Im done with it. And on top of all that $800 for first place!! ridiculous! Web Pages suck balls and aren't updated often enough. How are golfers who want to test their skills and develop into a true pro going to do so when the Mini Tours are for profit and just offer no help with hotels or housing or any of that stuff. Oh yeah and food! At least something should be done about this so i m going to get a webpage going in the next week to compete with these crappy Pepi and Golden State mini theft tours!

Also iwhy aren't these mini tours spending 5 dollars a week or 10 dollars to promote the top 25 players on each tournament on FB or other social media outlets!! ?????????

 

Anywhooo that was my rant! it will be in the Sacramento ares which is in the middle of Ca. We have more golf courses per Capita than any place except maybe Florida. Also great weather. I just want people opinions on this! Please have experience with Mini Tours before responding!

 

Good luck to you, i hope you can do it. As someone who played the golden state tour many times many years ago i can say there is a market but its tight sledding. If you can establish partnerships with a bunch of courses and a few sponsors its doable. Keep us posted if you do go through with it