When it rains and rains on Opening Day
Our “Partner Feature” this issue is not about any single event. It’s about a date. May 27th, 2024. This was the Monday following Victoria Day Monday week. The unofficial start of the summer tournament season for many companies and many industries. Unencumbered by the stresses of the shorter week brought on by the first Long Weekend Holiday Monday of the Summer season – it’s time to get to business and play some corporate tournament golf.
Everyone loves a fresh start, to anything. Opening Day of the Jays season at the ROGERS Centre or Leafs Home Opener at Scotiabank Arena are nice examples for professional sports. Monday May 27 was a nice example for Corporate Golf.
Of course there is not a roof over golf courses. Mother Nature has a bit more to say when it comes to Golf.
We watched the forecast. We added an Umbrella Emoji to texts with customers. And then it happened. On 4 different fronts.
Glen Abbey. Emerald Hills. King Valley. Lionhead.
Oakville. Stouffville. Aurora. Brampton.
A Charity. A Township. A Financial Company. A Professional Association.
The skies opened up – to varying degrees.
Now, for the record on this topic, rainy days are often worried about and fussed over, but they are also highly successful when it comes to the recipe for what these tournaments are built for in the first place. Camaraderie. Community/Industry gathering. Shared experiences & memories. A solid drenching of the full field can feed all those narratives!!
Many rain days have become great memories and have been very successful. There’s some sort of Golfer vs Nature thing that takes over. It’s fun to watch. The Lionhead mid-round rainstorm that blew the golfers off the course and put a few cart paths deep under water – came to an end of course. Here is a picture of one of those pure die-hards that withstood the rain show and snuck in a couple more holes as the humidity rose up from the ground.
4 different golf courses in 4 different sections of the GTA from 4 different corners of the business world ended up with, of course, 4 different dances with Mother Nature.
1 total cancellation. 1 mid round-round cancellation. 2 soggy completions with varying levels of full participation.
The one singular point of uniformity in all this variety? Success. They all achieved their goal. They all ended up with jovial communication the following day. They’ve all rebooked for 2025. Everyone loves a good old golf tournament. Even when Mother Nature is in a bad mood.
The key to all of this, and the real key to why golf tournaments are the anchor of your event calendar, is this. A great shared experience immediately becomes a great memory. And all this leads to exactly what you are hoping for in the first place when all your guests are sharing their memories of your day. That is business relationship gold – mined from your efforts.
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