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YOU POOR UNSUSPECTING GOLFER
A portion of our training as PGA professionals, is being schooled on how to get along with difficult people. Let us face it, not all of you are charming, especially after a bad round. When I started in this business, the pro, for whom I worked, gave me this bit of advice. “Every person who walks in that door has more money than you. Your job is to get as much of their money as you can, and make them enjoy giving it to you.”
A sales seminar I attended one time told us that one of the most vulnerable golfers are the ones who are the last to leave the club at night. He is going home and relax and really has nothing on his mind. One of our players was sitting by himself having a coke, when I told my assistant, “Let’s try this out on him.” We brought out some new irons, and were really doing a sales pitch on all of the new features of these new irons. . He was very interested, and as much as he would like to have those irons, his wife had been after him to get a new washing machine, and that had to come first, and he left. He was there when we opened the door the next morning. I don’t know how he handled the washing machine.
The majority of the finer Country Clubs, have club storage, where the members leave their clubs. They are stored, cleaned, and taken care of. A good pro will keep an inventory of each person’s clubs. He will also have some personal history of that person. When his birthday rolls around, his wife should get a little note from the pro, stating that if she was having difficulty in selecting a gift for him, that he could use a new golf bag, or she could purchase a gift certificate in the pro shop.
The greatest sales story I have ever heard came from a Pro at a club in Texas. This man was sales oriented. One year Lew Worsham won the Tam O Shanter tournament by sinking a wedge shot on the last hole. This wedge became a hot item. H bought a hundred of them and stuck them in members bags. About half of them bought them, and he unloaded the other half someplace else. Most of his members kept their clubs in their racks, but other members kept them with them, so he used to go out by the first tee and check up on their bags. The first tee was very close to a lake, and one day, while he was out on the tee, one of these new beautiful fiber glass speed boats went by. One of the members remarked about the beauty of that boat and casually said, “I sure would like to have one of them.” After the man had teed off, the pro went down the dock and acquired additional information on the boat, and found out that it came in a variety of colors. When the man made the turn the pro asked him what was his favorite color. The man said , “Blue.” The pro went down and ordered the boat. When it came in he called the man and told him his boat had just arrived. The man asked, “What boat?” The pro said, “”The boat you said you wanted, and it sure is a beauty.” The man bought the boat.
He said he had one member, who definitely did not like him. No matter what he did to appease the man, nothing worked. One day he made an appointment with this man to find out just why the man did not like him. He asked the man point blank, “You don’t like me, do you?’ The man replied, “No.” Nothing was resolved at that meeting, but just before Christmas the man called him up, and told him that he wanted him to fix up three sets of clubs for three friends of his, and that that he, the pro, should know their specifications, and to put them on his bill.
A man, who was ahead of his time in Tournament golf, was George May. He was a big time business man and an efficiency expert. In the forties he ran the largest tournament in the country each year at the Tam O Shanter C. C. in Chicago. It cost the spectators one dollar to get in, but once you were inside the gate, everything cost a fortune, and there were slot machines all over the place. He had grandstands by the greens, and he tried to get all of the players to wear numbers on their backs, in order to be identified by the spectators. A lot of the players refused, and some did not play. He tried to entice them by having players winning money, wearing a number, getting twice as much as those not wearing a number. The first prize then was 25,000.00 and a 25,00.00 exhibition series to the winner. At that time it was five times more than the regular tournaments were offering in total prize money. Many of his ideas were picked up by the regular tour, or circuit, as it used to be classified.
It was in this tournament that Lew Worsham sank that wedge shot on the last hole. Chandler Harper appeared to be the winner, and Jimmy Demaret, who was sponsoring Worsham in this tournament, was doing the radio commentating n when this shot was made. He described the flight of the ball, and when it hit the green, and then said, “ G___D____!”
Be sure to check the ads that are located on the side of these stories, or articles, whatever you want to call them. I don’t know how these ads are chosen, and if they are related to the subject matter, but the day “For Married Men Golfer’s Only.’ was published, all of the ads were from Divorce Lawyers. Coincidence?
New stories will be added continually.