Local Knowledge

GOLF GENIUS TM: LIVE SCORING

Using Live Scoring in Golf Genius Tournament Management (GG TM) is a great way to elevate the “player experience” for events and leagues. Rather than entering scores at the end of a round and generating the final results, scores can be entered during the round while producing a live leaderboard in many places like the portal, TV display, and mobile app.

The Live Scoring feature is not just limited to stroke and match play events. It can be used virtually for every format available in GG TM software including skins, bracket events, multi-round tournaments, linked tournaments, and more.

The customer support team at GG TM has created a Live Scoring tutorial that covers a wide range of related topics, including How to Set Up and Manage Live Scoring for Events and Leagues, Enabling Live Scoring, Overview of the Live Leaderboard, Entering Scores, Displaying the Live Leaderboard, and Managing Multi-Round Tournaments Using Live Scoring.

To learn more about GG TM Live Scoring and review the step-by-step guide, click here.

TGA FOUNDATION AWARDS $25,000 COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP

The Texas Golf Association Foundation is pleased to announce that Abigail Inocian, a recent graduate of Allen High School in North Texas, has been named as the 2023 recipient of the $25,000 Doris Kallina / ’Nez Muhleman Scholarship.

Presented every four years, the scholarship was established in 2015 to honor Doris Kallina and ‘Nez Muhleman, two women who for many years devoted their time, energy, and resources to help promote women’s golf in Texas.

Accompanied by her parents Claire and Malkin, Inocian received a check for $3,000 during a presentation ceremony at the TGA main office in Dallas, with the remainder of the renewable scholarship to be paid out in increasing amounts over the next three years.

“I want to thank everyone at the TGA Foundation for this amazing honor, it really means so much to me,” Inocian said. “I’m so grateful to have been chosen because I know there were a lot of other girls who were also deserving of this scholarship. It’s just an incredible feeling to know that I now can financially support myself while earning my undergraduate degree.”

During her standout career on the Allen High School’s girls varsity golf team, Inocian captured four individual titles, earned Most Improved Player and Player of the Year awards, and served as team captain the past two seasons. Equally impressive in the classroom as on the golf course, Inocian was a full diploma student in the school’s prestigious International Baccalaureate® program and her weighted 4.57 GPA ranked 33rd in a class size of 1,714.

Inocian aims to use the scholarship money to attend Houston Christian University (formerly Houston Baptist University) where she plans to follow a pre-med track with the long-range goal of becoming a physician. She also will continue her competitive amateur career and has her sights set on earning a spot on the women’s golf team.

To read more about 2023 Doris Kallina / ’Nez Muhleman Scholarship winner Abigail Inocian, click here.

USGA MAKES MULTI-YEAR COMMITMENT TO WATER RESILIENCE EFFORTS

$30M Commitment Will Drive New Water Resilience Efforts

The United States Golf Association (USGA) is accelerating its work toward a more sustainable game with the deployment of a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment toward reducing golf’s use of water.

The organization’s $30 million commitment over the next 15 years will advance underutilized strategies and technologies that golf courses can use to economically reduce their use of water, a vital and increasingly regulated natural resource with near- and long-term cost and availability concerns. The work will focus on irrigation optimization, advanced conservation innovation and water sourcing and storage.

“The long-term economic and environmental sustainability of green-grass golf courses – where more than 25 million people enjoy the game and millions more are employed – will be challenged in certain regions if the game doesn’t advance this critical work now,” said Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA. “We are enthused and impressed by the reductions golf course superintendents have pursued over the past decade, and even more optimistic about the future. The USGA is ready to not only contribute our voice, but also our resources and expertise, to help our golf course partners and ensure golf’s future.”

The effort will integrate the longstanding industry leadership of the USGA Green Section – composed of agronomists and turfgrass experts – with university researchers, golf course owners, superintendents, the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), regional golf associations, architects, industry partners and water agencies.

To learn more about the USGA’s $30M commitment to new water resilience efforts, click here.

DIGITAL MARKETING’S PROMISE [GOLF INC. MAGAZINE]

Automation, Big Data and Smart Tools Give Golf Courses a Brighter Future on a Smaller Budget

The marketing world has changed dramatically in the past 15 years.

First Google exploded, then Facebook took over, followed by Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

While all the buzz was around social media, savvy marketers were learning how to leverage email and other digital avenues to better target their audiences.

“Going back ten years, it’s incredible to think about how broad we had to go to find the right customer,” said Justin Kuehn, vice president of marketing for Hampton Golf, which manages 30 courses. “If you go by an audience-building perspective, marketing has become less speculative and much more targeted with different audience-building tools.”

Kuehn said good marketing today is essentially about storytelling — identifying what a prospective customer is likely to be interested in and tailoring your message accordingly.

In an article for Golf Inc.’s digital magazine, author Trevor Mason takes a closer look at how golf course marketers use a variety of social media and digital marketing tools that best match the demographics of their target customers.

To read more about Digital Marketing’s Promise, click here.