Tournaments provide networking prospects, sponsor opportunities
They meet at the Alpine Country Club in Cranston every summer, leaving their hectic world for one Monday to see their friends and colleagues and devote themselves entirely to two purposes: playing a great game of golf, and raising money for Hasbro Children’s Hospital.
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It’s the biggest event of the year for the Greater Providence Board of Realtors, and a big success – since 1997, it’s raised $147,000 for Hasbro’s Child Life program, which provides amenities and activities to help patients feel a little more like normal kids. The latest tournament, on July 25, raised $23,000, said Executive Vice President Sharon R. Kersh.
As business outings go, golf tournaments are definitely pricier than the average event. Alpine Country Club, for example, charges $80 for the golf plus $45 for lunch and dinner, with a 100-person minimum – more than your typical company or professional group can afford to pay.
But fund-raising golf tournaments, which are often major social events for the group or company involved, have become hugely popular, attracting support not only from people directly connected to the organizers, but from corporate sponsors.
Most Rhode Island courses designate Mondays as their tournament days, and if you called today, you’d be hard-pressed to find an open date at a good course through mid-autumn. Alpine’s booked solid, and so is Quidnessett Country Club in North Kingstown. Agawam Hunt, in East Providence, has a handful of dates. Newport National, which takes large groups three days a week, has a few more openings, but a good part of October is already gone, said booker Nicole Valcourt. And all the major clubs are well into booking 2006.
Ed Kirby, the golf pro at Alpine, said tournaments are a major source of income for many courses, so there’s “a lot of competition” among courses for big events. “We need them,” he said. “They keep the expenses for our members down.”
The big business clients tend to favor a handful of courses. Newport National, for example, hosts scores of corporate and convention-related outings, with clients this season including the American Association of Airport Executives, Northeast Chapter; the Empire Corporate Federal Credit Union, of Albany, N.Y.; the National Association of Surety Bond Producers.
Unlike many courses, Newport National also takes mid-sized groups, attracting even more businesses: “We have mortgage companies, we have law firms, a lot of insurance companies, banks…” Valcourt said. Some of the clients are local, but many are out-of-towners, booked in partnership with hotels, or as a treat after a business event.
“People who’ve never played golf before get talked into playing, and have a lot of fun,” said Dave Johnson, the assistant golf pro at Newport National. “Or they’ll have conventions and meetings, and then afterward they’ll have 20 or 30 guys who network through their business throughout the country, and they get together and play golf.”
For courses with a more Rhode Island-based clientele, however, the big outings are usually charitable; Quidnessett’s events are “almost 100 percent” fund-raisers, said Lorraine Kane, who books the course. But even tournaments organized directly by charities tend to involve many business sponsors, who buy tee signs, provide prizes, buy a foursome, or do a mix.
Westerly-based Washington Trust Co., for example, doesn’t have its own charity tournament, but it supports a range of events: Westerly Hospital, South County Hospital, the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce, Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education.
The bank puts money into golf tournaments for a “combination” of reasons, said Elizabeth B. Eckel, senior vice president for marketing: “It’s supporting the charity, it’s networking and business developing, and it’s plain old branding and PR – getting your name out there.”
Often when it sponsors a foursome, Washington Trust will send a couple of its own employees – lending and wealth management officers – and encourage them to invite a client and one of his guests, she said.
“Think about it: You’ve got a captive audience for four hours,” she said. But it’s also a “very casual,” low-pressure way of developing business. “You can go out and actually get to know a person, and tell them a little bit about your company.”
For members of the Greater Providence Board of Realtors, the tournament’s appeal is twofold, Kersh said: It’s a way to “network and socialize,” and “they bring affiliate members, mortgage bankers they do business with, clients.” But “there’s also, I think, a sense of pride,” she said, from knowing that together, they have raised money for a good cause.
“They can play golf anytime they want, but they take the time because it’s a charity golf tournament,” Kersh said. Even non-golfers participate, helping with setup, running the event, and selling raffles. “Everyone is generous because they know where this money is going.”
And while golf outings tend to be associated with the suit-and-tie class, some charity events bring together a broader range of people. Take the Corinna’s Angels benefit last Monday at Alpine, organized by Michael Calise, of Calise & Sons Bakery in Lincoln.
This is the ninth year that Calise has run a charity tournament, and the second that he’s done it for this particular cause, spinal muscular atrophy research, a disease that afflicts his 6-year-old great-niece, Corinna Calise.
Calise’s benefit is one of the biggest each year at the course, with 204 players, two tee times, and a party that goes until 10 or 11 p.m. (“Where else can you do that?” said Kirby, the golf pro. “That’s why golf outings are such a big thing.”) But while the event has its share of corporate sponsors – Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, Spirit Airlines, Gencorp Insurance and the local Coca-Cola bottler, among others – the players also include the extended Calise family, personal friends, bakery workers and small businesses with ties to the company.
“We have 51 foursomes, and I’d say 38 to 40 are business associates, and the others are friends,” Calise said. “Some people will give a small donation, and some people will come to support you 100 percent. It’s about giving, and whether you give $25 or $3,000 doesn’t make a difference to me, because you know what you can do.”
The typical donation is $50 to $100, Calise said, yet last year all the gifts together yielded $78,000. Maybe it’s the passion he puts into it. “It’s dear to my heart,” he said. “I do it for love.”
