Who is going to lecture for sure at the GolfBIC 2017?


By: July 29, 2016


The world renowned motivational speaker in the club industry, Gregg Patterson, along with the NGCOA and EGCOA Chief Executive Officer’s Jay Karen and Lodewijk Klootwijk have been confirmed as speakers for the annual GolfBIC event in 2017.

GolfBIC is the Golf Business and Industry Convention and presented by the UK Golf Course Owners Association (UKGCOA) and the Organisation of Golf and Range Operators (OGRO) in association with the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA).

The event will take place at Harrogate International Centre on the 17th and 18th January 2017 in conjunction with the BTME show and is designed to attract golf course owners and operators, secretary’s & general managers and other golf clubs’ operational staff to learn, network and get inspiration and ideas to help grow your golf club business.

GolfBIC - Gregg Patterson

Topics at GolfBIC 2017 will likely include:

  1. Marketing of your golf course
  2. UK golf industry leaders in the spotlight
  3. Social media for golf courses
  4. Get into golf
  5. Improving the value of your golf course business
  6. Taxation in the golf industry

Jay Karen will give a snapshot of key issues and trends happening in the American golf industry and Lodewijk Klootwijk will give an insight into best practices from around the EU Continent.

Today, I had an interesting discussion on LinkedIn with Sean Kelly (owner of the LinkedGolfers, the #1 golf LinkedIn group) and Roger Yates (Golf club manager at the Le Meridien Ibom Hotel & Golf Resort) about social media usage of golf clubs.

I told them if a golf club is open to 2-way conversations and does not think about that just another communication channel where they can publish their news then social media can help golf clubs to acquire and retain membership, especially when they know on which social media platform their membership is active. Furthermore, they have to invest in content development. 

The question is how many golf clubs can afford to invest sufficiently (headcount: a truly social media expert; content development) in social media.

Many golf clubs forget that they are in the service industry where customer experience is also important and should be part of any golf clubs’ future marketing strategy. This is why I was happy to hear from Mark Taylor (England Golf) during the 2016 A.S.K. Workshop of the PGAs of Europe (was held in Hungary, on July 26th) how important is the measurement of customer satisfaction (e.g. by using NPSNet Promoter Score).

You should also ask yourself how much and what do you know about your golf club members? How do you use the available information about your members to provide them personalized services?

I hope we will get answers to these questions, from golf industry leaders and golf club managers during the GolfBIC 2017.