Don't Trust What You See Out Your Window

Jo Ann Hoffman knows firsthand that you can't always rely on the weather report. About four years ago, the president and CEO of Meeting Industry Ladies Open/The Golfe, Rockville, Md., was organizing a charity golf tournament at the Woodmont Country Club in Rockville. The forecast called for rain the night before the event, so she kept a close watch on the weather report. When it rained only lightly that evening, she was relieved. The next morning, she drove to the course early to begin setting up the registration table for the event.

“The golf pro came up to me as I was setting up and asked, ‘What are you doing?’” says Hoffman.

While the overnight showers at her home, just 10 minutes from the club, had been mild, the storm had hit much harder at the course. “He told me that the country club had closed one of its courses because of severe flooding, and that there was no way our group of 288 could all play on just one course.

“We had a lot of money invested in this, so I put on my thinking cap and asked our golf pro to see what dates were available to reschedule the tournament. Then I went to catering and told them we would still hold the upscale continental breakfast for the players that we had scheduled for that morning. Most were already on their way over, so we didn't want them to have to just turn around and go home.”

After a lot of quick thinking and planning on the fly, Hoffman had a new date picked for the tournament and all the details about the postponed event ready when the group arrived. “Having all the answers ready alleviated a lot of problems,” she says. “About 98 percent of them were OK with the situation.”

Lesson learned? If you're off-site and planning a golf tournament — even if you're just 10 minutes away — be prepared for the weather at the course to be different from what you see out your window.

“Even if it's sunny the day of your event, they are not going to let you on the course if it rained a lot the night before,” says Hoffman.

Do They Really Get It?

Taking groups to the British Isles to play at some of the most prestigious courses in the world can be quite an incentive — if everything goes according to plan. For an incentive golf event in Scotland, Steven R. Jones, president of event-management company SRJ Enterprises, Elmont, N.Y., managed to secure one of the few courses in Scotland that allows motorized golf carts for his group of 100. The group would begin with a shotgun start (where each foursome tees off from a different hole, allowing everyone to start and end at the same time) and conclude with a gala dinner.

Jones made sure that all the preparations were set. He gave the course management a list of golfers in attendance, as well as info about which foursome would begin at each hole. “We even double-checked with them to make sure that they knew how to organize a shotgun start,” he says. “They assured us they had everything under control.”

The morning of the event, Jones and his staff arrived at the course an hour early to ensure everything was in place. “At first glance, everything looked great. The carts were all lined up, and everything seemed to be in order.”

But upon closer inspection, he found that there was no organization to the way the carts had been staged for the tournament. “It was chaotic. The bags were not with the right carts, and there was no rationale as to how to get people out to the course systematically. The management had no clue how to set up for a shotgun start.”

With carts and bags in disarray and just one hour until tee time, his only option was to have golfers attempt to find the holes themselves. With just the map of the course on their scorecards to guide them, golfers drove around aimlessly until they found their designated tee-off point. “It was a zoo,” he recalls. “The tournament was supposed to start at noon, and we didn't begin until 1 p.m.”