How To Keep Score In Golf

Tech breaks ground on $3.7 million clubhouse at Rawls

Texas Tech officials broke ground on a $3.7 million clubhouse and team facility Saturday at the 8-year-old, university-owned Rawls Course.

Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt said the facility improvements Tech has made for nearly every athletic program during the last three years allows the university to “stand shoulder to shoulder with anybody in the country.”

“We’re in a competitive business,” Hocutt said. “We have scoreboards in every venue that we own and operate. And we keep score. If we’re going to sponsor a program then we’re going to participate to win, and it’s our responsibility to provide our teams with the opportunity to be successful.”

The Rawls Course, despite its stature as one of the top collegiate golf courses in the country, has been a losing financial investment for Tech since it opened roughly a decade ago.

Bobby Gleason, Texas Tech’s deputy athletics director and chief financial officer, said the clubhouse will put the course in position to host more corporate outings, which would help cover its $1.8 million operating budget.

The Rawls Course lost roughly $900,000 in the past two years, the Avalanche-Journal reported in May, and the university plugs the hole with cash from its auxiliary budget.

“The clubhouse hopefully gives us another tool to use,” Gleason said. “We want to grow the number of rounds played, in large part through corporate outings.”

The new facility was made possible entirely through private donations.

Men’s golf coach Greg Sands and women’s golf coach JoJo Robertson hope the facility allows Tech to be competitive on the recruiting trail, too.

Robertson said she can think of at least one recruit that spurned Tech after touring another school’s facilities.

“She visited a place with a two-story building right after she visited us, and our players were putting their clubs in their car,” Robertson said. “But I can’t think of any place that has a better combination of golf course and team facility than what we’re going to have. And it’s going to allow us to bid for tournaments, host tournaments and do whatever we want to do.”

The new facility will offer a full-service pro shop, a grill and bar with flatscreen TVs, a fireplace and outdoor seating, along with an outdoor window for walk-up food and drink purchases.

The Texas Tech golf teams will have private facilities. Those will include an entryway courtyard, conference room, team locker rooms and coaches’ offices.

The male ego and growing the game of golf - Beyond the Score.tv

Golfers!

This brings to me late last night when I came across  this blog post by Paul Stanley over at  Why We Golf .  It involves two passions of mine, marketing and golf!  So its easy to understand why I enjoyed his post.

His idea is great but I think it needs some tweaking.  In short, here is what he has to say…

“The concept is very simple.  In this version golf is no longer a competition over a set number of holes but a contest to see who can get the furthest on a set number of strokes.  In other words, how far can you get on 72 strokes?  The third shot on # 15?  The fourth on #17?  Kind of changes the vibe of the game just a little, wouldn’t you say?  Definitely makes a round a lot shorter for most of us.  I go into more detail in my forthcoming book, but in the meantime think about it.”