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July 3, 2008 -
San Antonio, TX: Those charity golf
tournaments we all play in are a lot of fun. We get those goodie
bags with all that neat free stuff. If we're lucky enough be
closest to the hole or hit a long drive we're apt to walk away
with a free driver or putter. Some tourneys are even giving away
free NIKE golf shoes worth over a $100 (makes sense....shoes are
what got NIKE going in the first place...which answers the
question..."Which came first, the Tiger or the Shoe?)
and last but not
least...there's those silent auctions where you either overpay
tenfold, get the bargain of the century, or somewhere in
between.
We recently
played in a tourney where we bid on a item stating "Round of
Golf for Four". We wrote down our bid and
as it goes, we turned out to be the highest bidder. Here's where
paying attention to the details get's important.
The first time we
called the local course at which we had been awarded the
round-of golf for four via being the highest bidder to schedule a round, we discovered these
passes were only good Mon-Thurs. Our bad...that was printed
right there on the ticket. The next Time we called we discovered that only two of the four passes we bought
in the silent auction could be used in a group of four...again
printed right there on the passes. So while what advertised was
"Round of Golf for Four" was
technically true, it just wasn't applicable for all four at the
same time. So thinking we finally had it figured out we decided
to book a round for two to be done with it. not so fast....Once
we had given our pro shop guru all our data he asked for a
credit card to hold the tee time. We shared with him that had
the two man pass but he still wanted the CC info. We declined
and told him we'd call back. We did a straw poll and discovered
that a little less than 25% of the area courses require a CC# to
hold a tee time. Some other high-end courses don't even require a CC# to hold a
time.
We feel that when these courses provide passes for free to
charities it's a cheap form of advertisement and we shouldn't
owe them anything other than taking of the free passes if we
should be the high bidder. When you drive by a BUD or Coca-Cola
billboard do you owe them anything?....nope...they just hope you
imbibe their products....which is why these courses give-a-away
tee times...to get you out to their courses for future play...if
they don't want the inconvenience of offering free passes...they
should decline offering them.
Moral of the
story. These courses are for-profit institutions and have every
right to make their own policies and do as they wish. Our
advice...if you buy a silent auction item stating "Round of
Golf for Four", read the fine print if you really want to know what you're getting into.
We'll give this
to the course we played at, they at least threw in the golf cart
fee. Something that other courses don't do.
We just don't
understand why these courses don't do the right thing and
make it simple. We know they get hit up all the time for passes,
we just think there's got to be a way to make this more
straight-forward. We think the goodwill will come back to these
courses many times over.
courses...How
bout just adding the line..."Subject to availability ...or
adding nothing at all?"...that's our 2 cents.
What's your
thought's on this? Send 'em in and we'll print your
comments...send to .ray@amigogolf.com
story by staff reporter Ray Abbott
ray@amigogolf.com |
