Quite often, I am asked the question; "Rick, What is it like playing golf in Thailand?" My answer: "It's the Best!"

I'm not a great golfer. I'm not even good at the game most of the time. My handicap over the past several years has been as low as 12 and as high as 24. Currently it is 19. I think that falls somewhere right in the middle of Average. Which just happens to be the largest target market for most of you so pay attention - and this is long, so grab a beer

Here is the secret. Golf in Thailand is not about the game; it's about the experience.

There are lots of great courses; Fazio, RTJ, Norman, Palmer, Nicklaus, etc. Back in the 90's the S.E. Asian economy was booming and just about every great architect has left their mark in Thailand with over 300 courses. The economic crash of '97 has left most of these courses intact and accessible as public play courses. The cost in US Dollars is a bargain. You pay anywhere from $20 to $65 for a round of golf on most courses for green fee and a caddie and possibly a cart, which is required at some clubs. The price of labor is so cheap in Thailand that all day you will see a lot of people working out on the course picking weeds by hand, grooming, trimming, etc. I have seen entire greens dug out and replaced by hand. Toward the end of the day you will see about 40 girls walking each fairway fixing every imperfection by hand and another group of girls on the green fixing every pitch mark.

The result is that it tends to be more of a walk thru a garden than a walk down the fairway.

The Caddies... The best part! Most of the caddies are girls. In the picture below on my right (your left) is Khun Faah (English Translation: Sky) who was my regular caddie and on my left, your right, Khun Gai (English Translation: Chicken) who was my friends caddie, at Chiang Mai Highlands.

How could anyone care what they shoot when you spend the day with these two? On this particular day my score was somewhere in the mid 90's. I spent 4 hours practicing my Thai and Laos (and the girls practicing their English). The caddies get a typical tip of 200 Baht (about $6.80 USD). To liven things up I told my caddie I would give her an additional 100 Baht for each birdie I made. She double read every putt! After the first 9 and 4 missed birdie putts, I doubled the bet on the back to 200 Baht for each birdie and 50 Baht for each par. After a couple pars on the back I chipped in for birdie on the par-3 #14. You would have thought she just won the lottery! On #17, a par 3, I again missed the green, chipped up and the ball rattled the pin, but did not fall in. Exhilarating highs and devastating lows. By the time we finished the day she went home with about 800 Baht ($27.20 USD). This is about how much money Faah would typically make in 2 weeks. (There are over 250 caddies and she gets maybe 2 loops per week). Just about every round of golf over there is just great fun and we typically bet for the caddies instead of each other. A common bet is closest to the pin on the par 3's - all other players pay the winners caddie 100 Baht. You quickly find you have a small gallery (Thai girls tend to be short), rooting for your every shot!

Most courses also set up Kiosk (snack shop) about every 3 holes so you can stop and have something like a dried squid snack (I'm not making that up) and a beer if you like.

Notice in that story I hardly mentioned my score except where it came into play for Khun Faah. I did not have one outstanding round the entire time I was there. I did have a few absolutely horrible rounds as far as my score was concerned. The important part was that every single round was a great experience.

Your task is to come up with ways to make the round an experience for your customers. If you can do this I guarantee you will be successful. You can bet I will be back playing at Chiang Mai Highlands with Khun Faah this winter. What are you doing to ensure your golfers want to come back to your course? Don't be afraid to try a few things. How bout taking the beverage cart out one hot afternoon and buying everyone on the course a soft drink? What can it cost you? The more important question is what can it Buy you? Try it, Measure It! If it works.. do it again! And by the way - do it your self. Don't send the kid out that just finished cutting the grass or fixing the tractor. Get yourself in that cart and go out and meet your customers. Offer them a free soft drink, maybe one of those disposable wet naps that you just happen to have ice cold for them. Use your imagination - if it's a rather cold morning go out with a thermos of hot coffee and hot chocolate. Your best targets for future play are the folks who already play your course. 100% of them are golfers, they must live or visit close by, make sure you have their loyalty and keep them coming back and recommending you to their friends.

Most important - figure out a way to measure the success.

How would I do this? (I knew you would ask...). I would collect and enter the name, and email if possible, of every player and enter it in my CPS database. Given that you have that information, you know who is on the course. Giving everyone a comp drink (or at least offering it) will generate some good will. Track those players and see how many come back the next day, week, month, etc. Use the player frequency reports in StarterHut to do this. Compare it with a group that you do not go out and do this for (a control group). Same time next day, make a list of all the players out on the course. Assign each of the players to a "Group" in the customer screen (one for Test and one for Control group). Track how many of those come back the next day, week, month, etc. Then see if the guys you went out and met show up more, less, or the same as those you did not go out and offer a drink too. It's going to take a little work on your part but it's not too painful.

You may very well find out that spending $100 on soft drinks gets you more return play than a $500 add in the Sunday paper. And don't get stuck on the free drink. It's much more about you going out as the Owner or the Pro, or the Dir. of Golf, and meeting your customers. Listen to them bitch, ask them what they like, what they don't like. If it works do it again and often. If it doesn't work you spent $100 and know what does not work. Think about that next time you pay $500 for that Sunday adv. and have no clue what your return on investment is.

FYI: I have actually experienced this 3 times in the 20+ years I have been playing golf. I can tell you the name of the guy, what he brought out for drinks, what I had, the name of the course, the hole it happened on, who I was playing with, etc. If you think this does not leave an impression on a very hot humid afternoon, think again. If you do try this, please send me the results (good or bad) and I will share it with the group here in a future newsletter.

Also for me it's not as easy as jumping in a cart to come and meet all of you (my customers). I know many of you personally but there are just as many I have not had the chance to meet. I have been at the Orlando show every year for 15 or so years now and continue to attend to meet as many folks as possible. Please stop by our booth if you're going to the show this year. I will be traveling from the show directly back to Thailand to play golf with Kuhn Faah.. um, I mean to work with our development team! So it's a perfect time to make suggestions for product enhancements. Tom and I will also be at the Denver RMGSA show next month briefly - most likely on Sunday Oct 14th and possibly Monday and Tuesday morning as well but we have appointments planned for the afternoon.

Today's lesson is more of a short Tip on closing the sale screen.

We have had this for some time but it came up again from a customer this week so I wanted to make sure you all know about it.

The Symptom for this problem is that your sales reports and deposits don't balance and the issue is that the very first sale of the day is recorded on the previous days Date. So your reports are off by the amount of that first sale.

The cause of this is that the Date on the sale screen is wrong. This happens because the Sale screen was left open from the prior day. Designed for speed, the sale screen is always ready to run the next sale. When you leave the screen open over night, the Date field is still set from the prior day. We have an option called Sale Screen Timeout. When set, this option will automatically close the sale screen, post any sales and take your system back to the main menu. In the morning you just click on the sales button and your good go with the correct date.

To turn this option on, GoTo Options, Select Sales Options, then Sales:

As circled above check on the Screen Timeout and I set mine to 120 minutes (2 hours). After 120 min of inactivity, the screen will auto-close. You first sale of the day problem goes away!

Enjoy!