Page 13 - english winter 2017

In 2002 Take A Kid to The Course was launched with close to 1 million participants through the program since its inception.
Prior to us being large enough for our own conference, I used to organize a Canadian delegation to attend the NGCOA USA Conference. It was always down south in January or February, we would bring in a few Canadian speakers, and I would throw a Canada Night party that became rather famous after a few years.
The highlight was probably when we were in Monterey and invited Clint Eastwood to attend our party. He was in the process of building Tehàma Golf Club at the time, and he had the Tehàma line of golf apparel.
I decided to keep it a secret as our buses of NGCOA Canada members started arriving, partly for the surprise effect and partly because I was worried he might not show up. At 9 PM on the nose, he walked through the door, and that Canada Night became a special evening we will never forget! He got up on stage, told a few jokes about Canada, had a couple of glasses of wine and worked the room nicely with pictures, auto- graphs and cool stories. It made my day!
2010 saw the biggest lobby win in Canadian golf. $65 Million in property tax refunds to Ontario golf courses.
GOLF EXPOS
Perhaps one of the more visionary moves for the NGCOA Canada was the day we decided to enter the consumer golf show business. It would be part of our marketing suite of services, a creative way to grow the game.
I had attended the first Toronto Golf & Travel Show, in the Skydome, and was fascinated by the potential to promote golf. I did a little research, put a hold on trade show space and dates in Ottawa for two years later, and presented the idea to our newly formed Eastern Ontario/Outaouais Chapter.
Everybody loved the idea, but we didn’t yet have enough money to support the necessary invest- ment into launching the show. Our good friend and chapter board member, Gib Patterson, stepped up to propose that he would put up a $100,000 line of credit to solve our financial dilemma on the condi- tions that he would own the show, the NGCOA Canada would spon- sor it, and I would be contracted to work with him on executing the project. And so, the Ottawa Golf & Travel Show was born. That 3 year agreement with Gib morphed into the NGCOA Canada buying the show from him and I learned how to become a show manager.
Golf Business Canada 13