The American Junior Golf Championship

For several years, and under many different names, the World Junior Golf Series ran an international junior golf tournament of incredible stature – that no one had ever heard of. That’s where we came in: our mission was to elevate the brand by polishing the marketing, developing relationships with the community and publicize the event world-wide. We ran everything outside the ropes from sponsorship acquisition to social media to PR and events for the players and their families. Heck, we could write a case study about part of this event!

But we’ll just go big picture: First we moved the event from sleepy (and beautiful) Ponte Vedra to World Golf Village, hosting the tournament under the shadows of the World Golf Hall of Fame. We then worked closely with the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods and the members of the golf course, all quite welcoming, to participate – play in a junior-am, volunteer and spectate. We worked closely with local businesses to sponsor the event. We created stature by developing high end collateral materials and working the PGA TOUR to develop a PSA video that was distributed locally and globally. We cultivated a press list of golf writers and features writers from every country of every player, as well as the golf industry worldwide. We entertained the players with activities in the evening like a game night, health and wellness seminars and a private opening ceremony in the World Golf Hall of Fame complete with guided tours and an invocation from the person responsible for running golf’s re-entry into the Olympic Summer Games. We created events to entertain the parents (so the kids could have some fun).

Results: stature! Global press. Daily local news print and broadcast coverage. Live interviews with players. Exponential Social media growth. Sponsorship dollars that almost covered the cost of the event. More than 100 golf coaches came from around the country to recruit some of the best players in the world. And a great tournament with ceremony, competition and…fun!