Ok gang, here's the deal for May. To be eligible for the drawing that will occur on June 1, all you have to do is:

1. Post a few times to get on the Top 30 Posters list to the left.
2. Submit one equipment review.
3. Submit one short course review.

That's it and you have a whole month to do it. As you can see from April, even though there are 30 people on the Top Posters list, there are normally only a couple people that actually participate, so your chances are great to take home a $100 gift card or COLD HARD CASH. Your call. My wallet. Won't you play?

Good Luck!

Assuming I'm counting correctly, there was only 6 members with both a course and equipment review in the top 30 list for April. That makes for some pretty good odds people.

Don, (and Chris) wasn't the same rules in effect for April? You have to be in the top 30 and submit one of each? So if there were only 6 members that qualified, Chris, how do you have 103 reviews to choose from for April?

Yes, same rules. Basically what I do is combine all submissions into the bucket and pull the number. If the number matches a forum member in the Top 30 list - they win. If it doesn't, we pull another number. This way, you get the benefit of multiple submissions increasing your chances of winning. If I were to just pull one in 6, there would be no incentive to submit more, right? Or is my logic flawed?

Or you could just put all the ratings and reviews for the 6 that qualify into a bucket and just pull one of those. That way you can't pull someone that didn't qualify and have to draw again, which if you had to draw again, you'd have to come back and get another number. Sounds like for April, there's a lot of ratings and reviews that won't qualify, so it just means you may have to draw multiple times to get a winner. The other way, you only pull fron qualifying entries. just a suggestions.

Right now, the method I am using to pull the reviews is more simplistic Scott, and filtering out based on current forum members is not easily accomplished (or obviously I'd be doing it). I do it a little differently every month primarily because I haven't had the time to come up with a solid process yet. I'll try and build something better for May, definitely...

Chris, You are completely correct in your thinking about mulitiple reviews by the same person. If you wnat more reviews each month, you NEED to give each entry one chance to win. This is the best way you will encourage members to submit more reviews each month. More reviews, means more chnces to win. That'a how it should be.

I wish there was a cost-efficient way to contact all of the interested golf courses that are in the database and encourage them to ask folks who play there to come out and submit a review. Granted there are a lot of courses out there that do not need our help, but I'm sure there are plenty who wouldn't mind some additional folks playing because they read a review out here and it helped generate an interest. Any brainstorms on how we could make something like that a reality?

So, one option is pretty radical. You could sign the courses up for an inexpensive player satisfaction agreement whereby they would give cards out to golfers that direct them to a URL here that completes the course review. Then, for courses that sign up for the service, you would send them the player survey data for them to use to figure out what they need to do. Now, that would mean you'd need to ditch the current simple survey for because you'd need to have useful data for the courses to use to quantify. But you could charge like $100 a year per course, they've get the cards as part of their starter kit, and then you'd send them data one a quarter. or maybe you charge $25 or $50 and they make their own cards.

how's that?


I guess there's not any good way to get them to do it for a random prize drawing huh, cause what would you give a course? maybe a free front page full page review????

Or maybe the players who rate a course from a rating card given by the course are eligible for a free prize giveaway like we do now. So that way only the players who played at a participating course would be eligible for a prize? You could give the courses cards to hand out with unique codes on them that the players would enter.

I think you might be on to something Scott, with regard to somehow getting the courses to get *their* golfers to come out and submit reviews and that there would have to be something in it for them. I like the idea of a survey. Maybe, one field on that survey in addition to all the other questions, could be an overall summary of your feelings about the course, and that piece we could use in-line with the review page, and the rest of the responses we send back the course. I would try and find a way to do it for free for the first few seasons though. It would more than benefit us if we could find a cost and resource efficient way to roll it out.


Maybe a one page ad in Golf Digest or something. Or, I wonder if there is a magazine that EVERY golf course owner reads, like Golf Business or something. Maybe something tied to the PGA Handicap process that we could advertise in. Almost give them the template for an ad or brochure that they can print out, fill out their information and make copies to hand out to golfers. "Here, please fill this out."

It sounds feasible, but I wonder if it would catch on. I wouldn't want to get into the hassle of printing any types of cards. Maybe make it simple and let the course copy a paper like I mentioned above.

Hmmm.. there's a way...

Great ideas...

Anyone out here either work at or help to manage a golf course?

Chris, that's the same model that a side business I'm involved in uses, DrScore.com. It's a free site for patients to find and rate their docs. Or if they are looking for a doc they can search and see ratings. It's free. The survey is about 5 pages long and is pretty detailed. So then for doctors who purchase the service, we give them reports of the progress. So the survey you use is important. We probably want to think about that and vet it for a while before you settle on you, cause you want to be able to get courses to want to PAY for that data.

For example, you probably want some reviewr demographics, like income level and # times they play golf a year. That way the course could use that data to target market high end golf vacations to those in the right income bracket.

So the challenge is making the courses think then need this and making it cost effective. Then it'll be important to them to get their customers to rate them. Maybe we could give away a free green fee from all the ratings at a specific course, that'll be an incentive for the reviewer to make the effort...

That's a great concept. Again, I think the trick would be to get it in front of multitudes of course owners so that would require smart advertising placement to get the word out. I think it would be too much to think a grass-roots effort could do it justice..

There are course tee time booking services out there like Golf Now and Course Trends. I've already talked to Course Trends in the past, but they're not interested in working outside of their current model on any new ideas. Golf Now I think is owned by the Golf Channel, so that might require an inside contact to get in, but would certainly be worth pursuing.

Hmmm... (squeeking is heard as the mouse runs on it's wheel)

I think I might enter the May giveaway, seeing how I have a 100% chance of winning my own contest right now! Sort of a belated birthday present..

C'mon you spoilers!! You know... you can get creative.. If you guys happen to know a high school golf team, you could have a lot of chances to win if you could coerce them into logging in with your forums name and submitting a ton of reviews... just kidding.. or am I...

Well, it's early in the month. I should be able to get a few things in before the end but life just keeps getting in the way right now.

DocT, you entering this month???

Hey folks.. there are about two qualified entrants for May's giveaway so far. If you're one of those people who thinks you never win anything, now could be your chance. The review machine is sucking air right now.. Join the forums, make a few posts, and submit your thoughts. Takes 10 minutes.

I never win. So I may just give this a shot.

You know, based on the way it looks... I could probably roll a die and pick the winner this month...

I like my odds

tee hee hee

I will be posting soon....just been occupied with other things...dang life...

Got my reviews in

I haven't had the chance to submit yet.

OK gang, I'll be pulling the winner tonight once I've downloaded all the reviews and set up the random number selection. Stay tuned!

OK, here's what I show for the qualifying entries (Top 30 Poster, At least one equipment review, at least one course review). I've removed myself, MikeD, and DON (by request). I will pull the number a little later... Let me know if you see any problems:

1 8354 Callaway Big Bertha TomS 03-May-09
2 8370 Bite Vibe AC Aimee 18-May-09
3 8372 Nickent 4DX Hybrid Klun 19-May-09
4 8381 GigaGolf GX Squared Ti Draw kevboy_telford 26-May-09
5 8387 Titleist 907 D2 Chief 27-May-09
6 8388 Titleist 907 D2 prov1tony 27-May-09
7 8393 Club Scrub Scrub Brush DocT 29-May-09
8 8396 Adidas Tour Metal Aimee 31-May-09
9 8398 Callaway X-22 Tour prov1tony 31-May-09
10 132 6646 shortcoursereview TomS 2009-05-03
11 142 8675 shortcoursereview Aimee 2009-05-08
12 153 12200 shortcoursereview Klun 2009-05-19
13 155 18532 shortcoursereview kevboy_telford 2009-05-26
14 156 5421 shortcoursereview Chief 2009-05-27
15 159 19817 shortcoursereview prov1tony 2009-05-28
16 162 25120 shortcoursereview DocT 2009-05-29
17 163 1182 shortcoursereview prov1tony 2009-05-29
18 165 1485 shortcoursereview prov1tony 2009-05-31
19 166 8750 shortcoursereview Aimee 2009-05-31

Good luck all.

Drumroll please....

brrrrruummmmmmmmm!

And the winner is...



Congratulations Chief! you are the $100 giveaway winner. Please PM me or email me through the contact page with your full contact details, whether you'd like the Golfsmith gift card or the money and I'll get this sent out right away.

Thanks everyone for playing. I'll be posting the June contest tonight or tomorrow, but get those reviews in! The rule will be the same for next month - must be in the Top Posters list to the left, submit one equipment review, and one course review (minimum) during the month and you are eligible. Multiple entries increase your chances. Good luck everyone!

Congrats to Chief!

Congrats Chief!

Way to go Chief.

Congrats, Chief!!!

Hey, so what's the June prize? May was a month I'd just as soon forget most of so but it's June now and I'm ready to participate in some reviews.

Congradulations Chief; Not to bad for someone with the minimum number of reviews to get into the drawing. It just doesn't seem fair. The rest of you guys and dolls need to start posting more reviews and make it hard for someone with only two reviews to win your share of the prizes.

Hey thanks everyone. I feel it is like the lottery. Just because you buy two tickets your chance to win doesnt double. So one and one is good odds.

So what do I do? I am set on ewuipment so I think lessons are in order. I spoke with this guy Matt and the rates are $73 per half hour. I think that is kinda high, but it can only help.

Chief,
Great that you won.
Make sure Matt doesn't have another lesson scheduled right after yours and tell him his rates are a little high, but you're going to go with him because you know he'll go, at least 15, and maybe even 30 minutes overtime.
He'll do it.

Posting the June contest soon..

$73 for a 1/2 hour lesson is WAY high for around here. More than double the going rate in fact.

Don, thats what I thought, but checking out the rates around here most have firm rates of $50-60 for a half hour around Chicago anyway, some more, but not many places.I like Bill's suggestion. The $73 includes constant video monitoring. Until you iron out the basics then you can go outside with a dual camera system. How fast you get there depends on individual learning, correction and retention. STILL feels really expensive, but I might give it a shot anyway. I posted my experience under the lessons topic.

Thanks Chris, I get an essentially 17% discount with the prize. Everytime I win I seem to spend a lot of money. But this is much needed, I saw the video of my swing. Maybe I might do a before and after for comparison. Well maybe just an after, I don't need the ribbing from you guys.