What Goes On During The 'Off Season' At Golf House?


December 3, 2004

By Marty Parkes, USGA

Far Hills, N.J. --Time passes quickly during the summer months at Golf House. Our competitive season normally commences with the U.S. Open in the middle of June. We then bounce from championship to championship, and often from coast to coast. We're a national organization, so our competitions are played throughout this large nation. And many USGA volunteers and staff work at more than one championship each season. 

Parkes

Thus, it often seems like you've just dragged yourself home, done the laundry, paid the bills and cut the lawn. Then, before you know it, you're back in an airplane or automobile heading for the next championship venue. It's hectic and tiring; it also makes the time pass quickly. And only a few months later, normally no later than the end of October, a USGA championship season passes into the record book.

What do we do during the rest of the year, I'm often asked?

Much of the Golf House "off season" is spent evaluating the championship season just completed. What went right? What went awry? Where can we enhance our conduct of our championships? What things should we try again? What things should we never try again? 

The Association rightly takes pride in its conduct of what golfers routinely tell us are the best golf competitions held anywhere. But we try hard not to let complacency slip into the equation. And we're continually on the look for small steps that can be taken to lead us along the path to improvement. No championship is excluded from a review process. The U.S. Open, however, undergoes the most thorough review of all since it is our most prominent national championship. We meet for a couple of days looking back at the Open.

We don't exclusively look back, though. We also peer into the future. For example, in the USGA Communications Department, we hold what we call Amateur Promotions Weekend. This year it fell on Nov. 20-21. On this designated weekend, we invite representatives from our 2005 national amateur championship sites to visit Golf House. These individuals will be the host representatives who will work with the USGA Communications Department in operating the media center at each of our national amateur championship venues. We will instruct them about how to take care of the nuts-and-bolts of operating a media center during their championship. They, in turn, will teach us about the idiosyncrasies of their home region. What's the media like in their area? Is it mostly print (newspaper and/or magazine) oriented? Or do they have solid support from radio and/or television? 

As we cement our partnership with our host sites through our exchange of information, we move along the path of developing a successful communications plan that will come to fruition during the summer and/or autumn of 2005 when each respective championship is played.

All this discussion about USGA national championships, however, is somewhat misleading regarding our activities during the off season. That's because while conducting national championships remains one of the oldest and most important functions of our Association, it's not the only one. Thus, these "off season" months without national championships are often the months when we devote attention to other Association functions.

Let me illustrate how this process works by referencing our communications department once again. The winter and spring months permit us to devote time toward publishing a wide array of materials in printed and/or electronic formats. We accomplish tasks like formulating the Association's annual report, enhancing the USGA's Web site at www.usga.org, and planning our editorial calendar for our newsletter, Inside the USGA. We may conduct some research to discover the attitudes and/or opinions of golfers so we can serve them better. We also try and visit with our colleagues who work in other departments within the Association. These visits allow us to find out what's going on elsewhere within our organization. Often we discover interesting stories about these activities that we pass along.

While we try and stay in close touch with our USGA colleagues throughout the year, it's definitely easier to do so when championships are not being played and fewer folks travel.

The off season is also a good time for us to improve our skills and, yes, to catch up on some rest and relaxation. Each year, technological developments encroach upon our communications activities. For instance, within the space of just a couple of years, we've converted nearly all our photography to a digital format. We're now able to provide photographs of USGA activities to media outlets in an efficient and inexpensive way. The downside, of course, has been additional training that our staff has needed to absorb to provide such services. And such training is only practical during the off season when time is available for these sessions. Vacation time is often hard to find during the championship months as well. Thus, the holiday season often finds a sparse population in residence at Golf House.

Since the USGA is located in New Jersey, golf is not played locally during the winter and early spring months. However, in southern regions of the country, the golf season reaches its peak at this time. So while much of the country isn't playing golf during these months, there is a sizable part that does. This means we need to ensure that we're providing adequate coverage in providing answers to these golfers about topics as varied as the Rules of Golf, the USGA Handicap System, or turf grass management.

In my 13 years with the Association, I've noticed that the length of the "off season" apparently shrinks a bit each year. I don't know whether this trend is attributable solely to my advancing years or whether our workload has simply increased. There's simply no scientific way to measure. But I know that both USGA volunteers and staff have no trouble keeping busy during the months when we're not conducting national championships. It's simply a different approach, at a different pace, on different topics, at a different time of the year.

Marty Parkes is the USGA's Senior Director of Communications. For questions or comments, he can be reached at mparkes@usga.org.