Reigning Champions Perpetual Plaque

Description

For a club, there are few things that equal the importance of Member Recognition. For a golfer, there are fewer things more personal than how he or she marks their golf ball to identify it. Whether it’s in sharpie or imprinted; marked with dots, circle, initials, kids or grandkids names, favorite saying, or that nickname they got from that embarrassing college story - it’s personal to them. At Governors Club, we decided to combine these two items for a unique opportunity to recognize our Reigning Champions. To do this, we produced a plaque that displays the winner of all of our events, just just the "majors." This plaque has the members name and the actual golf ball they won the event with.

Implementation

During a recent renovation, we were able to replace and upgrade all our perpetual plaques. A new plaque was added to our “Hall of Champions” to recognize all our Reigning Champions from our Club’s tournaments. The uniqueness of this plaque is that it engraves the members name in history and displays the actual golf ball used to capture the victory. In the case of our Member-Guest, after the winning member made birdie the final hole of the Shootout, THE BALL he holed out was retrieved and given to our Director of Golf to put on the Reigning Champions plaque. Not only is the member recognized, but a small piece of the Club’s history was memorialized. In the case of a partner or team event, the ball that was holed on #18 is then signed by all team members before being placed on the plaque. The members have loved the execution of the idea and it's resulting impact. Here are a few of the benefits:

More Events = More Names: The plaque not only displays the winner of our “majors,” but also many of the lesser events that do not warrant an ongoing perpetual plaque. Such lesser events include the WGA’s Breast Cancer tournament, the Season Long Match Play, Senior Member-Members, etc.

Texture: A hallway with traditional wood plaques can become very heavy or dark. The use of the golf balls, especially given golf balls today in so many colors and imprint designs breaks up the monotony of the plaques. This additional texture draws people eyes and addition to the members names.

Golf Ball Sales: Since introducing this plaque, our Club has see growth in the sales of personalized golf balls. Should a member win an event, they want to ensure that their story is properly told on the Reigning Champions board.

There is also a future impact. As events happen and new Reigning Champions are placed on the plaque, the old plates and golf balls are saved. Once we have a few years collected, the Club plans to put up a few other boards with 2019 Champions, 2020 Champions, etc. Imagine if this practice was started 50 years ago. How fun would it be for members to see not only the names, but the progression on the golf ball over time.