Levin Golf Club member John Saulbrey swapped club for shovel and volunteered to help install the new signs.
Levin Golf Club bosses have put a massively wet winter behind them by giving the Moutere Links course a facelift.
Members and casual golfers at the popular course will notice a change this summer, with decades-old tee signage given the heave-ho and replaced with modern placards, complete with a computer graphic of each hole displaying vital distance information.
Club captain Tony Newling said the rebranding of the course was a result of a partnership deal with On Par, a specialist golf signage and marketing company based in Tauranga.
Not only did the course get a spruce-up, Newling said, the partnership also provided the club with an opportunity to maximise its sponsorship potential, as player numbers continue to increase in New Zealand and around the world.
It’s a billion-dollar industry. There were an estimated seven million rounds played in New Zealand last year by almost 500,000 people, with a 10 per cent increase in membership and an estimated 40 per cent increase in casual games since Covid-19 first forced us indoors.
Prior to Covid-19, the Levin course had 14,174 scorecards handed in. The very next season, there were 15,544 - and that’s not counting casual rounds. On current trends the course was on track to break the 25,000-round mark.
With those player numbers in mind, Newling said having the ability to maximise their sponsorship appeal was crucial for the future of the club, and partnering with a specialist company made sense for the country club.
“We are really impressed. They are super professional,” he said.
“The problem for clubs the size of ours is there is no general manager to recruit business partnerships. This has been a chance to re-engage with our sponsorship partners and establish new ones.”
Partnering with On Par had resulted in a 50 per cent increase in sponsorship, and sponsors were getting a lot more for their dollar, with branding now attached to club newsletters, flags, scorecard signage and 19 golf carts - even tee markers.
“It’s been a no-brainer,” he said.
Newling said the club was appreciative of the community support and was looking to organise a Sponsor Appreciation Day that could take the form of a golf tournament.
Updated signage was needed at the club anyway, with the old signs showing their age, and it was a chance to include more modern graphics and information like distance markers.
Newling said there was always room for innovation. One sponsor assigned to a par three hole had pledged to donate a $200 bar tab for a hole-in-one, over and above the $100 given to clubs members lucky enough to snare an ace.
“There are so many opportunities for sponsors to engage with their community,” he said.
The club was blessed with a membership base that didn’t shy away from pitching in too, helping to dig out the old signs and erect new ones in their place last week.
Meanwhile, Newling said now that the summer season was in full swing, it was good to see the end of what had been the wettest winter on record for the club, with Horowhenua recording 1637.6 millimetres of rainfall in the last 12 months. The annual 12-month average rainfall for the region was 961.4mm.
For the winter months of May, June, July and August, the average rainfall was 353.3mm. This winter, the region recorded more than double that amount, with 712.6mm recorded.
That increase in rain had meant there were areas in a couple of fairways that were underwater for lengthy periods of time, which had been frustrating for the club and their team of course attendants.
But, looking at it from a positive angle, the wet winter had enabled the golf club to identify and prioritise any future remedial drainage works.
- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air