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I have never purported to be much of an athlete. It’s certainly not my mindset holding me back as I am known for having a highly competitive personality style in many aspects of my life. It’s more that the relationship between my brain and my body is just not attuned and never really has been. So, it was with low expectations that I took up Natural Golf last year.
So now, you are scratching your head and asking the obvious, “What does a new golfer know about running a golf company? What could she possibly know about marketing golf related products and why didn’t the new owner bring someone in who had experience in the industry?”
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What I know is this: Golf is hard! Perhaps even the hardest game on the planet. The industry is having a very difficult go of things as there are nearly as many people leaving the game finding it too hard, too frustrating, too cost prohibitive and too time consuming as there are entering every year. Enter the 1.7 million new people who try golf every year. I’m one of those. I’m a golf-curious, female, 40 something full-time working married mother of three. I don’t have a lot of time, nor much discretionary income, and I’m addicted to immediate gratification. I’m someone who enjoys any excuse to be in the outdoors, loves the smell of fresh cut grass, and am interested in finding more social outlets for developing business contacts.
Prior to my introduction to Natural Golf, the concept of a clubhead on the end of a 3-foot shaft hitting a 2-inch ball nearly 3-½ feet below me eluded any logic to me. I always knew my athletic limitations and assumed that I was not someone who would ever be good at, nor fit into the social ranks of the golf world, so I just steered clear of it and played the occasional tennis game or stuck to biking.
I was hired to spearhead the new marketing direction for Natural Golf specifically because I am the future of golf, and specifically Natural Golf. I am the novice, the new golfer looking for a decent game and the appropriate instruction that gets me on the green, having fun, sooner.
When I began my foray into the world of golf it was as an assessment of it as a viable consumer “good” that can be the source of a great amount of growth for a company trying to market “it.” There is no doubt that golf is BIG BUSINESS! In the current economic downturn and with rising costs the industry is cradling many challenges.
I am not a person who is driven off course by challenges, so the opportunity to learn about an industry hitting hard times didn’t scare me one bit. In fact, I am thrilled to be part of the reinvention of Natural Golf. Learning to play and hitting that itty bitty ball with that club, well, that was equally the challenge, or so I thought it would be.
While I pained over what shoes to wear the morning of my first lesson, it never even occurred to me that I might actually be good at it. That I might actually be able to take direction and relay it to my brain which would then request it of my body never even crossed my mind. That I might actually hear the sound of the clubface hitting the sweet spot on that itty bitty 2 inch white target sitting on the rubber pegged Tee in front of me didn’t even seem a distant possibility. Who would have guessed that across the nearly empty driving range that morning, the echo of my squeals of delight would be heard by all?
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