The Story of our Golf Tournament

For as long as I can remember, my dad has always loved golf. I remember as a young child going to the course with him and watching him battle amongst his friends. The competition is really what drove these grown men to play the game. Golfers can feel a nearly unmatched level of competition and enjoyment when on the course.

This is the reason why we started the Swell Golf tournament. Our goal was to create an environment where adults could feel like kids again and enjoy the rush of competition. Many of the other tournaments that I have attended were “competitive” tournaments, but it seemed as if people were always leaving disappointed. I would often hear “those guys lied about their handicap,” or “it was not fair that they allowed them to be partners.” One thing about competition is that you want to feel like you have a chance to win. Nobody wants to play the game knowing they can not win. Many of the tournaments did not give the best golfers a chance to win, because of people lying about their golf handicap. 

We got rid of the handicaps for our tournament. Assemble your squad and come to play straight up. Your only excuse at the Swell golf tournament is “We didn't play as well as the winner did.” When planning the tournament, our goal was to answer the question of “What do competitive golfers want?” Some of the answers we came up with were: they want to feel like they have a fair chance to win, they wanted to make sure that others were not cheating to win, they want to play a fair course, and they don't want a gimmicky experience. They come to golf and to win.

That is how we came up with the current format we are using for the golf tournament. You want to have a chance to win, so bring your best team and don’t worry about any handicaps. You don't want to feel like others are cheating, so we are going to pair teams together. The other team you are paired with is going to police your play, while you police theirs. You want to play a fair course, so we picked Desert Blume golf course which is arguably the best course in Southern Alberta. With greens so prestigious, many from last year said they are the best greens they have EVER played on.

So, how do we get people to come to the tournament? We give them what they want - cold hard cash. That is what competitive golfers want to play for and that is what we are going to give them.

Many people love the game of golf but are not able to dedicate as much time to the game to become a master of it. They still want to play and compete but just want to play at a more casual level than the die-hards. We found many golfers fall into this group. We introduced a social division to the tournament for those who love the game but don’t want intense competition. The social division gets all the first-class treatment like the competitive division, but has a more laid-back atmosphere. We use the same format for this division and do the same things, but the final score is not the indicator of success. In the social division, you can compare yourself to the competitors but have other chances to win prizes based on performance on a hole-to-hole basis. This allows the competitive nature to come out for everyone but means you can have a bad hole here and there and still have a chance to win something.