Bear’s Best Atlanta Leverages GolfStatus to Streamline Outside Events
Partner Snapshot
Named one of the top residential golf courses in the U.S. and top 10 courses in Georgia by Golfweek, Bear’s Best Atlanta is comprised of iconic holes designed by Jack Nicklaus from around the world. As such, the semi-private club in Suwanee, Georgia offers a unique playing experience, with hole designs from famous golf courses designed by Nicklaus, including Castle Pines, Muirfield Village, PGA National Championship Course, Sherwood Country Club, Shoal Creek, and Glenagles, all in one place.
“It’s a course that has something for every golfer, and that is part of the appeal,” says Jenni Tyler, Event Sales Director at Bear’s Best Atlanta. Recent renovations of the pro shop, clubhouse, and course bunkers give the high-end club even more appeal to members and other golfers in the Atlanta metro area.
The Challenge
Bear’s Best regularly hosts charity golf tournaments at its facility. Its unique course offering, attentive staff, and top-notch event experience make it a great choice for local organizations holding golf events. “At Bear’s Best, we’re all about enriching lives and building relationships, and charity tournaments are a big part of that,” Jenni says.
With so many onsite events to manage and execute, Jenni’s sales team and the golf staff needed a tool to streamline outside outings to maximize efficiency but still provide top-notch support for event organizers.
The Solution
Bear’s Best is part of the Invited Clubs family of clubs across the U.S. For years, Invited has worked with GolfStatus for each of the club’s Charity Classic events. At Jenni’s previous club, she worked with several event organizers who used GolfStatus to collect registrations, manage golfer and sponsor information, and pass off hole assignments to the club’s golf staff. When Jenni came to Bear’s Best, Invited’s existing relationship with GolfStatus and her previous experience with the platform made it the tool of choice for outside charity tournaments at Bear’s Best.
The Results
Efficiency & Organization
Outside events are key to golf facilities’ bottom line; but they tend to take a lot of staff time, both on the front end, educating organizers and helping with best practices, and in the days leading up to a tournament, collecting golfer information and creating printouts. “GolfStatus gives us more time,” says Jenni. Instead of spending hours tracking down and inputting golfer names, assigning holes, designing cart signs, and creating reports, “we just log in and are ready to go in about 20 minutes since everything is in one spot.” The platform auto-generates alpha lists, cart signs, and reports, so all golf staff have to do is hit “print” when they’re making their final preparations.
Jenni says the biggest value GolfStatus brings to Bear’s Best is saving time and creating efficiencies. A big part of that is having the golfer information available to the golf staff ahead of time. Because golfers register via an event website where they submit their information and payment, staff don’t have to take that information over the phone or bounce between PDFs and spreadsheets. Everything is tracked and organized in one accessible place. Online registration is great for organizers, too—they can spend their time attracting golfers and selling sponsorships instead of dealing with paper forms, checks, and receipts. “They don’t have to figure out how to get a website set up, set up a Venmo or other way to take credit cards, or deal with payments the day of,” Jenni says.
All tournament-related staff at Bear’s Best, from the General Manager, to Jenni, to the golf pro, and assistant pro, all have logins to GolfStatus so they can make changes and adjustments up until the last minute.
“GolfStatus is such a timesaver for managing names, hole assignments, knowing how many guests to expect and carts needed. It lets us prepare for the tournament and have staff ready to provide a great experience all around.”
Live-scoring is another piece of the puzzle for golf tournaments at Bear’s Best. Golfers submit their scores in the free GolfStatus mobile app, which syncs to live leaderboards. Golfers can see current standings, use the app’s free hole-by-hole GPS to get accurate yardage to the pin, and even engage with the tournament’s host organization by making a donation to their cause. On the golf facility side, live-scoring helps staff track the round’s progress so they can be prepared for awards, a banquet, or other activity, and makes finalizing the tournament’s results a breeze. “Live-scoring is so much more efficient in finalizing scoring and getting things ready for awards,” Jenni says.
success story: North Gwinnett Dugout Club
The annual North Gwinnett Baseball Golf Tournament has been held at Bear’s Best for years. Organizers signed on with GolfStatus for the 2023 event, and Jenni says they had tremendous success. The previous year, prior to using GolfStatus, only about five teams prepaid when registering for the tournament, which left organizers hunting down teams for payment the day of the event and dealing with no-shows. After signing on with GolfStatus (and qualifying to use it at no cost through the Golf for Good program), they increased their field size to 144, collected all payments ahead of time, and brought even more sponsors on board. “Overall, they raised double what they had in years prior!” Jenni says.
best-in-class service
The organizations who host events at Bear’s Best run the gamut in terms of planning experience. “Some come to us and don’t know a thing about golf tournaments, some have been doing events for years,” Jenni says. The great thing, she points out, is that GolfStatus can help both types of events streamline planning from start to finish, stay organized, and seamlessly work with Jenni and Bear’s Best’s golf staff. “Being able to refer people to GolfStatus, who I know will be able to answer questions and provide the same level of service and support that we expect at Bear’s Best, takes so much off of my plate,” Jenni says, adding that GolfStatus also takes some of the pressure off of the organizer.
“We use GolfStatus as a selling point, quite honestly,” says Jenni. “Particularly for brand new event organizers who don’t think they can pull a tournament off, I tell them, ‘Go talk to GolfStatus, they’ll be your backup on things that are tedious so you can focus on networking and marketing the tournament.’” In fact, Jenni says several tournaments have booked with Bear’s Best and come on board with GolfStatus on the same day.
GolfStatus’ in-house support team provides backup to golf facility staff, helping guide tournament organizers as they make important decisions about event format, dates, add-ons, sponsorships, and pricing, with the ultimate goal to have a successful, lucrative tournament. “Both our team and GolfStatus are focused on making every event the best it can be.”
invited clubs charity classic
Each club under the Invited Clubs umbrella hosts an annual Charity Classic event, which raises money for Invited Clubs’ Employee Care Foundation and a local charity. Bear’s Best Charity Classic benefits the ECF and First Tee of Metro Atlanta. “We get really excited about the Charity Classic event,” says Jenni. She has personally benefited from the ECF, which supports Invited Clubs’ employees in the midst of crisis such as home loss, death, illness, or domestic situations, so the cause hits home for her. “It’s an amazing resource for employees, but we also want to help youth through First Tee as they’re going through life and learning about golf,” Jenni says.
Running Bear’s Best Charity Classic event through GolfStatus puts Jenni in organizers’ shoes, and she continues to see the value in the platform. “We’re able to be efficient and stay organized while we raise money for great causes,” she says.
golf facilities & event planners save time with golfstatus
Golf facilities like Bear’s Best benefit as much from GolfStatus’ tournament management tech as event organizers. Facility staff and the planning team can share access in GolfStatus’ backend to manage golfer and sponsor information, finalize team pairings and hole assignments, and save time from start to finish. Want to learn more about how your organization or golf facility can save time and raise more money with GolfStatus? Hit the button below to get in touch!