My name is Matt Hahn, I was the President of the University of Delaware Club Golf Team, and the NCCGA President in 2016 (Meet the NCCGA President). As I write this article, our official club membership count sits at 135 players.
Our club consisted of two different types of members – tournament team members (approximately 25-30 guys that alternate in and out of tournaments) and general members who play for fun. All of our club members had access to our weekly tee times at our local course and we could get as many as 88 players out per week.
Our college golf club team wasn’t always that big – when I joined my freshman year, the club consisted of 40 members at the most. How did we get so big in just 2 years? Take a look at the following recruiting tips to find out.
1. Use Social Media
We’ve developed a strong social media presence on Twitter and Instagram. We used our accounts to share information about interest meetings, club events, member accomplishments, and much more. If you focus on posting quality content that people are interested in, you’ll grow your follower count pretty quickly. We’ve found that new followers can quickly turn into new members.
2. Communicate the Benefits
One of the biggest factors in the huge 
growth of our club team was our increased focus on communicating the benefits of joining club golf. Whether you’re a tournament team member or a general member, the value you get for our $40-70 membership (depending on the semester) is seemingly endless.
The course and equipment discounts through the Nextgengolf Portal are more than enough reason to join, but we added a lot of different additional benefits for our club members. Our weekly tee sheet and course relationship was a big reason for our large membership, but we also did club apparel orders, run club day trips to courses and Topgolf, hosted a big club scramble tournament, and offered discounts on range balls and lessons at the local course.
We used the graphic to the right to help get our benefits across in a quick and easy fashion.
3. Word of Mouth
Our biggest and most important recruiting tip/method is to take advantage of word of mouth. If you put together a club golf experience that you and other members can be passionate about and enjoy, word will travel quickly. My fellow executive board members and I were constantly talking about club golf to anyone that will listen on campus – if they have clubs and any interest in golf, the benefits almost always outweigh the costs of joining the club. We’ve found that our efforts have created a domino effect – the more people we had that join and enjoy the club, the more people would share information about the club to get their friends to join.
If you want to learn more about how we ran the Delaware Club Golf Team, please feel free to reach out! I’d love to discuss recruiting tactics with current presidents so we can share ideas to help college golf grow. Reach me on Twitter @matthahn17!
**Need more recruiting help? Check out this article on 7 recruiting tips to grow your club team!
