Ryder Cup Volunteer Shares His Story of the Power of Social Media

Most people now has access to social media, whether via a smartphone, tablet or PC, I was able to use this to great effect in arranging a golf day for the Ryder Cup Volunteers.

Both my oldest son and I were lucky to be chosen to volunteer at the 2014 Ryder Cup and with information poor from the European Tour, Gleneagles local Margaret Birks created a Facebook page for us volunteers, and prior to the tournament it was a great way of finding out who was working and for some people it was arranging lifts etc, while afterwards it was everyone uploading their pictures from the championship.

As expected things on the site went quiet until Christmas when everyone was wishing all the best to each other, and as SKY was showing the Ryder Cup, most of us were watching it.  At New Year along with best wishes I put up a post asking if anyone would be interested in having a golf day…

The response was unbelievable, and after only a few days I had over 50 fellow volunteers asking to be included.  I was lucky to still have a few contacts at Gleneagles from my time as a member, and after a few emails I was able to get the Event Manager’s name and contact details.  With a few posts on the now busy Facebook page saying we should get this for free, I knew that only a sound business plan that would be beneficial to both us volunteers and Gleneagles would work, so my plan was starting to form.

My idea was to play early in the season, probably early March, and on a weekday, minimalizing the chance of the course being busy, in addition as people would be travelling, some food to be included as part of the package, nothing fancy, soup and sandwiches.  Straight away my contact was really interested in the idea, as the PR for the hotel would also enhance the reputation, and the proposal was accepted, with a few tweaks and the date was set for Monday 9^th March at a cost of £65, which would include: Use of the Mitchell Room (Used by Team Europe) with registration desk, coffee and bacon roll on arrival, basket of balls on practice range, round at Ryder Cup course the PGA, soup and sandwiches afterwards, and a small gift from Gleneagles, a great deal agreed by everyone, and then for me it was time to start pulling this together, and to throw myself into making the day as successful as possible.

I have been to a few corporate and other golf days, and I know how I would like a successful day to be, what would be involved, and as this was being arranged via Facebook, keeping everyone updated with information was key, as our biggest complaint from the Ryder Cup organisation was the lack of information, I was not going to fall into that trap, and to be honest, for the next few weeks at least, I had a monopoly on the page, constantly updating the state of play, and gathering names of who could make it.

The agreement with Gleneagles is that we would limit the number of players to 100, given the time of year and the available light to make sure everyone finished in daylight.  Although the biggest issue I had was keeping the day to 100 players as by now my phone was constantly bleeping with Facebook notifications, and I was spending my lunch breaks at work, and every night, going through the list of messages, updating my spreadsheets to the 100 players.

The volunteers at any major sporting event are so valuable to the success of the event and the army of volunteers are on the whole a dedicated buch, and this was brought home when four volunteers from the Ryder Cup volunteered to help out on the golf day, as non-golfers they just wanted to be able to play a part and contribute, and this included the founder of the Facebook page, Margaret Birks.

In addition to the Facebook page and arranging the golfers for the day, it would be better if we had prizes on the day, and it was time for me to trawl the web, getting a list of official Ryder Cup 2014 sponsors, and sending emails to them asking if there was anything Ryder Cup that they could send in to be used as a prize for the volunteers golf day, and the response was overwhelming, with boxes of prizes starting to arrive, from Ryder Cup DVDs, to sunglasses, polo shirts, Ryder Cup tartan scarfs, ties and books, golf balls and baseball caps.

With any new contact at these various companies it also increased my LinkedIn profile and I was now able to put faces to these new contacts.

All this time the word was getting around about the golf day, and new members were being added to the Facebook page, and via my twitter account, and as the day was drawing nearer, I was in the mode of pulling together a start sheet, as via the page I was asking for their handicaps, what role they had done at the Ryder Cup and roughly what time they wanted to play and who if any they wanted to play alongside.  In asking this it made the start sheet a bit easier, as some people were wanting to play with friends or people that they worked alongside.  The start sheet by now was starting to fill up and by now the daily post on Facebook, making sure, everyone that could play was well aware of their times etc I was also receiving messages from volunteers who, for various reasons couldn’t make the day, wishing us all a great time, it was also starting to highlight the travel arrangements some were making to be there on the day, as posts were going up about ferries being booked from Ireland, rooms booked as some were travelling from Wales and trains booked from London, it would be a day that all parts of the British Isles would have some representation.

Not satisfied with just arranging the day, and arranging the prizes, I though a nice touch would be to contact the victorious Ryder Cup team and ask for messages for us volunteers, this giving me even more work, but very enjoyable as trying to track down the players via their own websites, or what I found to be a better way was to contact their management companies, explaining about our golf day, and asking for a message, first to reply was captain Paul McGinlay, a lovely letter send via his manager, and this was eventually printed out and put on display on the day, I also received messages from Jamie Donaldson and a Rory McIlroy, accompanied by a picture of Rory with the message of support, it was then stepped up a notch with Henrik Stenson sending in a short video message of support, which was put on the Facebook page, along with a message from Lee Westwood, one of the volunteers was working in Dubai during a European Tour event, and he collected video messages from Greame McDowell and Steven Gallacher, but the one I really wanted was my favorite player, Ian Poulter.  Despite trying through his website and sending an email to his management company, I had received nothing back, so I thought I’d try my luck and phone them up, after a short conversation, I manged to get the name of his management team, and again via LinkedIn and email spoke to Chad his manager, and he agreed to get a message for us.  Upon checking Instagram one night, Poults added a picture from his jet of him, Terry his caddie and his manager Chad, well I couldn’t wait to open my emails and see a video message from my hero Ian Poulter, absolutely brilliant, and on sharing it on the Facebook page, I was asked many times to pass on the message to people’s emails, given his popularity it was sent many times.

The day was drawing near, and my phone was still pinging almost constantly with Facebook notifications, but most of the work was now done, prizes were sorted, start times allocated, and reallocated, it was then I got a couple of offers from photographers to be present on the day, one was a volunteer and a keen amateur photographer as well as a contact that specializes in golf photography, also one of my work colleagues was planning to come up and take some pictures during the day.

One of the volunteers playing in the day contacted me explaining the he owns a small printing company and would I like banners made for the day, as one of my plans was to get a picture of every group prior to teeing off on the 1^st, so arrangements were made, and on the Saturday before the event, I went to his premises to pick up a couple of banners, one large one to be used on the 1^st tee, and the other two smaller ones put out elsewhere.

On the days prior to the event the weather forecast was not looking good, this was the only thing I couldn’t control, I’d done everything else but not arrange the weather.  Wind and rain was the forecast, lucky the uniform provided for the Ryder Cup was waterproof!

The night before the alarm was set for 5:30 just like during the Ryder Cup!  And the clubs were put in the car along with my oldest son’s, as he was playing alongside me, and we headed to Gleneagles on what started out glorious morning weather wise.  As we arrived, Margaret Birks was also there, as well as Tom from South Wales that I had worked with during the event, and we stood on the 1^st tee, goosebumps started looking out from the tee and seeing the players tunnel, so now it was our time.

The room was set up, with the admin team of Margaret, Monica, and Jane plus a representative from Gleneagles collecting the money, and the players started to arrive, and during these first few times I tried to speak to as many as possible as everyone wanted to thank me for pulling this day together.

As the early morning passed and I could see the day was running smoothly, everyone was getting breakfast and making the tee off on time, I was able to relax for the first time knowing I could do no more, except speak to as many people as possible.  Until it was time for me to try and forget about arrangements and get my golf head on, as my group, my oldest son, my best pals son and a good friend Nicol made our way down to the practice area via the players tunnel.

As we prepared to start the weather took a turn for the worst, sleet and a bit of a wind and this continued through most of the round, rain, and then high winds later on, not a day for high scoring, and my mind was not really on the game, more thinking that everything was running ok.

As we made our way up 18, despite none of us really playing to our potential, we had a great day, Nicol who hadn’t met either my son Kyle or Stuart got on really well, and we had a few laughs along the way, the best being Stuarts club slipping out his hand and going 70 yards down the fairway!

Going back into the Mitchell Room, I was still greeted by a sea of smiling faces, nobody despite the terrible conditions had a bad day, and after everyone finished and scores calculated, we had done a Stableford to make things easy, prizes were handed out including a crystal trophy donated by Glencairn crystal to the winner with only 33 points.  After a finishing group picture we all headed home after a great day.

It was the next couple of days it really hit home what it meant to everyone, and a few in particular, Malcolm who despite being unable to play, still made the journey overnight from London just to be there and in his words, of the volunteers are more than a group they are like family was lovely to hear, and a letter posted on the Facebook page, the highlight of which is:

“I’ve always wondered what its like to be on the spot where a cup final goal is scored or to be in Wimbledon at the spot where the championship is won, but today after driving for four hours I was in the same spot as the winning Ryder Cup shot, and just like Jamie Donaldson put the ball to about the same distance, something that will live with me forever, and a fantastic day.”

I still get Goosebumps reading his letter and others like it saying what a great day.  So its agreed that we shall do it all again, watch this space…