_July/anaturalevolution.jpg "A Natural Evolution")
By Steve Eubanks
A veteran of golf anchored by real estate, Bob Mauragas now leads National Golf Management in the ongoing quest to lure players to Myrtle Beach
The transition from real estate golf to standalone golf continues to send shock waves through the industry. No one understands the pain and drama associated with that transition better than Bob Mauragas, the president of National Golf Management in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. For nine years, Mauragas handled golf operations at Reynolds Plantation, the high-end lakefront destination between Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, that was owned by Mercer Reynolds and his family.
Reynolds, who served as ambassador to Switzerland and headed the finance committee for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, built five golf courses and a lodge that he leased to Ritz Carlton. He also sold million-dollar waterfront lots like they were popcorn. Then, the first signs of trouble came when Reynolds bought the nearby Port Armor community with its Bob Cupp-designed course and expansive infrastructure. Renamed The Landings Reynolds, the real estate didn’t sell any faster under new ownership than it did under old, but that didn’t stop Reynolds and his family from leveraging their existing assets to build The Creek Club, a Jim Engh design, as well as roads, power, sewer and other infrastructure at a time when the real estate bubble was about to burst. In hindsight, Reynolds Plantation was the perfect case study for the 2008 collapse that led to the Great Recession.
Today, Reynolds Plantation is owned by MetLife, and the amenities are thriving. Mauragas is no longer part of the equation, having left in 2011 to head east and become president of Myrtle Beach National Company. “Not long after I moved here, we started negotiations with another company and we merged the golf assets to become the largest golf management company in South Carolina,” he notes.
That new entity, National Golf Management, includes 22 golf properties and relationships with 17 condominium resorts and 15 beachfront hotels. Golf facilities range from Pine Lakes, the second golf course ever built in Myrtle Beach, to Grand Dunes, the host site of the PGA Professional National Championship. National Golf does a million rounds of golf a year and continues to grow even in a down market, but not without a lot of hard work and creativity, especially on the marketing front.
“We spend a couple of million [dollars] a year in our marketing efforts,” Mauragas says. “That’s a tough one to justify sometimes because one of the things you can’t find in our industry anymore is the individual operator spending marketing dollars. We’re all cutting to the bone, and it’s understandable.”
During his time at Reynolds Plantation, Mauragas’ golf marketing “rode the coattails of residential real estate marketing.” The company’s ad buys were in the millions, and the direct-mail production and marketing campaigns cost even more. All those pieces showed beautiful photos of golf, and the courses were never charged a dime for it.
“Now, you really have to target and amenitize your marketing strategies,” Mauragas says. “Email blasts are akin to the Model T for us. We have accumulated a large and sophisticated database, and we have a distinct way of talking to our customers electronically, be it through phone or iPad apps or social media.”
Earlier this year, National Golf signed LPGA Tour star Natalie Gulbis to an endorsement deal, a move Mauragas believes will help the company from a social media perspective. Gulbis has already filmed several commercials for National Golf and wears the company’s brand on her left sleeve.
“We’ve run some online contests with her,” Mauragas notes. “She did more in one month in terms of improving our database than we did all of last year on our own.”
But pretty girls alone are not enough. Mauragas and his colleagues have instituted aggressive online incentive programs that the company communicates through Twitter, Facebook, Squawk Box and many other social media and networking sites.
“The average age of our customer is 53, so you ask yourself, ‘Are they really going on these social networks and looking at golf trips?’” Mauragas says. “The answer is yes. It’s amazing the conversion rate we’ve had of customers in the upper age group.”
Rewards programs are a huge part of Mauragas’ new golf marketing strategy. For example, anyone in town on a golf trip who plays four rounds on any National Golf Management course receives a $100 reward card that can be redeemed at any of their properties.
“That package has really resonated,” Mauragas says. “We know that times are tough and when a golfer is having to explain to his wife why he’s going on this golf trip with his buddies, and he then has to explain why he brought home that new TaylorMade putter or Peter Millar shirt, that $100 gift card buys a lot of justification. He can say, ‘No, honey, it was free.’”
Online incentives for Myrtle Beach residents have grown as well. “You have to have a digital strategy and you have to be able to create sizzle for the customer,” Mauragas says. “You have to use your database and build loyalty through the amenities you establish.”
The strategy is working, though Mauragas is quick to admit that it isn’t easy. “You have to keep finding ways to make the customer feel as though you’re giving him [or her] more, that you’re creating value,” he says. “You have to give him a tangible incentive so that he almost feels compelled to come back.”
Steve Eubanks is an Atlanta-based freelance writer.