Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Definition of "Tournament"

I had an interesting discussion with one of our members not long ago, about whether I should be able to apply the word "tournament" to describe his golf day with a bunch of friends.
We've become used to applying this word to any group that books more than 4 tee times, but I do see his point, and we had an interesting back-and-forth (in a friendly was, of course).
Here's Dictionary.com's version of Tournament: "a trial of skill in some game, in which competitors play in a series of contests..." Pretty simplistic.
Anyways, I would ask one question to determine if the word "tournament" could fairly be applied to a group of golfer:
Is score being kept, with intention of determining a winner? If the answer is Yes, then it's a tournament. The come-back argument was: "Well sure we kept score, but we had no prizes, didn't have a dinner... we just golfed, had a beer and went home."
So... where is this going? Well, it got me thinking about how we traditionally market the Tournament concept, and how the times are definitely changing: the days of the "big company" tournament with big numbers and big prize tables are (arguably) waning. Don't get me wrong, they're not totally gone, it just ain't what it used to be. But we have noticed a rise in the smaller, more intimate type of group coming out for a "golf day"; instead of the whole company, it's a particular department.
Our member had a point: don't call it a tournament, call it a fun day on the golf course. And maybe an opportunity just presented itself here...

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