Peter Tavares, the 2013 Northeastern New York PGA Section’s Public Merchandiser of the Year, is the director of golf at Saratoga National Golf Club in Saratoga Springs, New York.
We opened a small retail store downtown to create a brand awareness of Saratoga National and drive people from downtown Saratoga to the golf course – as Saratoga National is in the opposite direction of where the traffic flows. The idea is based on cross selling and promoting Saratoga National Golf Club by booking tee times, weddings, etc. in the store. The selection includes a lot of non-golf lines like True Religion and Facconable, but there is some cross over in terms of product, as we carry Peter Millar and Bugatchi in the downtown store and will experiment with some of the finer menswear items to see if they have viability in the golf shop. We have an influx of about 40,000 people on any given day during the racing season from mid-July to September. Why not try to drive more of them to Saratoga National?