“Why did we start TheGrint Tour? What’s the back story?”
Back in 2012 when we started TheGrint, our biggest challenge was to spread the word. So one of the first things we did was to offer our services for free to a group of golfers that had a weekly league. Now that I think about it, they were so kind to let us help, we were just two kids with a crappy website (and we worked so hard to make sure we met all their needs).
What we learned was incredibly useful in terms of understanding golfer behaviors and patterns. But more importantly we learned that seeing what golfers do with our eyes was going to be fundamental. Something that seems obvious to many businesses, but that so many startups miss.
So once we had a first version of our app and live leaderboards, we decided to organize an event ourselves with one main focus: to see how people were using our app. Our first event was in Grand Cypress in Orlando Florida. It was actually a pretty good event and showing of 50 or so players. And of course we lost money but we learned so much and TheGrint Tour was born.
I confess there was a very personal motivation behind this
While bringing our golfers together in the real world and learning about their needs would be enough of an excuse, there is one more personal dream I had when we started this.
I always wanted to play all the famous courses: #2, Pebble, Sawgrass, etc. But doing so was not just a matter of having the money, there were so many other limiting factors.
TheGrint Tour and in particular its National Events make going to major venues so easy. Frankly it comes down to money and all of the other factors are out of the picture.
And I know that saying “it just comes down to having the money” doesn’t solve the main issue. For most people money will be the limiting factor. But if your dream is to play Pebble, and you can save enough money to go, then you can forget about all the other limiting factors like organizing it, spotting a reservation or finding a foursome to go with.
Below are just a handful of courses that we’ve played recently.
Why do we keep running these?
Mainly it has become an amazing way to supercharge the engagement of our communities. These events are a great way to bring Grinters together, and find opportunities to play competitive golf by the rules in a friendly and welcoming environment.
We have this unique opportunity to interact with our community in the physical world instead of just through a phone/computer screen. And it makes all the difference in the world. We keep learning so much by simply talking to or observing our golfers in these events.
So, if you haven’t played in one of our events yet go checkout TheGrintTour.com to see if you have events in your area. And if you do, go and play — you won’t regret it. Around 80% of our first time golfers play at least one more round with us on TheGrint Tour!
