Greater Atlantic City Golf Association - GACGA

Greater Atlantic City Golf Assocation – GACGA

People have been playing golf at the Jersey Shore for over a hundred years now, and in a sense, the local golf courses are as much of a tourist draw as the beach, bays, boardwalks and casinos. As an industrial commodity golf will no longer be ignored, but will be actively promoted by the association of golf course owners and the business community that, for the lack of a better acronym, is called the Greater Atlantic City Golf Association (GACGA).

Making the Jersey Shore a national golf destination is the ambitious goal of the newly created organization, which launched it’s first marketing campaign in the most recent edition of Golf Digest magazine.

Following the successful precedents set by Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Ocean City, Maryland, the GACGA is promoting the Jersey Shore as a place to come play golf. They hope to harness the combined marketing power of not only the eight public courses that formed the association, but also incorporate other aspects of the business community, especially hotels, motels, restaurants and casinos.

The nine course that comprise the original eight club in the association include: Avalon Country Club, Blue Heron Pines Golf Club, Brigantine Golf Links, Cape May National, Greate Bay Golf Resorts, Seaview’s two courses, the Mays Landing Country Club and Harbor Pines Golf Club.

According to Jim Fraser, the owner of Mays Landing Golf Club and the President of the association, it was just common sense for them to get together. In announcing the formation of the group Fraser stressed what they had in common, rather than their competitive differences. “We have wonderful public golf courses in Southern New Jersey, “ said Fraser, “but very few people outside the area know about them, so we needed to come together and do something like this.”

“In the past, we all did our own individual advertising,” said Fraser, “but we have not done something like this as a group before. Others have – Myrtle Beach is the greatest success story, but there are others. So while we haven’t invented the idea, we think we have a lot more to offer than other places.”

The national marketing campaign began with the advertisement in Golf Digest and the publication of a toll-free telephone number 1-800-GOLF-222. Callers are able to obtain information about all of the association’s courses and gain access to a computer system that makes hotel reservations and reserves a tee time at any of the member courses all at the same time.

The Golf Digest Information System network provides directs, on-line reservation services to all member courses and hotels, the same system in effect in Myrtle Beach, Ocean City, Maryland and Walt Disney World.

In addition to the nine courses, 29 hotels, six casinos, twenty-two restaurants and a number of allied services joined the association, including the South Jersey Transportation Authority, Cape May – Lewis Ferry, Atlantic Electric, the N.J. Department of Tourism and Travel and the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority.

“It’s one stop shopping,” explained Fraser. “One call does it all. We’re providing a service of convenience for the golfer. They will no longer need to make endless calls for rooms and tee times for their golf getaway.”

“Not only do we have some of the finest courses in New Jersey, but they represent a variety of skill levels and pricing,” said Fraser, “who also pointed out other area attractions that make the Jersey Shore unique – beaches, boardwalks, casino, nightlife and historic Cape May. He also noted that the Greater Atlantic City Golf Association also means Cape May county, which includes Avalon and Cape May National.

Gene Gatti, (former) owner of the Greate Bay, noted that, “The interesting thing is that we’re working together. We don’t care about the competitive aspect.” Gatti also said the promotion will bring in new revenue for hotels and restaurants and otherwise have an impact on the entire business community, especially in the off-season months.

Roger Hanson, the association’s (first) vice president and owner of the Blue Heron Pines Golf Club said, “The benefits that are going to be attained from this are not just for the golf courses, but also for the other businesses in the surrounding area. The hotels, restaurants and convention businesses, and that’s what we want.”

The concept for the association began in December, 1994, when Mr. Gene Gatti, Roger Hansen, Jim Fraser and Warren and Russell Buckingham of the Avalon Country Club all got together socially. The men decided to study the promotion of the other resorts and see if it was feasible to do the same thing here.

Marcella Corti, who comes from a background in casino marketing was named the first Executive Director of the organization. “It just made common sense,” said Corti. “We have more here in this area to promote tourism other than gambling – we have gorgeous golf courses. In the past few years the golf course owners have done tremendous renovations at each of their courses and now we feel that joining together we have a beautiful package to offer. And we’re going to go out there and target the Northeast market, we’re going to promote tourism. Hopefully it will bring people into our area for other than just gambling. They’ll eat somewhere, they’ll sleep somewhere, they’ll play golf somewhere. That’s what this is all about.”

Although inspired by the success of the Myrtle Beach and Ocean City, Maryland golf getaway marketing campaigns, Corti said, “We view our market as a different market. We have the casinos, the fabulous nightlife, we have wonderful restaurants, the beach, Cape May and gorgeous golf courses, so we feel hat we just have more to offer.”

While readers of Golf Digest would hardly know what a gorgeous golf course is, you can be sure that we have them at the Jersey Shore.

“We have some of the finest golf courses in New Jersey,” says association president Jim Fraser, “and they represent a variety of skill levels and pricing.”

With the magazine now in the hands of a quarter of a million golfers nationwide, the early returns are in, and quite impressive. Corti reported that the phones have been ringing off the hooks, calls requesting information have come from 23 states and 2,000 tour packages have been booked since the system went on line.

[This article first appeared in Golfer’s Tee Times, Vol. 6, No. 1, May 1996]