The Granddaddy of Member-Guests
Each May, Desert Mountain’s three-week stretch of tournaments in Scottsdale, Arizona, is not just a test of golfers' skill, but the staff's logistical acumen
If you know where to look, it’s easy to figure out when Desert Mountain’s annual member-guest tournament is coming up. The evidence takes the form of an 18-wheel refrigeration truck, which remains parked largely out of sight behind the Scottsdale, Arizona, clubhouse for the better part of a month.
The sight of a support vehicle that large may be daunting, but the list of supplies needed for the club’s three-week stretch of tournaments in May — beginning with a women’s member-guest, followed by the men, and then finally a couples’ iteration — is no less shocking.
It starts with the alcohol. As way of example, Desert Mountain ships in 2,760 cans of beer and 1,120 bottles of vodka. Couple that with 400 pounds of lobster, 300 pounds of beef tenderloin, and a dedicated team of 18 chefs and cooks, and the infrastructure needed to support just the food and beverage initiatives is staggering.
The women’s event, known as Mountain Magic, features 120 two-woman teams, while the couple’s event — the Sunshine Shootout — culminates in an after party for more than 1,000 people. The headlining tournament during that three-week stretch, the men’s member-guest, is affectionately known as Mountain Mania and it’s believed to be the world’s largest event of its kind. In recent year the event has maxed out at 520 players (260 two-man teams); however, next year the club plans to grow Mountain Mania even larger, opening up entry to 310 teams (or a total of 620 players) and bringing a fourth golf course into the fold.
Such an undertaking isn’t difficult, at least not when it comes to filling the additional spots. After all, Desert Mountain is home to seven golf courses, six of which are championship-caliber in length. It’s also made up of about 2,000 full golf memberships. And because those full memberships cover an entire family, the club is really comprised of more than 4,000 golfers. According to Sean Ferris, Desert Mountain’s tournament director, the wait list for this year’s Mountain Mania reached 160 members. “That’s a full member-guest tournament for a lot of golf clubs by itself,” he says.
Despite the notoriety that comes with hosting a prodigious member-guest tournament, Desert Mountain never approached its flagship event with those accolades in mind.
“It wasn’t a conversation about getting bigger for bigger’s sake,” says Ferris. In fact, he doesn’t remember any conversations where the idea of having the biggest member-guest in the country — or the world — was consciously discussed. “Instead, it was asking the question, ‘How do we grow it so our members can offer everything to their guests? It’s an evolution of what can we do for the members that got us to where we’re at. This is what our members love about the club. They love it when we put on a great show for them, and they want to bring someone who’s really important to them and have them blown away by what we can do. This is our crown jewel event.”
That said, the event’s evolution, at least in terms of its size, may be reaching its zenith. “The total number of golf courses [at the club] says we can go bigger,” Ferris acknowledges, “but there are other things about the event itself where growing bigger may not be the right thing. We’re comfortable adding a fourth course and having the space to do it. but even adding a fourth course adds so many logistical challenges.”
Those challenges would be incrementally more difficult if the event were to expand across five of Desert Mountain’s seven total layouts. Parking, for one, would become a bigger hurdle to clear. As would sourcing an appropriate space to host the event’s final party. Currently, Mountain Mania’s closing gala is held on the club’s practice range where a stage is erected, but that setup would not accommodate a headcount greater than next year’s 620.
“Do we lose what makes the event special if we grow it larger than where we have it?” Ferris asks. “If we added a fifth or sixth course, we’d have several parties going on at different clubhouses. Do we lose a little bit of the camaraderie and fun by doing it that way?”
In Ferris’ opinion, the answer is yes. He believes that any attempts to grow the event beyond its size next year would be akin to taking one step forward and two steps back. The overall experience that the tournament can provide would be negatively impacted.
“We pride ourselves on knowing what the member and the guest want before they know they want it,” says John Lyberger, Desert Mountain’s Director of Golf.
But the club’s staff also surveys the participating members in the weeks following Mountain Mania each year, asking them to rate as many as 12 aspects of the event — from quality of meals to the execution of awards ceremonies, skills competitions, and individual parties. The club may know what its members want, but it also makes a conscious effort to affirm that it’s delivering those things to the best of its ability.
With a $3,000 entry fee per team and more than 300 teams participating in the event next year, the Mountain Mania member-guest generates a lot of revenue for the club. But it also costs a lot to execute.
“We find a way to spend a lot of that right away,” Ferris says. “It goes pretty fast.”
Ultimately, the event is profitable, but Mountain Mania’s value to the club goes beyond bottom-line calculations. The vendor relationships, for example, spill over into other events that the club hosts throughout the year; while the profitability of the member-guest allows Desert Mountain to continue hosting other events that may not turn a profit. “We use the buying power for that event to help us out with other events,” Ferris says.
Mountain Mania might happen only once a year, but given its size and the extent of its offerings, not to mention the varied experiences that the club orchestrates over those four days, planning for the event is a full-year job.
“A week or two after the couples’ member-guest we sit down to start talking about next year,” says Ferris. “We go through the survey results and we start planning 50 weeks out.”
Have played there before and the courses are fantastic! I just can’t imagine what the three week extravaganza would be like? Would have to rest for the following three weeks.
But with that being said, it would be the memory of a lifetime and if one is ever invited, don’t turn it down.
Bob Gillespie
Toronto Ontario