Archives for the ‘Posts by Adam Kramer’ Category


Advice From a Design-AHOLE Insider

By Adam Kramer | March 18th, 2010

It’s that glorious time again. The time where 35-year-old men steal their sons Crayola Crayons and go bonkers drawing up imaginary golf holes. As weird as that may sound, this action is nothing short of awesome in my book.

The Design-a-Hole contest is back and the submission period is underway. This means many of you are likely brainstorming ground-breaking ideas right now, wondering what sort of hole design you can submit into the contest that will attract the attention of our prestigious DAH judges.

ENTER: Marketing associate and Design-a-Hole informant Adam Kramer

While the decision portion of this contest is a little above my pay grade, I do have the luxury of sitting in on these meetings and hearing what the judges pick and more importantly why they pick what they do. In the process, I have been able to pick up some very important but simple information that can really help you get your design into the finals.

The next time you use your puce green crayon to fill in a fairway on your design, (all the while your son is crying in the background because you won’t share), use these tips to help guide you to the 2011 Design-a-Hole crown.

When Keepin’ It Real Goes Wrong

As sweet as a cave-centric hole might sound, I can guarantee you that this will not fit in any of the courses in Golden Tee 2011. SPOILER ALERT: There are no courses that take place in a cave next year so for the love of Jim Z, hold back the urge.

The reason I bring this up is because we had a ton of cave-like submissions last year. While some of the ideas weren’t half bad in terms of design, they just aren’t going to make it into the finals because they don’t have a spot in Golden Tee.

And it’s not just the cave holes we’re talking about. Unrealistic holes in general – aka absurd elevations, unreal settings, and just flat out ridiculous and impossible ideas are also thrown out pretty quickly.

Before you submit, look down at your drawing, close your eyes, and imagine yourself playing that exact hole and what clubs and/or strategy you would use. Is it impossible? Do you have a green that has a right-18 break? Does it require 3 full-fulls to even get to the hole? If so, you might want to rethink things a bit.

Many will play the “Golden Tee isn’t real golf” argument when they hear this, but work with me here, people. I know you’re trying to separate yourself from the rest of the pack, but you need to do this without jumping the shark GT-style.

Instead, Try This!

You all know the game and have a feel for what works and what doesn’t when it comes to GT. With this being the 3rd Design-a-Hole contest, you also now have an idea of what our Design-a-Hole judges are looking for. Combine these two important factors and sprinkle in your creative and vast GT experience, and PRESTO! You’ve got yourself a DAH contender. Sounds easy right? Well, kind of.

Example: I, for one, have always been fond of drivable par-4s because of the decision-making process that is involved when deciding how and when to try and drive the green. I also like water hazards, a bit of elevation, different tee boxes, and long walks on the beach. (Scratch the last part, but you see what I’m getting at). Because this is what I LIKE, I would try and create a unique, drivable par-4 with a few different ways to get screwed if you miss the green.

While my concept won’t lead to an automatic spot in the finals, using your own likes and dislikes and combining it into this thought process could help get you going. If you like extremely short, intricately crafted par-3s then go that route. If you’re a fan of 700+ yard par-5s, design away. Don’t feel like you have to pick a certain mold. Just do what you’d like to see in the game.

OR… You can send your Golden Tee buddy a couple of crisp Franklins and get fast-tracked into the finals. No, wait, I can’t. MUST….NOT….ACCEPT…BRIBES…

And Finally, Show Us Somethin’

While I stressed avoiding tomfoolery in your hole designs, I am going to encourage it from this point on.

Presentation is %^&*ing huge in this contest, you have to trust me on this. While I don’t have any say on what holes make it into the finals – I can tell you that creative submissions will get looked at much closer than the run-of-the-mill drawing. Last year we had YouTube videos, ransom notes, architectural builds, and other cool ideas. While none of these ideas ended up taking the DAH crown, they did receive extra attention for being unique.

This is the spot to really separate your design from everyone else – be it your description or overall presentation. I guarantee your chances will increase greatly if you are able to surprise the judges with something they haven’t seen. Easier said than done, but if you are going to focus your time on one area of this contest, THIS HAS TO BE IT.

Have fun with this – and don’t take it (or us) too seriously. If your hole is good and your design is intriguing, we just might be coming to your home town to throw the kick ass GT 2011 World Premiere in your home bar. Hopefully, you are from Miami or Hawaii – but we certainly won’t discriminate against locations that don’t carry the same pizzazz. (As much as I’ve pushed for it).

The GTB will be all about Design-a-Hole over the next few months. Check back next week for Duffer Dan’s brilliant 3-part feature: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly – a look at some of last year’s DAH entries that, well, caught our attention for better or worse.

Until then good luck, Design-a-holers.

-AK signing off (still thinking about bribes and sweet bar locations)

Posted in Design-a-Hole Contest, Posts by Adam Kramer | 4 Comments »


The Face Behind Facebook: Cheap Shots, Balls, and Rants

By Adam Kramer | January 29th, 2010

Golden Tee is becoming a Facebook juggernaut. While it doesn’t have the 1,000,000 plus fans that Buffalo Wild Wings has (yet), the GT Fan Page now has well over 4,000 members. Not bad considering we started January just under 2k.

On the surface this might look unimpressive, but those who actively post and check the page know how far it has come in less than a year. In fact, it’s become so busy that monitoring and updating this page sometimes takes hours out of my daily routine.

Why Our Page Doesn’t Suck

BWs

The interactions on the GT page between fans and from us is unlike any other page on Facebook – seriously, just look at Buffalo Wild Wing’s one random post every few days with little to no contact with its fans. BW3s is doing something right to get the amount of fans they have, but you won’t get any direct contact with them if you happen to post on their page.

Many people might believe that operating this kind of site is a widespread operation. Time consuming, yes. Deep and complicated, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. I do most of the posting and maintenance for GT Facebook although Duffer Dan checks in every now and then. He has his hands full maintaining the Golden Tee Twitter Page.

The privilege and responsibility of maintaining the Facebook page brings an intriguing new way to operate. The response for the Gamer v2 promotion conducted over the past few weeks was so overwhelming that it surprised the marketing crew at IT. For a recap of what we did, you can check it out here.

And yes, we will offer up better questions than whether you like basketball or hockey. P.S. – I’m a football and baseball guy and either hockey or basketball really does it for me.

Ballz, BALLS, Ballllllllls, and more balls


The word “balls” was written well over a thousand times (in all sorts of ways) over the course of a two-week span for our Gamer v2 Facebook contest.

I learned throughout this contest that our GT fans are creative and don’t mind throwing in a testicle joke, or two, or three because well, it’s timely and hilarious. Plus, as a 25-year-old I can honestly declare that saying or hearing “balllllllz” never gets old.

In this two-week span, the Facebook Page literally doubled – something we were all thrilled with. Because of this, every fan was eligible to receive at least 25 free virtual golf balls for joining. This, however, is where things start to get interesting.

After providing the email address for players to submit their personas, the marketing crew received literally hundreds of emails each day from fans claiming their balls. While we plan to have a more efficient system in place in the future, we, and more specifically IT Marketing VP Scott Morrison, spent an entire day organizing all the names and personas into a spreadsheet. Not exactly a giant operation.

It was, and still is interesting to think that many thought of this as a finely oiled machine. There was no way we weren’t living up to our end of the bargain, but on our side you had less than 3 people actually sorting through and dispersing tens of thousands of golf balls.

“Golden Tee Sucks and Where are My &^%$ing Balls!”

rant_smallBecause the Facebook page never closes, players are able to post anything they want into the feed at all times. This is great (or horrible) news for the 3 AM drunken Facebooker who is simply looking for something to do after coming home from a bad night on the trackball.

During the Gamer v2 promotion, we saw a lot of these kinds of rants. Some were directed to difficulty getting the golf balls, some were good ol’ fashion bashings, and some were just absurd.

Here are a few of the good ones. DISCLAIMER: These aren’t necessarily drunk posts and none of the spelling, text, or wording was altered in anyway.

“All I can say about your ball promo is it sucks, you were vague on the way to get the balls and never returned MY E-MAILS THANKS FOR NOTNING<SAT LEAST SAY THANKS FOR THE OVER 4 GRAND I’VE SPENT ON THE GAME IN3 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” -Jean K.

“I used to be a huge fan of golden tee. no more. you people hjad a good thing going, but the courses are unrealistic. you get no more of my money” -Eric C.

“Grow some BALLS GOLDEN TEE!!!!!!!! come on now! Nice empty promises….” -Kyle S.

“Boobies.” -Scott S.

While these are hilarious to read it can also be frustrating at times. It would be easy to say I don’t take these kinds of responses personally, but it still somehow feels that way in the Facebook setting.

With that said, I would never delete a post like this (unless there is mass profanity) because it is your right as a fan to express yourself, whether it’s positive, negative or ridiculous. Active fans of the page can also attest to the fact that I will respond to almost every single thread – even if my head might be ready to explode.

On The Very Bright Side –  This Is Changing Golden Tee

GTfacebookblog

Regardless of the random posts and occasional unhappy camper, the Golden Tee Facebook Page is by far the biggest advancement for the game outside what’s in the cabinet. It also happens to be the most enjoyable part of my day.

I love seeing what people are talking about, which YouTube moment is making noise, and what is the overall vibe from this growing community. You have a voice on the page and what you say can and will be passed along if it makes sense. (Sorry Scott S. – “Boobies doesn’t quite make the cut).

This massive active fan base is unlike anything the game has seen before. While there are message boards and forums, these don’t have the same feel that this page has. I am a Golden Tee Fan Boy at heart, so talking and answering anything people might muster up doesn’t feel much like work.

The page will continue to grow, a select few players will drunkenly post how much they hate us, and thousands of fans will continue to spread the GT love and create an even larger community of talking trackballers. And If you’re going to get hammered and start posting away – don’t drop any F-bombs because I’ll have to probably delete it. Otherwise, the stage is yours.

Can’t wait to see what’s next and if you aren’t in on the action yet – come join us.

Posted in Marketing Insight, Posts by Adam Kramer | 2 Comments »


Shot of The Year: Controversy, Chaos, and Our Winner

By Adam Kramer | January 15th, 2010

After a weekend of NFL playoff football, I came into IT Monday morning looking forward to a close battle for Shot of the Year. Unfortunately, however, I found this.

pointtalley

On the surface this looked like a weekend to remember. I mean 30,000 votes?! After a few seconds of excitement, my expression and excitement turned stone cold and tilt circulated through my veins. Massive Golden Tee Blog TILT.

I quickly realized that the spike in voting was the direct result of an Internet bot, which Wikipedia describes as the follow, “Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.”

Ding, ding, ding. And so it turns out that our first-ever Shot of the Year vote has as much validity as the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It took me most of a week to come up with a solution, and I have, but before we discuss our Shot of the Year winner I have to ask the following. Are people this lame? Bored? Weird? With no prize other than Golden Tee notoriety and bragging rights up for grabs, someone still decided to use a voting bot on a Golden Tee Blog. While posting on a virtual golfing blog won’t have women flocking my way, rigging the GTB (with no monetary gain) would fall under the same category as the guy that brings an entire gallon of water to the gym. Or the guy that takes out the catcher in a 12-inch softball game. It’s just that pathetic.

I mean come on, folks.

PigAnd so we come to this. We still need a Shot of the Year but our 30,000 votes are more or less completely useless. Consider the following to be executive decisions carried out by the marketing team.

The “Pig Bounce” Shot has been officially disqualified from the competition. Whether or not the Internet shenanigans were a direct results by the “oink” crew, this brilliant effort is relinquishing its spot on top. This shot will not be removed  – it simply cannot go on in our disjointed contest.

This was by far the most enjoyable shot to watch and will be a YouTube staple for years to come, but this cannot be our Shot of the Year. BANNED from competition.

With that shot out of the equation we are left with four – all of which are worthy of being in contention. Still, we believe that one of these shots separates itself without question.

Brian Bernhardt’s super albatross is a shot worthy of a showcase. I was standing right next to him when he hit it and I can confidently say that I will never see anything like it ever again. It took skill, power, luck, and one hell of a kick to get into the cup – but getting an ace on a par-5 is an achievement worth celebrating. Because of this, his shot on Savannah 12 (at the Minnesota Open by the way) is our 2009 Shot of the Year.

While this wasn’t how we wanted to come to a solution, I feel in this instance the correct shot has been selected. Congrats to Brian on winning this title and congratulations to the other shots as well. All of these moments are the reason YouTube replays are so cool, and we appreciate all of these efforts.

Getting back to the spam, it’s safe to say that this contest went no where near what I expected. I certainly learned a few things while putting it together and will definitely do things differently going forward. And to the spammers out there most likely reading this straight from their mother’s basement. I have only one thing to say, that can’t be said any better than by the fine folks of WWE – which I imagine you WordPress bot users/abusers have probably already seen.

Posted in Golden Tee Goodness, Posts by Adam Kramer, Shot of the Year | 2 Comments »


Cast Your Vote For The Shot of ’09

By Adam Kramer | January 4th, 2010

After literally tens of thousands of Golden Tee Great Shots, the field has been narrowed down to five. Now the rest is up to you.

Throughout 2009 we saw some absolutely ridiculous shots that wowed us GT nuts each and every month. While many of these shots were worthy for a spot in our monthly feature, only five of them made the cut to have a chance at Shot of the Year.

Up until now, the marketing team had the honors of selecting the monthly winners. It would only be fitting, however, to allow the players and the fans to have the say with supreme GT bragging rights up for grabs. Below are the five finalists for Shot of the Year along with a poll so you can cast your vote. Our winner who receives the most votes between now and January 15th will be celebrated on Goldentee.com and the GTB for years to come!

And your finalists are…

Selection #1: This shot was hit back in February and featured one of the most bizarre shortcut attempts in recent memory. While it may not look like it, this shot was certainly planned. The outcome, however, was too good not to have a spot in our final five.

Selection #2: Our only animal-aided hole-in-one of ’09 made some serious noise on the GT social media sites and for good reason. The “oink” you hear mid-shot is something that many GT fans will never forget and the bounce that followed was even sweeter.

Selection #3: Here was a 1st in 2009, a hard-to-come-by super albatross, aka a hole-in-one on a par-5. This also just happened to be one of the longest shots of 2009 and was hit only months before 2010 debuted. Unbelievable effort here and perhaps the most “skilled” of the bunch.

Selection #4: Our one and only shot to make the cut from a 2010 course was the best of many outstanding Monument Valley moments. A favorable wind/ball bounce made this shot defy all physics on it’s way to jumping over the giant wall and just barely make the green. The rest was history.

Selection #5: Our final shot was the only old school course featured in our final five. There’s no doubt that this shot required an obscene amount of luck on its way to finding the hole, but it managed to do just that. This was also the only Skins Play shot to make the cut. Words really can’t describe the following 22 seconds.

You’ve seen the selections, now you have the chance to decide which shot deserves a spot in Golden Tee history. Vote early, vote often, and cast your vote below between now and January 15th and stay tuned to the Golden Tee Blog and Goldentee.com for more!

Which Do You Believe Deserves to be Crowned the Golden Tee Great Shot of 2009?

  • Selection #2 (Woodland Farm 9 Pig Bounce) (93%, 6,911 Votes)
  • Selection #1 (Bonnie Moor 9 Dunk) (5%, 380 Votes)
  • Selection #3 (Savannah 12 Super Albatross) (1%, 57 Votes)
  • Selection #4 (Monument 16 Wall Bounce) (0%, 35 Votes)
  • Selection #5 (Indigo 6 Temple Holeout) (1%, 34 Votes)

Total Voters: 7,417

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Posted in Golden Tee Goodness, Posts by Adam Kramer, Shot of the Year | 5 Comments »


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