Long

A Conversation With

Doug Habgood

By Steve Mayne

It’s not my first, and probably won’t be my last, hopefully. The first major championship I did was the 2005 US Women’s Open in Denver. Before that, I had done several PGA, LPGA events along the way.

You look like such a young man, and I’m sure everyone tells you that, you know, you’re the Doogie Howser of running golf tournaments. When did you actually start with the USGA organization?

As an intern on a tournament staff, and I got lucky, somebody left the staff, and I was able to move up, and then, it was just kind of -- everything fell into place.

Not necessarily the position I started in. I think I got pushed into a tournament Sales Director position when I was probably 23. At that point, yes, I probably would quality as being young. You just kind of learn by fire.

LPGA, 23 years old, Sales Director for a tournament — how long did you stay with the LPGA and how long were you in that capacity?

When working the LPGA I was actually with Golden Bear International, which is Jack Nicholson’s company. We had a number of events across the country, LPGA, PGA, Senior PGA events, and even got into working with some of our sponsors that hired us on to manage their hospitality operations.

For instance, we go to the Bell South Classic in Atlanta, and we would manage all of their guest arrivals, their outings, all their hospitality, so it really gave me a well-rounded look at a tournament, not from inside the office and the player perspective, but also from the sponsor perspective and the spectator perspective.

What an advantage. What an experience on top of that. How long did you stay affiliated with the LPGA?

After that I got a phone call, that, to me, was the Super Bowl, because I had spent so much time with the LPGA, I knew what a great event the US Women’s Open was, and now ...

I got the call from the company I work for now. They had won the contract to manage the event, and they called me and asked me if I wanted to be the Director.

I kind of liken myself to an umpire, and if you’re a baseball fan, you know the best umpires, you never know they’re there. So my job is to make sure that we check off everything so that everyone has a great experience and everything is seamless.

OK, that’s an overall perspective but what are the nuts and bolts of your job?

Right. Well, there’s a couple dozen hundred things, but the big pieces are the hospitality operations, from how many chairs go in there, how many lights ...

Right. Maybe to a fault, but we want to put on a good show, and we don’t want to have a typo on our ticket and we don’t want to have an invitation go out to the wrong person.

Is there one particular thing that stands out in your mind that is most challenging regarding putting the tournament together?

I think so. I think – it’s the operational part of it. I’ve always been a sales and marketing person, and I can do ticket sales and websites and hospitality sales very comfortably.

But when it comes to starting with a blank canvas, which is the Broadmoor East Course and telling the vendors “build this here and move that there” and knowing the amount of money that we spend for these things, because you can’t mess up, it’s very challenging because you’re out there on an island.

I don’t have someone that I can call and say, “Hey, does this look right?” I really have to trust my instincts and say, “Okay, guys, put the stakes in the ground there.” You know, you’re on a tight timeline. So you can’t delay.

And that’s really what is so tricky about this event is we’ve been here for a long time, but when it comes down to it, everything gets smashed into about a month and a half, where everything has to come in, everything has to be perfect. Well, it’s pretty nerve wracking when you’re having to set up an entire golf course.

Over the years that you’ve worked on various tournaments, has there been anything that a nightmare and you had no idea how it was going to come about or has everything run smoothly for Mr. Habgood?

No. None of it’s been smooth, but that really is why I enjoy what I do, is that I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow morning, let alone throughout today.

Well, that’s because everything that is happening -- you’re dependent upon your suppliers.

Correct. And we’re not in a situation -- it’s kind of interesting to point out is that when you’re working on an annual event, like I did with the LPGA, you work year round on that event. And after every year, you sit there and say, “You know what, this bus stop would have been better if we had put it over here.

And if we would have made our parking passes pink, they would have been easier to see.” So you can tweak everything. What we have to do here is put our plan together and then constantly tweak it because we only have one shot, and we’ve got to be perfect.

That comes from the USGA, and not knowing the specifics, but what I imagine is they take their revenues that they have from, whether it’s membership or from the Opens or from NBC, and they set aside, and they say, “Okay, the Women’s Open purse is X, and the Men’s Open purse is Y, and the Senior Open is Z. And they know that each year. We really don’t touch prize money at all, in terms of our responsibility.

We’re involved to the level that it’s our responsibility to make sure they’re taken care of. Now, do I get phone calls from a player saying, you know, I want a tee time at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday? No. What we do is, we make sure that they have accommodations. We make sure that they have all their transportation needs taken care of. We make sure their food and beverage is provided and also take care of their caddy.

But we don’t do anything, you know, we don’t have that one-on-one interaction with the players. And again, it goes back to that umpire analogy where if we’re doing a good job, they’re having a good time. When they get upset, now somebody knows who the umpire is.

This is one of the things we do early on, because we want to secure our room block. So we have room blocks that we’ve had for a long time.

We like to keep them under one roof. Obviously, that’s easy here. So our plan is to keep them all here at the Broadmoor. But we have several properties that they choose to, you know, if they want multiple rooms, then if they want to go elsewhere, they can go to another property locally.

Yes. We get a set rate, and again, you know, when we got here in 2005 and 2006, we wanted to set those rates then, because it’s an important thing, the USGA keeps a close eye on that, because they don’t want players to get a letter from us saying, “Okay, well, it’s $350 to stay here and $410 over there. That doesn’t go over real well.

They could, if they chose to. And we try to -- it used to be we always had the “Caddy Hotel.” And we’ve kind of gotten away from that, because these guys, some of them are making more than our entire staff does. So we try to give them multiple options. If they say, “That’s one too much,” we’ll give them another one.

We try to go after price points. We want to stay close to the hotel. We don’t want them to feel like they have to go to, you know, Castle Rock, if you will, to stay.

And then we also have some private housing options, you know, have a player call in and say, “Hey, we want to rent a home for the week,” and we’ll arrange that for them.

Well, I would say since the players do this every week, they’re pretty self-sufficient. We pick them up at the airport, we put them in their courtesy car. We drive them to the hotel. We get them checked in. And once we’ve got them checked in and registered, they’re pretty much on their own.

Have you gotten any friendships with any of the players at all? You know, on more of a personal, you know, “Tom, how are you? It’s great to see you again.” “Yeah Doug, it’s good to see you.”

No, I don’t have guys plugged into my cell phone that I could call and ask a favor of. But I’m okay with that.

But the more that you’re involved with golfing and the USGA, I guess, you will find that eventually it should start happening, wouldn’t you think?

Well, it usually does. Again, I don’t try to force that. I mean, these guys are here to compete for a major championship, and they don’t need, little ‘ol Doug running around the driving range trying to make friends. You know, the best thing is that I know I’m going to meet one of them, and that’s the Champion.

Have you come across any pain in the butt prima donnas or whatever you want to call it ...

Personally, no. I mean, I’ve seen it and heard of it, but I haven’t really run into it.

What about your staff, have they come up to you and said, “Doug, you would not believe ...” and I mean, come on. Does that happen in golf?

Absolutely. But I think the bottom line is that these are real people. And they’re out there trying to make a living. And they don’t feel the need to be overly friendly at times. You know, I don’t have a problem with that. If that’s not their personality, the cameras not on.

Oh, yeah. You know, if the guy is 2 out of the lead, the food tastes a little bit better and, if there wasn’t ice on the first tee, he’s okay with it. But the guy who just shot 80 has found a whole lot more problems to bring up to us.

Is the whole process that you’re doing as pleasantly rewarding as it seems to be? Are you in your happy place, doing your job.

Well, personally, I enjoy the challenge. And I’m not going to say it’s easy or stress free. But I know what I’ve signed up for. And that’s what I love to do. I love to figure out the challenge of this. And then to be there at the end and say, what an accomplishment.

What are the hours like for you. In the beginning, is it just a normal nine to five? But now it’s like 24/7?

It’s interesting, the way e-mail and voice mail are working nowadays, I don’t even know where hours start and stop. But, to answer your question, yes, for a long time, we were working somewhat “normal” hours.

Right now, we work probably six days a week, and some of those days are upwards of 10, 11, 12 hours. But again, at this point in our proceedings, it’s not uncommon for me to get to 4 o’clock and think I’m just getting started, because it’s coming from all directions, you’re having to make decisions. You’re working with everybody else to make these decisions. You’re going back through checklists. It’s a rush.

There’s roughly four major departments, which would be hospitality. There’s one that’s ticket sales and marketing and media. Another one is operations and vendors. And the other one is the whole volunteer operation, top to bottom.

Well, some do. Our volunteer manager has an organizational chart of 30 different committees. So that helps him. But we have one person who heads up our operations. We have more than 80 vendors that he’s had to sign contracts with, do the bid process with, who factors in all the details to know how big the generator is and where that fuel is coming from and when they’re fueling.

And all of this is reported back to you, correct. So, literally, you have to be knowledgeable in every aspect of what your Department Heads are doing.

So, are you the type of guy that has to know everything about daily happenings or can you wait for that weekly meeting?

I would say I’m probably hot and cold. When I’m hot, I’m all over somebody trying to figure out is this done or not. And when I’m cold, I’m trying my best to stay back and let them make the decision and/or recommendation. Certain things I’ll follow up and say, “How are we doing on that?”

My challenge is, is that the question is going to come to me like why did you order unleaded fuel, when you know these generators run on diesel?” That question is going to come to me. And I have to have the answer for that.

So that’s why I feel that need to keep jumping into their business and finding out how they’re doing. But I think we have a good relationship.

Is the crew that you have working for you now, would they be involved on your next tournament project?

Possibly. I’m going to stay here. I’ll be working on the ’10 US Senior Open in Seattle, from here. We already have a person there. I’m helping him right now get on his feet. And then I’ll also have some role in the ’11 Women’s Open back here at the Broadmoor. So who knows what’s going to happen in the future.

So your future for the next four years or so is basically staying in Colorado Springs as a home base?

Colorado has been very good to me. I think there’s definitely a benefit to keeping a person in market rather than moving us around. I remember the first day I got to Denver, I didn’t know the first street name. I didn’t know the first media outlet, the first politician, any of the vendors. And now I have a good working relationship with a number of people where I can pick up the phone and say, “Hello.” And they’ll respond. They know who I am now. So I think that’s a huge advantage for us.

And fortunately, your company is staying with the USGA, like you say, for the next few tournaments coming up.

Basically, the USGA says, “Okay, the ’09, ’10, ’11, ’12 Senior Open places have just been announced. We then have to go in and bid. Nothing is handed to us. Once we get that business, we put our team in there, create our timeline for all their arrivals, and proceed.

Colorado Springs, you’ve been here for a couple of years. I notice you have a wedding band there. Any children?

Absolutely. I think the most important thing for me was to get my kids and wife settled in the community, because you look at my job, I meet and work with a lot of people right off the bat. I always have that social backup, if you will, that I can rely on.

But my wife is at home raising three small children, and she doesn’t have the opportunity to meet as many people. So, as soon as she meets that group of friends where she can go out with them on a weekday night or get together with all the kids, that’s when my stress level comes down, because now I know she’s happy. That makes me happy and keeps the kids happy too.

Honestly, I think the best gift we ever got was from our realtor, who gave us a membership to the zoo. So you’ll see us out there frequently on the weekends. And I think we’ve found our way around.

It took us a little while to find the good restaurants. And you know, we’re not restaurant chain people. We like to go and support the local guys that are there, in the kitchen, making their food.

Good question. I don’t really have a favorite. I like the Blue Star. The Metropolitan’s a cool place.

Yeah, we like to do sushi. We’ve done Fujiyama. We had a good time there. We’ve tried some other places.

Naturally the cultural aspect isn’t the type of expensive, world touring acts you’re going to get in Denver, but the Pikes Peak Center brings in plenty of good entertainment at a reasonable price. The World Arena does, especially with what they bring in for the kids, like the circus and the dinosaurs. And then you’ve got the Sky Sox.

So I think it’s just -- it’s easy to sit back and complain and say, “We don’t have this, this, and that,” you know. But if you put a little effort into it and do a little homework and ask around and, you know, keep your eye on what’s coming, I think there’s a lot of stuff out there to do. And that’s before you do the tourist attractions, like Garden of the Gods and the Cog Railway, the Olympic Training Center and all the rest.

We have one intern right now that supports our ticket, marketing, and hospitality. She’s a UCCS student. We have one other who drove out here from Central Michigan and is helping out with the operations. And then we have two more that will probably come in by the time this article is published. So we’re pretty much fully staffed.

I actually have a degree in advertising management from the University of South Carolina.

Would that be what you would recommend to a college student who wants to get into your field of tournament management?

I think if I had to do it over again, I probably would have taken a few more business courses. And it would have helped me a whole lot. I’ve now learned how manage a budget, you know, out of school. But I wish I would have had a little bit more to fall back on in terms of financial knowledge, I think.

You know, this is a business. Because we’re dealing with athletes and golf courses, that doesn’t change the fact that 90% of our time is spent in our office, just like everybody else.

Well, I think it’s limited, golf is sort of a niche. But I think those people who put the effort into trying to get the job, the ones that get the opportunity, whether it be an hourly internship or an entry level job, I think there’s going to be a place for them to go up the ladder.

Is your position in your industry male dominated, or can females get to your position?

I would say so. I would say the numbers probably don’t show that, but I don’t think there are a lot of times where a male is chosen over a female just because of gender. ]We have several women within our company that have the opportunity to be directors or roles of that nature. We evaluate, we look at what is their desire to continue on, and we don’t look at which bathroom they walk into before we make that decision.

No. I think you did a great job. Actually, I was telling my wife the other day that, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to do a number of interviews, and we were talking at the dinner table, and I said, it’s amazing to me the difference between a good interview and a bad one.

When somebody does their homework, asks the right questions, positions them in the right way, it really makes it easy on me. And, you know, every once in awhile you get the guy that just says, “How’s it going? Can you tell me some more.” And then the pressure’s on you.

But your questions sort of set me up just to speak my mind, and you’re challenging me in that your questions are good. But you’re not putting the onus on me to start from scratch.

Well, I’m glad I made you feel good. Thank you very much for the compliment. Good luck and I’ll see you at the event if not before.