(by Alex, Marketing Director at Songistry)
DeBell golf course, Burbank California.
It’s 7:00 am on a Saturday morning.
There’s a confused but not unpleasant musical blend in the air courtesy of the 11 Bluetooth speakers tucked into golf cart cup holders. Late 90’s Usher lays a baseline for the Smiths, Santana is finishing up the final riff in Oye Como Va over Motorhead, interrupted only by the occasional NPR announcement over the clubhouse sound system.
The one consistent sound drifting across the practice green, is the colorful exclamations of disbelief regarding the 38-degree temperature that we are all sharing.
“On behalf of Stillwater Golf Club, our hosts DeBell golf course, and our event Sponsors Songistry, welcome to the 2023 Zero Putts Given golf tournament”. We were truly excited and proud to be a part of this event.
A good old-fashioned musical networking session ensues over breakfast burritos as everyone introduces themselves, the golf carts get prepared and we get to share our plans for the future of Sync licensing with anyone who will listen.
To hear the story of how this music industry golfing event came to be isn’t long or particularly inspiring, but much like the rest of the industry it gets to the point and speaks to the organic nature of the creative and artistic world in which we all work.
“It was just a small thing with 16 people and now it's this hahaha” Ryan Kofman, one of the principle organizers tells me. “More or less all music execs, artists, or entertainment folks”. The event was clearly a hit amongst its attendees, and marked with envy by those not lucky enough to be invited. So invites we extended, more and more each year and here we are, sponsoring the 6th annual iteration of the event. Kudos to you gentlemen.
A long-time executive in the music industry, Ryan, alongside his partners in this endeavor Rob Christen and James Knerr created the event as a casual get-together of industry-aligned and golf-loving peers to enjoy some time on the course talking shop and letting the banter flow.
As I jumped in my cart and drove out to prepare the course with some of our gifts for the players and other materials, I was stopped and asked about Songistry a few times. I come from content production and I live for music. So, the fact that on this day I was driving a golf cart through sunny California, being asked to stop and have conversations about how the platform I represent enhances and simplifies the process of enriching content with world-class music, I did have to stop for a moment and run a pinch test. ‘Revolutionizing sync’ this, ‘simplifying’ that, ‘technology meets bespoke practices’ the other. Before I’m done running people through demos of our platforms and playing them my favorite tracks this week from our community of musicians, it’s time for people to swing metal things at little balls towards a hole hundreds of yards away.
We set up shop on the 6th hole with a nice view of the 8th, sponsoring as we were the ‘closest to the pin’ and ‘long drive’ competitions on these and two other holes.
Before each new foursome walked up to the 6th tee where I had set up camp, I got to enjoy the moment as the lead golf cart struggled valiantly up the steep hill towards me and gradually exposed me to the music being played by the self-appointed DJ in each group.
The golf played was of an astonishing standard. Pointing a camera at a casual golf event should usually offer 115 clips more at home on America’s funniest home videos than ESPN but the opposite proved to be true. Truly excellent play.
We captured a few moments of triumph in photography, some glorious failures in video, and free-flowing banter as we mic’d up some players as they passed through. Check out a handful of the highlights in the video above.
When the last ball had echoed its way into the final cup of the day, everyone packed up, checked for tan lines, made the decision to submit or burn their scorecards, and headed over to the Lincoln Beer company for fresh ale sipping, reminiscing, schmoozing and prize giving. Congratulations and trophies were handed to the tournament winner, the foursome of Sean Hirshfeld, Keith Tripler, Jim Parrack, and Wolfe Coleman. The Songistry-sponsored awards and prizes for the long drive and closest to the pin challenges were taken home by Dave Woodall, Mitch Morgan, Tim Baltz, and Chris Orlando.
We hope to see everyone at the event next year as we will no doubt be back again behind the scenes, hopefully with a handful of stories to tell about the partnerships, projects, and content production feats achieved as a direct result of the relationships created at this, the 6th annual Zero Putts Given Tournament. See you next year.
Alex @ Songistry
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