Tuesday’s Tournament Tip: Sustainability 🌿

Media Relations for Golf Tournaments: How to Get Your Event Covered

A single piece of local media coverage can do more for your tournament than weeks of social posts — it reaches a wide audience and lends a credibility that paid promotion can’t buy. The good news is that earning coverage isn’t luck or connections; it’s a repeatable process. As the founder of Colorado Under Par, I’ve been on both sides of this — our events have been covered by outlets like Denver7 and 9NEWS — and it almost always comes down to giving a journalist an easy, genuinely newsworthy story. Here’s how to do it. (For media as one piece of broader local outreach, see our guide to community engagement for golf tournaments.)

Lead with a story, not a tee time

Before you contact anyone, get clear on why a newsroom would care. Reporters don’t cover golf tournaments — they cover stories. So lead with the angle that’s actually newsworthy: the cause you’re raising money for, a local need being met, a milestone (“10th annual,” “$100,000 raised to date”), or a notable participant. “Local tournament raises money for [cause]” is a story a community outlet wants; “we’re having a golf event” isn’t. Find your human-interest hook first, and everything else gets easier.

Write a press release that’s easy to use

A clean press release is your core tool. Send it to local newspapers, radio, community blogs, TV community segments, and regional outlets a few weeks ahead. Keep it tight and newsworthy:

• A strong headline that leads with the story angle, not the logistics.
• The essentials — who, what, when, where, and the cause — in the first paragraph.
• A quote from you or the charity they can drop straight into an article.
• A clear contact — name, phone, email — so a reporter can follow up in seconds.

The easier you make a journalist’s job, the more likely they run it. A reporter who can lift a usable story from your release with minimal effort is a reporter who covers your event.

Have a simple media kit ready

If an outlet bites, make it effortless for them to cover you well. A basic media kit — a single page or shared folder — should include the event details and schedule, a short background on your organization and the cause, a few high-resolution photos (from past events), and your contact info. Having this ready means a “yes” turns into coverage instead of a week of back-and-forth, and it keeps your messaging consistent across whoever picks it up.

Build real relationships, not one-offs

The best coverage comes from relationships you nurture over time. Get to know the local reporters and community-calendar editors who cover events and good-news stories in your area. Thank them when they cover you, keep them on your list, and come back next year — a journalist who’s covered you before is far more likely to do it again. Over a few years, those relationships become one of your most reliable promotion channels.

Scale the tactics to your event

For most community and charity tournaments, a great press release, an easy media kit, and a few real relationships are all you need. The bigger tactics — formal media partnerships (coverage in exchange for sponsorship or VIP access) or a press conference — only make sense for large, high-profile events with a genuine news hook. Don’t over-engineer it; a sharp local-news pitch will out-perform an elaborate PR plan for the vast majority of tournaments.

Final thoughts

Getting your golf tournament covered isn’t about knowing the right people — it’s about handing the right people an easy, newsworthy story. Lead with your cause or angle, send a clean press release, keep a simple media kit ready, and build relationships that pay off year after year. Earn even one good local mention and you’ll reach an audience, and a level of credibility, that’s hard to buy.

When you’re ready to run your next one, you can list your golf tournament free on Colorado Under Par and reach players across the state.

Best regards,
Andrew Mueller, Founder, Colorado Under Par