Fore profit

Winning big is par for the course with this low-cost franchise that cashes in on golf.

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Gerry Lev is the human dynamo who serves as president and chief executive officer of LTS LeaderBoard, an innovative company that uses unique scannable scorecard technology and cutting-edge proprietary software to transform the way charity, corporate and pro-am golf tournaments are scored and managed making them more entertaining and profitable.

It’s not by coincidence that LTS LeaderBoard Tournament Systems has become the largest global franchise organization serving the fast-growing business of tournament golf. But fate has certainly played a role in an intriguing story of the company’s growth.

In 1998, Gerry Lev was, and still is, a high-handicap golfer. He was also president of Subway® Developments of British Columbia, where he sold 236 franchises in the Canadian province over 11 years. He played in and sponsored a variety of corporate and charity tournaments, but usually left with the same opinion of most of them.

“Being a fairly-high handicapper and a non-drinker, I’d be forced to wait forever to find out whether my team had won an umbrella or a trip to Spain because it took so long to complete the scoring. It was very frustrating,” Lev recalled. “And in most cases I got nothing for my money as a sponsor. I got a piece of cardboard as a hole sponsor, but I could never prove that anybody ever bought a sandwich at Subway because I sponsored a golf tournament.”

But the mundane suddenly turned interesting for Lev when he was invited to play in a customer appreciation tournament in Vancouver. As he walked into the clubhouse that morning he saw his name, tee time and hole assignment on a big-screen video display. When his round was complete, Lev’s score and those of other players were compiled in just minutes and displayed live on the screens.

“I thought it was a pretty cool idea. I had never seen anything like it before,” Lev said. “I walked behind one of the screens and there were the two founders.”

It wasn’t much later that Lev’s curiosity and interest resulted in him becoming president and CEO of LTS LeaderBoard. And now in the eight years since that fateful meeting, Lev has leveraged LTS LeaderBoard’s unique “scannable” scorecard technology and cutting-edge proprietary software to forge a company that is transforming the way charity, corporate and pro-am golf tournaments are scored and managed, making them more entertaining and profitable.

LTS LeaderBoard provides an automated PGA-style scoring system that is lightning-fast, 100 percent accurate and displays tournament results along with sponsor logos and promotional messages via entertaining multimedia presentations on big-screen displays or linked clubhouse television monitors.
The end result is an enhanced tournament experience for golfers, increased value of exposure for tournament sponsors, an elevated professional image for tournament organizers and elimination of the arduous task of scoring and administration responsibilities for tournament managers. LTS LeaderBoard has scored more than 4.2 million holes of golf since 1995.

LTS LeaderBoard launched a franchising program in 2001 under Lev’s direction and now has 24 franchises in 15 states, with additional offices in Vancouver—also the site of its corporate headquarters—Mexico City; Madrid, Spain; and Melbourne, Australia. LTS LeaderBoard expects to award more than 75 franchises by the end of 2007. The U.S. market has the potential to support 330 franchises along with 17 in Canada, while international markets offer myriad opportunities due to the explosive popularity of golf throughout the world.

Don Adamson, a teaching golf professional for 22 years, first began developing the scannable scorecard in 1989, utilizing existing DOS-based scoring software. Adamson had simply grown tired of the hours he would spend scoring tournaments. Software improvements over the next decade significantly upgraded the company’s services, but it was Lev—who sold his Subway enterprise and became president and CEO of LTS LeaderBoard in 1999—who saw an opportunity to put his franchising and marketing experience to work in positioning a future for the company beyond scoring golf tournaments.

With a franchise fee ranging from $18,000 to $71,100 based upon population base and golf course density, plus an additional $27,000 for equipment and supplies, LTS LeaderBoard offers a turnkey, home-based franchise opportunity.

More than 60 percent of LTS LeaderBoard’s U.S. franchise owners are husband-wife teams or parent-grown child partnerships. Among its franchisees are a former corporate personnel executive, a consulting partner with finance world giant KPMG and a former assistant pro at Augusta National Golf Club, who once shot a 65 on the hallowed course that hosts the ******* each spring.
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