Today we’d like to introduce you to Dave Nearing.
Hi Dave, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Started with a love for golf and a want to play competitively. Before we became an actual business, we had our first tournament in June of 2023 with just 12 golfers at Chula Vista Municipal. Ten of the golfers were already my friends, but the 12th golfer saw my ad on Facebook and and asked if he could join the tournament, playing alongside 11 strangers he had not met before. That person was Joe Wageman, who went on to win that inaugural Prestige Golf Tour tournament. I told Joe about my vision of creating the best golf tour in San Diego and he immediately wanted to be a part of it. We hosted a few more unofficial tournaments in 2023 and immediately saw success with the number of golfers who wanted to play in our tournaments. This is when we knew we had a special thing going and decided to create an official business and started planning our tour for the opening season of Prestige Golf Tour, which began in January 2024.
Our goal was to provide a fun yet competitive golf environment for golfers of all skill levels at a reasonable price. Golf is already an expensive hobby, and to play on some of the other tours in San Diego…it was just way too expensive. We wanted to provide an affordable and inclusive version for the golfers who could not afford the expensive tours. We also wanted to create a group that went beyond golf, with a sense of camaraderie and friendship. This style of golf tour was nonexistent in San Diego. Word quickly spread about our tour and style of golf and we quickly recruited 30 members who felt like they belonged to our tour. From our humble beginning hosting a 12 man tournament, we quickly started hosting 40-56 man tournaments.
We wrapped up season one in September 2024 and crowned our champion, he received an awesome trophy and a hefty amount of cash. We had three months to prepare for season two, starting in January 2025. What we did next shook the San Diego golf community…we came up with a team version of golf tournament, alongside our original individual style tournament. We named seven team captains and they went on to create their own 6-man teams. This brought even more camaraderie amongst the players, and at the same time create a sense of dedication to Prestige Golf Tour. Creating this team style tour meant we could count on the teams and captains to help fill every tournament seat, relieving a bit of the workload from me and Joe in the recruiting department. We are now four tournaments into the 2025 season and things are going very well. Joe and I wanted to take a moment to express our sincere gratitude. We recognize that the company’s success could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of our core team.
In particular, we would like to extend a special thank you to Austin Ager, Joey Lee, and Ryan McKee, whose contributions have been instrumental to our growth.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not a smooth road. In season one we had to really work hard to reach out to enough golfers to fill tournaments. Naturally our network grew every tournament and that burden of recruiting players gradually became easy, to the point now where we have very little recruiting to do, a lot of the guys told us to just automatically assume they will play every tournament.
We also had some struggles with vendors early on. We needed to have shirts, hats, trophies, other clothing made by a dependable vendor and for a good price. We gave most of the money collected for tournaments/memberships back to the players every tournament so Joe and I had to personally invest money into this aspect of the company. We went through a couple vendors who were not dependable and had low quality products unfortunately but we finally found a good one.
Couple hard times finding golf courses to accommodate us, but our Tournament Coordinator Joey Lee has done a fantastic job booking tournaments for us every month.
There were also some growing pains when trying to find the right App to keep track of scores for every tournament. We found one that has live-score tracking capabilities so players can know exactly where they stand at any moment during a tournament. Shout out to Austin Ager who has done a spectacular job mastering the app and making sure every player is connected every tournament (this is a requirement for every tournament).
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Creativity, Perseverance, Dedication
Pricing:
- We offer memberships ($50 for individual membership, $170 for team membership), you do not need to be a member to play in our tournaments
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @prestigegolf_
- Facebook: Prestige Golf Tour – San Diego, CA
- Other: email: Prestigegolf2023@gmail.com
Image Credits
Joe Wageman
Dave Nearing
