a dream foursome minus the green fees
foursome & then some.
A case study of digital-first marketing, gamification engines, and golf… but with a sense of humor.
the premise:
Nobody just buys their way into golf. Well, some try and the golf course is miraculously still undefeated against them. People get pulled in by friends, gifted a hand-me-down set from an uncle, or roped in trying to impress a business partner. It happened to me! Summer 2019, Sharpstown Golf Course, the $13 round at the sketchiest track in Houston. I had 'the bug' from weeks of grinding at the range but none of the social confidence to match. Around the 8th hole a guy in my pairing, wearing jeans mind you, slid down a bunker face and ripped them clean through. His father-in-law nearly collapsed laughing, and that was the moment Albert and I became best friends. No joke. 150ish rounds later, I have won maybe five. Still the best $13 I ever spent.
the foursome is a product.
New golf gear gets the ad spend. The connection through golf wins the loyalty. Which means there's an entire marketing surface most golf brands leave untouched: the feeling of the round itself, the pairing, the banter, the tall tales that carry you to the next tee time. You can market that “in-between rounds” feeling at zero equipment cost and I’d argue it is the most untapped. So I built a sketch of what that looks like with a digital-first, gamification campaign in mind.
the artifact:
Foursome & Then Some is a playable campaign. Build your dream foursome in ten questions from a roster of characters, spend a limited budget of points, and get a custom recap of the round that never happened, written in a voice that sounds suspiciously like mine mixed with Nick Faldo.
The point budget is doing the strategic work. Forcing tradeoffs (blow it all on style or save some for "willingness to improve"?) means every foursome is a personality test, every recap comes out different, and running it back to chase a better disaster is the whole loop. Your picks shape your story. Choose loud pants and louder cart music and don't be surprised who shows up on the back nine.
so, what’s your dream foursome? mine included:
Winston Churchill polishing off a dozen cigars by the turn.
Larry the Cable Guy… being, well, Larry the Cable Guy.
Jordan Spieth trying to hold it together.
Willie Nelson showing up uninvited after the 14th, par 3.
this isn’t my first round:
I developed and scaled the in-app gamification platform that became the digital backbone of a Fortune 30's entire sports sponsorship portfolio, scaling across MLB, NFL, MLS, NWSL and collegiate properties. Its flagship instant-win game generated 400,000+ gameplays and 133,000 registrations. An important lesson from all of it: mechanics that reward play convert borrowed attention into first-party relationships. People give a brand ten seconds. They give a game ten minutes, and they hand over an email address on their way out, while still giggling.
why the jokes matter:
Humor is doing strategy work here, not decoration. A recap that teases you the way your buddies do earns something no banner ad can buy: the sense that the brand actually knows this world. Relatability is credibility. If the consumer sees themselves (or the golfer they aspire to be, or the one they're stuck in a cart with) inside the content, the brand gets adopted into the group chat instead of skipped after five seconds.
how i built it:
Friday night, on the couch, after my son went to bed, somewhat to my wife's chagrin. Ninety minutes from idea to playable.
The division of labor is a major point. The concept, the mechanics, the roster, the copy, the tone and every redline were mine. AI wrote the code faster than I ever could and never once complained about my revisions. That is not AI replacing a team. That is one person with a clear idea and modern tools moving at a speed that used to require a sprint plan. It is also how I lead: player-coach, idea to execution, sustainable engine over deck. And a healthy dose of levity.
"Foursome & Then Some" is intentionally rough. A launch-ready version would need purposeful strategy, real testing, buy-in from product and development, and KPIs with accountability attached. I know the difference between a 90-minute artifact and a campaign. That's why this is a case study and not a pitch.
the “& then some” part:
Foursome & Then Some is one skin on an engine I made called YOU+3. The roster, the categories, the recap library and the brand voice are all swappable content, which means the same framing extends across a full digital-first plan:
Email and lifecycle. The recap is a natural inbox object. Build your foursome, get your round delivered, forward it to the friend who belongs in it. Re-engagement with a punchline.
Social sharing. Every recap is a personality result, and personality results are one of the most shared formats on the internet. The group chat does the media buying.
Playable ad units. The whole game is a single lightweight HTML file, which means it can run as an interactive unit inside golf and sports media placements. An ad people finish is worth ten they scroll past.
Promotional layer. The recap can carry rewards: a code, an unlockable, a sweepstakes entry to turn the fantasy foursome into a real one. Play becomes the entry mechanic, and the prize becomes the story.
Any brand with a feeling. Swap golf for tailgates, road trips, race day or game night. If your customers love a moment your ads can't capture, the moment can be made playable. New roster, new categories, new recaps, same engine. Days, not quarters.
why i made it:
Because I think the best marketing doesn't interrupt the thing people love. It joins it. It sounds like your group chat. It may even make you laugh. If your brand has a feeling worth playing with, I'd genuinely enjoy building the version that belongs to you.
sincerely,
