The Tournament Club of Iowa golf course in Polk City tried to get your attention with television ads this spring, has maintained a presence on a Des Moines radio talk show and took an innovative marketing proposal all the way to the Iowa Department of Economic Development’s tourism office.

Meanwhile, at another high-end public golf course, they’re relying on your golfing buddies to bring you out for a round. “Our owner (Dickson Jensen of Ames) is not too much into advertising,” said Patrick Kilbride, golf pro at The Harvester golf course northeast of Des Moines. “We don’t want to sound boastful or arrogant, but we feel that we’re already well-known in the golfing community” after receiving rave reviews from prominent golf publications. “The owner feels that if the product is good enough, people will come.”

The two Central Iowa links fit neatly into the same category as relatively new public courses with high-class features and correspondingly high prices – a summer weekend round at The Harvester costs $85. However, they’ve chosen notably different marketing strategies as they battle to succeed in a sport that seems to have stopped growing.

According to the National Golf Foundation, about 3 million people take up golf every year in the United States, but another 3 million quit playing the game. As a result, the national boom in course-building has slowed. It was quite a treat for local golfers when these two facilities opened in a three-year span, The Harvester in 2001 and TCI last June.

“The Des Moines area is getting saturated. There are enough courses to go around,” said Steve Dowling, director of marketing operations for TCI. “But was there room for a high-quality course when we came on board? I think so, especially since we’re so close to Des Moines.”

TCI lies just 15 or 20 minutes from most Des Moines and West Des Moines golfers, Dowling likes to point out. The Harvester is located on four-lane Iowa Highway 330 about 30 miles northeast of downtown Des Moines. “We’re considered a little bit remote, but The Harvester is quite a bit more remote, or at least they’re perceived that way,” Dowling said. “The key for both of us is acquainting people with our locations.”

The question is, how many people do they want to find them? At TCI, they say 25,000 annual rounds of golf would be the optimum, based on 10-minute intervals between tee times. The Harvester hosted 19,500 rounds in 2003, the lowest total since it opened. Its management wouldn’t mind seeing another decrease, according to Kilbride. “We increased the Thursday through Saturday fees this year, hoping to have a less congested course. We’re trying to get a loyal following” with a relaxed atmosphere. Bucking the trend yet again, The Harvester plans to expand. Construction is scheduled to begin next year on an 18-hole course adjacent to the current layout, and there’s even talk of a third course on Jensen’s 2,300-acre parcel.

TCI pins a lot of its publicity on the name of its designer, golf legend Arnold Palmer. “This is the only designer course in Iowa,” said Dowling, who operates out of Minneapolis and also represents Minnesota courses. “In our advertising, we almost always mention that this is an Arnold Palmer signature course.”

The Harvester relies on the testimonials that have appeared in Golf Week and Golf Digest.

TCI was built to host the PGA Champions Tour’s Allianz Championship tournament, which switches from Glen Oaks Country Club next year. “It was designed to handle big crowds, allow good viewing in natural amphitheaters and provide media communications with underground power lines,” Dowling said.

The Harvester, surrounded by farmland and situated miles from restaurants and hotels, is vying for a U.S. Golf Association amateur tournament. Jensen became a member of the USGA greens committee last fall and will host some of the other committee members for a round of golf in May.

Dowling approached the state’s tourism office, proposing that four courses — TCI, The Harvester, the new but lower-priced Legacy Golf Club in Norwalk and the Amana Colonies Golf Course in Amana — be promoted together in tourist literature, creating a destination area for serious golfers. But nothing has come of that idea so far.

Of course, the independent-minded Harvester isn’t interested in taking part. “We think TCI is somewhat good for us, because it helps attract more golfers to the area from outside Des Moines,” Kilbride said. “But we want to have our own identity. The golf management group that owns Amana Colonies approached us about a marketing package, but our owner wants us to stand on our own.”