The puns are unavoidable. "I've heard them all," says Clay Fears. There's this: The only thing we have to fear is Fears himself. Or: Hey, it's Clay...Fears not! But we haven't come to The Kingdom at Reynolds Lake Oconee to have fun with Clay's name. We're here to dig into his job title: player experience coordinator. It seems complicated when you consider so many different players want so many different experiences at The Kingdom. There are college teams, scratch golfers, weekend warriors, NFL Hall of Famers, even a tour pro now and then. They come for help with their short games, long games, club fittings, and ball fittings.
No matter the who or the why, every experience starts and ends with the same guy: Clay. He's the first person you hear on the phone ("Thank you for calling The Kingdom at Reynolds, how can we help?") and he's the last person you hear on the way out of the pro shop ("Make it a great day.").
With that smooth southern voice of his, Clay has a way of eliminating (one more pun coming, but not intended) fear from the player experience. He even makes his job title sound un-complicated.
"I just tee it up for our staff to do their jobs and for guests to have a rewarding time," he says.
As good as Clay is at speaking, he's even better at listening. And that — listening — is the key to teeing it up.
“To do this job, you have to be emotionally savvy enough to recognize what a person might be going through,” Clay says. “Maybe they’ve had a stressful morning. Maybe they’ve lost confidence. Maybe they simply want to shave a couple strokes from their score. I want everyone to look around, feel comfortable, and enjoy what I consider golf heaven.”
