Puslinch Golf Club

Puslinch Golf Club is fortunate to be able to claim all of the above. A challenging par-70 golf course with some of the fastest greens in Canada, Puslinch has been enjoyed by a community that cares more about good times and great golf than dress codes and club politics. With a series of renovations underway and plans for new facilities to be added, Puslinch knew they had to tie all the disparate threads of their member and guest experience into one tidy package to ensure it stood out from the dozens of courses in southern Ontario.

That’s when they engaged us to help create their new brand strategy, brand communications and graphic identity. They didn’t have any issues with filling tee times or keeping the refreshments flowing. However, the pride the community shared for the club didn’t come across in how Puslinch was presented to the rest of world.

We kicked off the process of rebranding the golf course with a robust program of stakeholder research. This included creating and conducting guided interviews with select club members, staff and leadership, as well as producing and deploying a survey to ensure the opinions of the wider membership were represented.

Most participants agreed wholeheartedly that the staff and the course conditions were standout features of the club: great people and great golf. Other key attributes that emerged were the club’s relaxed attitude and strong sense of humour.

The reputation for golf clubs around Ontario is that they’re often quite formal and conservative, with many unspoken rules. This can be intimidating for people who are new to the game. The Puslinch team consciously seeks to do away with any “stuffiness” in terms of attire and etiquette. While the conditions, carts and equipment are top-tier and fastidiously maintained, that’s where the formality ends. At this club, golf is, first and foremost, fun.

The friendly, human touch of the branding is an extension of this perspective.

We worked with the team to craft key messages that communicate these core attributes. We created a new tagline—“To Know It Is to Love It”—speaking to the emotional connection members have to the club and its community.

Once the brand foundation and brand positioning were established, we designed the new graphic identity. Reminiscent of prestigious golf clubs and vintage sports brands, the new logo uses a handcrafted appearance to convey a sense of friendliness and approachability, combined with heritage and timelessness, appealing to golfers who appreciate the sport’s history and atmosphere.

Our branding process also includes a brand identity system, which allows a consistent, considered look and feel that goes beyond just the logo, colours and typefaces. This integrated approach shows how the brand identity—from graphics to messaging—functions in the real world, applied to all of the course’s branded assets, including templates for social media applications.

The final element to the branding was a new website. Our editorial team leveraged the key messages we’d created to ensure the brand voice was consistent and inviting throughout the website. The language, which includes SEO considerations throughout, is down-to-earth, encouraging players to wear whatever they want, to play music on the course and to have a good time (as long as they’re respectful of the grounds and other players, of course).

Finally, we implemented the brand identity into new flags, course signage, scorecards, digital signage, food & beverage signage, and—perhaps most importantly—we created new labels for the club’s beloved signature beer: Puslinch Lager.

Completed just in time for the beginning of the season, the Puslinch Golf Club identity sets up this special slice of southern Ontario to thrive for another 60 years.

As more people from a wider range of backgrounds take up golf, clubs like Puslinch are giving them points of access to the sport that embrace our differences and encourage players to learn and express themselves on the course.