Meet McKenzie Lyng of BackSwing Golf Events in Scottsdale

Today we’d like to introduce you to McKenzie Lyng.

McKenzie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up in Ohio, where I played golf at Kent State University. After graduating with a major in Marketing, I moved to Arizona to pursue my professional golf career. I competed as a professional golfer for nearly five years. I traveled all over the country, as well as the Canadian Tour. In 2013, I was cast to be on a hit T.V Show called Big Break! This show aired on Golf Channel in May of 2013. After this, I continued to play professionally as well as started to do more “appearances” at pro-ams and charity golf events.

At the end of 2015, I wasn’t where I wanted to be with my game and decide to take some time off to figure out what I wanted to do. My travel buddy and business partner Amanda and I created BackSwing Golf Events shortly after I had decided to take some time off. We wanted to A. make money to continue our careers and B. do something fun with golf and help charities raise extra money. When this began, we weren’t sure how big it would get… but little did we know it was going to take off.

In the late months of 2015, we began to promote our company. We are a group of lady professional golfers who bring something fun and engaging to corporate and charity golf events. Fast forward to 2016, we participated in 62 golf events…. then fast forward again to 2017 where we participated in 80 golf events all over the country. We have hired 30 lady professional golfers as well to help fill these events.

This company not only allows us to stay in the game and enjoy golf more but helps our friends out with their expenses who are playing professionally. January 4th, 2017, my husband and I welcomed our baby boy. I am able to stay home with him and travel to events when I want. It really is the best of both worlds. Although I am not competing professionally anymore, I still get to travel and play this game I love. In fact, I appreciate golf a LOT more than I did when I was competing.

We are growing to several other locations this year and hope to do over 100 golf events in 2018!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Starting a company from nothing has its ups and downs. Having a great business partner has been a big help. We compliment one another with what we bring to the table. My business development and marketing skills complement her finance skills. We have learned what works best with our company and how to structure these events. We have learned a lot over the past two years and continue to tweak things along the way. Nothing is perfect, but we have good systems in place for anything that comes our way.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about BackSwing Golf Events – what should we know?
We are a group of lady professional golfers who bring something fun and engaging to corporate and charity golf events. We have compiled a team of personable lady pros who can really interact with the players at a golf event.

Whether you are having a corporate or charity event, we can accommodate. We work a lot with incentive trips, meetings and conferences as well. The experiences are endless with the things we can do to enhance golf events.

I specialize in business development and marketing for BackSwing. I love working directly with the clients to customize our involvement in their golf event. Our company is known for creating memorable experiences on the golf course. Pro-am style, or beat the pro games on the golf course.

What sets us apart from other companies like us is we are ALL female and ALL good at golf. Other companies out there are more of a model based company.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Amanda Robertson. She was my travel buddy when I played professionally for about four years. She and I looked at each other one day at one of these pro-ams and said…. why isn’t this a company. And that was it. We brainstormed and BackSwing Golf Events was created.

Our families have been huge supporters and really just pushed us to do what made us happy. We get to dictate how fast we grown and what our structures look like.

A business mentor that has helped us is Troy Henson. He is a business coach in Arizona. Troy really helped put things in perspective that Amanda and I could not see from a numbers standpoint. He has really helped provide the tools to help us propel our business.

Bruce Black has also helped me along the way. Bruce has always been honest when it comes to business ideas and helped me when I needed guidance working with a big-time client. He has taught me many things over the past couple years. I appreciate everything he has done for me and has really helped make me a better business woman!

Contact Info:

• Address: 18723 Via Princessa #213 Santa Clarita, CA 91387
• Website: www.backswinggolfevents.com
• Phone: 480-535-5027
• Email: mckenzie@backswinggolfevents.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backswinggolfevents/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BackSwing-Golf-Events-826691254087760/

Image Credit:
Scott Durgan

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.