St. Louis resident Mark Schupp is on a quest to play every golf course in Missouri and will be in Houston on Monday, June 13 playing all courses in the area.
Schupp sold his business in 2014 and immediately got to work on accomplishing something no one else has done, playing every one of the approximately 375 golf courses in the Show Me State. As opposed to many retirees who are worried about how they will fill their time, Schupp wasn’t quite sure if he would have enough time.
MARK SCHUPP
“This project is all-consuming,” he said. “It truly is a labor of love, particularly since I am not charging the courses for any of these services. Creating the website, keeping it up to date, contacting the courses, planning the schedule, coordinating travel, etc. keeps me busier than my job ever did. Playing the courses is the easy part.”
In preparation for this quest, Schupp took a semester-long class and spent the next seven months designing and programming a website to track and review each of the courses he plays. The site – www.MoGolfTour.com – is also intended to provide useful information to golfers looking for a course in any city throughout Missouri.
“The website is never where you want it to be so you are constantly making adjustments to it,” Schupp said. “I’ve spent the last several months successfully making changes to improve the SEO of the site. Now, when you search for ‘reviews of Missouri golf courses,’ MoGolfTour.com is typically one of the first sites listed. It is still not where I want it, but it will continue to improve. I do not have a computer background by any stretch of the imagination so I am learning a great deal.
“I’ve never been to Houston and am looking forward to touring the area. Oakwood Golf Club has an outstanding reputation and I am excited to play the course.”
While touring the state, Schupp is getting more out of the tour than he expected.
“I am finding that playing every course in Missouri is much more about just playing golf,” he said. “It is becoming more about meeting and spending time with the great people of Missouri and hearing their stories.”
Through last week, Schupp has played about one third of Missouri’s courses. His goal for 2016 is to play and review at least 100 of them.
Mark Schupp has led world-class career in advertising and marketing. After graduating from University of Central Missouri, Schupp began his career in Kansas City working at one largest advertising agencies in the world, Doyle Dane Bernbach.
He was then hired by the famed D’Arcy MacManus and Masius in St. Louis where he worked on Red Lobster and Anheuser-Busch. He was hired by his client, Anheuser-Busch, to help lead the marketing efforts of Bud Light beer.
Schupp was on the brand team that helped catapult Bud Light from the 8th largest selling beer to the No. 1 beer in America. Mark started his own agency in 1993, with Anheuser-Busch as his first client. The Schupp Company became known as one of the most creative agencies in the nation winning numerous international awards.
The company’s clients included Anheuser-Busch, Miller-Coors, Nestle-Purina, American Express, Coca-Cola Company, Smirnoff, Jim Beam, the St. Louis Blues and the St. Louis Cardinals. He sold his agency in 2014.
Besides touring the state playing every golf course, Schupp also finds time to work with select companies and charities to produce powerful commercials and videos. Since retiring, Schupp has created and produced moving anti-heroin television commercials for the National Council on Drug Abuse and Alcoholism which appeared in the St. Louis broadcast of the Super Bowl.
These commercials have become internationally recognized for their powerful message and impact.
In 2016, Schupp wrote, directed and produced an emotional video for the Alzheimer’s Association.
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