[Ryan Coles]

Fair enough Sean, But what are the inland clubs that do consistently produce the conditions we prefer?

Walton Heath. And it's not on sand.

Notable because it's a rare exception.

Agreed.

Many others in Surrey? If not what hope do those on farmland have?

[Jon Wiggett]

Ryan,

it is a shame you get all uppity when someone does not agree with you. You are correct that I do not know what you understanding is outside what you comment on in your replies. It could be that you have a better understanding beyond the 'green' issues in the R&A programme but chose to constrain your answer to just this small part. Why you would choose to do this I do not know but okay.

When talking about bubbles and so on it would be nice if you did the courtesy of reading what I wrote as the bubble I talk about is not mine.

Yes, trends and fashions do change and anyone wanting to sustain a business over a long term knows you have to adapt and pre-empt/create new trends if you are not going to go under. The R&A as well as the home unions are in a very good position to be a driving and creative force.

You are correct that you cannot climb out of poverty by pretending to be rich but neither is saying the decline of the game is a fact of life that we cannot stop going to help in any way. Supply does outstrip demand at the moment but this is not due mainly to too much supply but rather dwindling demand. Either there needs to be a cut in supply as the governing bodies seem to believe is the case. This is easy as it requires you to do nothing but do not forget it might be your job that goes. Otherwise it is necessary to grow demand which with a proven historical case of prior higher demand showing it is possible and a larger population than at the height of the boom means it should be realistic but of course not if you do not want to.

The bodies should not be criticised for articulating the facts and I am not doing this but they maybe criticised for not doing the required work to improve and grow the games situation.

Jon

[Ryan Coles]

Jon

Apologies for not being clear. By 'your bubble' I mean the one you referred to, not that you are encased in one.

I can only speak of England Golf and the various CGP's (County golf partnerships) my local one I believe has had some success, others nearby seem completely ineffective. I believe there are pockets of good work in certain regions. In my opinion it mostly comes down to money. England golf are dictated to by sport england on what their priorities should be. Individual clubs can be denied crucial funding and support if they don't tick the right boxes. Last year no junior coaching grants were available unless it was for new 18-24 years olds - just about the least effective age group from which to grow participation. Hence why their quotas and engineering dictated focus on this group. Net result, clubs did not even apply. Where I share discontent with the unions is their social media is largely retweeting group on style deals and inviting other clubs to send them their throat slitting offers. Of course there is no offers with affiliation fees.  

I like your positive attitude Jon particularly around Club spirit and members rather than customers and I admire your optimism about future growth. It's just my experiences are different. Sports that are growing at the moment eg cycling all seem much quicker and offer more freedom and flexibility to the participant. It is difficult to convert the masses and of course many within the game don't want the masses.

Edit footnote as the above does read as if I'm defeatist, which I'm not. Of course we can and will by necessity have to grow demand.

[Jon Wiggett]

Ryan,

I guess we are not so far apart as I thought.

The problem I see with the R&A is that when you talk to golfers about the sustainability program that the R&A have 99% have never heard of it. The R&A would have absolutely no problem getting the message out if they wanted to but seem satisfied to keep it confined to very exclusive circle of people. It is not enough for them to talk to club officials and employees they also should be talking directly to the average golfer. They love to blag about promoting golf in far flung corners of the world whilst all the time seem happy for their own house to crumble around them.

SGU's Clubgolf has not done anything for their membership as far as I can see. A lot of money spent but no real results. It was the wrong aspiration which was poorly thought out. There has been a lot of back slapping about how many children in Scotland have hit a golf ball but having achieved that what has it achieved in regard to dwindling numbers? Nothing!!! What they do not seem to understand is hitting a ball is not the same as taking up the game as a major pastime where you will participate regularly and hopefully join a club.

It is good to hear that some of the CGPs in your area are having some success.

Jon

[Paul Gray]

Jon, Ryan et al,

If I may interject, perhaps your differences in perception stem from a fundamental difference which rears its head here in different forms over and over:

Jon is attempting to promote golf, pure and simple and not a metamorphosed version of it. If that pure product doesn't fly, so be it. Ryan on the other hand is addressing the reality that promoting golf in its, shall we say, purist form is not its quickest and most lucrative method of tapping into new markets. So ultimately we have to address the fundamental issue of whether we can tolerate promoting a watered down version of the game and making a success of it or whether we should be stick to our guns and attempt to re-educate the public about the virtues of the game we here all prefer. I note today that a former employer of mine is actively pushing footgolf. Think what you like but it's popular. I didn't like working for that employer. That's my position but not the position of the masses.

It's pop vs classical, haute cuisine vs McDonalds, test match cricket vs 20/20. Call it what you want but until we recognise the fundamental juxtaposition we're going to fail to address it.

[Adam Lawrence]

Jon, Ryan et al,

If I may interject, perhaps your differences in perception stem from a fundamental difference which rears its head here in different forms over and over:

Jon is attempting to promote golf, pure and simple and not a metamorphosed version of it. If that pure product doesn't fly, so be it. Ryan on the other hand is addressing the reality that promoting golf in its, shall we say, purist form is not its quickest and most lucrative method of tapping into new markets. So ultimately we have to address the fundamental issue of whether we can tolerate promoting a watered down version of the game and making a success of it or whether we should be stick to our guns and attempt to re-educate the public about the virtues of the game we here all prefer. I note today that a former employer of mine is actively pushing footgolf. Think what you like but it's popular. I didn't like working for that employer. That's my position but not the position of the masses.

It's pop vs classical, haute cuisine vs McDonalds, test match cricket vs 20/20. Call it what you want but until we recognise the fundamental juxtaposition we're going to fail to address it.

I think there's something in this. All the access to golf programmes and the alternative formats that people within the game have tried to promote will only help golf if a decent proportion of the people who try them then move on to be regular players of the actual game itself (the exception might be Footgolf, which has the possibility to provide operators with a significant, sustainable stream of revenue from people who might never move on to picking up a golf club - but it brings with it its own set of management issues). I know the powers that be have thought about this issue - they are not solely concerned with the numbers of new people who try out their programmes - but it bears repeating.

[Ryan Coles]

I actually agree with Jon more than not.

What the game needs is more members. Or at least more regular participants. Not some kid with a plastic club, on one day, with a photo to the press x10,000. This is not "introducing 10,000 new people to the sport". It is gimmicky and does not really translate into participants. I've played cricket on the beach a few times, it doesn't make me a cricketer.

I like golf as it is. The game itself doesn't need to change, nor should it. A lot of the BS and stereotypes around it need to change. Even then, due to the cost, time and relative inflexibility, it will be bloody difficult for the sport to grow in the UK.

[Paul Gray]

Ryan,

Clearly you're in the right camp but I don't agree with your assessment that the game needs more members. If clubs have more members, great but, as I see it, half the problem lies in overly high maintenance costs which then require a club to have 700 members just to break even. When you're set up with the bar that high just to stay open, you're set up for a fall. I used to work for a commercial operation just like that and its ugly. 1,000 members means no one is happy as there's a permanent struggle just to get a tee time. A his stage perhaps Jon's on little venture might not be a bad comparison. I don't know the ins and outs of it and don't want to speak out of turn but I suspect Jon's model has weathered the recession far better with far few golfers than the more commercial operations.

The bottom line is that until overheads are brought back in line with reality, and that means re-educating the masses as to just what proper golf looks and feels like, golf as it is, for a great many people, is unsustainable. Once upon a time only the lord of the manor and chums could afford to join the golf club. Those folk effectively paid hefty sums to keep the course quiet. That is no longer the case but, as the game has become ever cheaper, overheads have got ever greater. Something there has to give and I'll suggest the answer doesn't lie in having a four ball going off ever six minutes during each and every waking hour of daylight.

[Ryan Coles]

Ryan,

Clearly you're in the right camp but I don't agree with your assessment that the game needs more members. If clubs have more members, great but, as I see it, half the problem lies in overly high maintenance costs which then require a club to have 700 members just to break even. When you're set up with the bar that high just to stay open, you're set up for a fall. I used to work for a commercial operation just like that and its ugly. 1,000 members means no one is happy as there's a permanent struggle just to get a tee time. A his stage perhaps Jon's on little venture might not be a bad comparison. I don't know the ins and outs of it and don't want to speak out of turn but I suspect Jon's model has weathered the recession far better with far few golfers than the more commercial operations.

The bottom line is that until overheads are brought back in line with reality, and that means re-educating the masses as to just what proper golf looks and feels like, golf as it is, for a great many people, is unsustainable. Once upon a time only the lord of the manor and chums could afford to join the golf club. Those folk effectively paid hefty sums to keep the course quiet. That is no longer the case but, as the game has become ever cheaper, overheads have got ever greater. Something there has to give and I'll suggest the answer doesn't lie in having a four ball going off ever six minutes during each and every waking hour of daylight.

Paul

Of course that isn't the answer, but I think you may be citing extreme examples at either end of the spectrum. I've analysed the accounts of a number of clubs and I believe you'd be be surprised at how much expense is non discretionary for a golf club. Then factor in wages, NI and pensions and by the way, these are in the main, very modest at all bar the elite places (Have a look at BIGGA salary recommendation).

Out of interest, what specifically would you cut/reduce from a run of the mill english golf club. Which by the way is not one with 700 members. Try 450 - 550 tops. And not all of them full payers by any means.

To cite this board today, I was interested to read in the other thread that you salvaged a booking for your club. Are they being frugal in having a poor/cheap template based website absent of key facts and decent photography, or is it a false economy?

[Paul Gray]

Well, let's start with the sprinklers. Beyond that, let's perhaps hold back on the endless hedge trimming and other neo-landscape gardening tricks ever kid straight out of greenkeeper school seems to want to demonstrate these days. I can live without a fairway shaped to look like the work of Picasso, particularly when that waste of time, effort and money only makes the course play worse.

Clearly you've seen account details where I haven't so I'd be interested if you can explain how one club can do perfectly well with 300 members and £25 green fees and another can struggle when those numbers are doubled. I genuinely don't have the answer but wonder whether the game as a whole hasn't got a lot to learn from Jon's sort of operation. Such examples, which you rightly point out are extreme, might well offer some solutions. 

As for my club, you perhaps give me a little too much credit for securing a booking. I'm just a member and was simply trying to help out another GCAer. More broadly however, the club has experienced periods of poor and incompetent management over the years, as is so often the case with such clubs. I'm pleased to say however that we do now seem to have a general manager that knows his beans and, if he can keep the standard band of self appointed experts at bay which ever club seems to attract, should be able to do a good job.

   

[Sean_A]

Any updates on the work Pont has done?

Ciao

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