Sean - Your case for the average UK golfer is wrong though you might be nearer the mark if you were to say average UK golf member. Statiscally only about 30% of golfers play in the UK winter time, golf is very sun controlled. The biggest group of UK golfers are not members of clubs and most do just play 5-15 times but they are golfers none the less. We have over 1000 members, you would be amazed how many people have played 100 times and you would be amazed how many have played less than 15 times... those figures are 9 and 671. An average club member throughout the UK plays 40 times (though not all at his club) the statistics of patterns of play can get distorted, seniors play the most, juniors can tally crazy summer runs. A lot of people dont even care about competitions or keeping their handicap these days and do not want to pay the EGU levy (about £13 per year). Booze is becoming part of a round too, many courses have added half way houses and the tempt of not selling a bottle of beer at £3 well, its what the customer wants.
Golf is changing and the bastion of what once was will go, the new golfer wants so much different, I think pockets of 'old school golf clubs' will still be there but not so many, there will be change and the change starts as soon you see the signs of clubs taking 2-4-1 vouchers, dropping the joining fee etc in order to compete....it drops its guard, its drop its standard, for many ofcourse it is survival. There wont be enough room for every golf course to maintain its standards of course conditioning, staff will have to go, greens cut every other day, fairways weekly (even sheep)... the simple reason is cost of course and when you look at patterns of play you see many members that are low users jacking their membership in favour of casual play when its sunny.
Adrian,
These stats are very interesting, and I suspect you'd get different results if compared against the US clubs that members of this board are members in, or at least those who think you can't have more than 300 members for per 18 hole course seem to believe so. The UK folks are always shocked how much clubs in the US cost, the US guys are always shocked at how little the UK clubs cost. Further, the UK folks never seem to realize what a very small percentage of all the golfers in the US belong to a club, whereas those of us in the US don't often quite grasp the comparatively large percentage of all the golfers in the UK who do belong to a club.
So I see a sort of a chicken and an egg dilemma. If clubs here cost more like what the UK clubs cost, a lot more people would be interesting in joining a club. Guys like me, who play my nominal "home" course perhaps 20 times in a banner year. If clubs in the UK cost more like what the ones in the US did, there would be far fewer in the UK who belonged to a club.
Is it the relatively higher cost that has fewer in the US joining a club, or is it because so few in the US want to join a club, that the cost must be higher to support it?
When I see a thread like this saying that a club needs to charge $500/month to be viable with the size of membership it must be limit itself to, I see guys like me totally ignored. Sure, I can afford it, but why pay $6000/yr for a club when I could pay the greens fees on public courses I play now, and have enough leftover for a week in Scotland? It only becomes reasonable if I move into an area where greens fees on decent courses average $100, and I play 2-3x as much as I do now!
Maybe struggling clubs need to rethink what kind of golfers they are trying to attract. Having some sort of weekday 9a-3p only membership, or some sort of lower tier membership that limits you to playing a certain number of rounds per year and perhaps restricts other amenities available to full members (total number of guests per year, pay if you want a locker, pay a surcharge to play on weekends, whatever) Get creative! Just don't go overboard and make it as confusing as buying an airline ticket