State of golf in UK

[David Ober]

The grass is always browner on the other side of the fence.

Funny ... and only on GCA. 

[Paul Gray]

Yes if you can get houses on your golf course then you have hit the Jackpot of Jackpots.

The Players Club used to have some land inside a proposed boundary, would be nice if they moved the line back.

Ryan Coles' Knowle is a good candidate.

All of this is correct and all of the blame can be laid at the door of successive governments that have failed to address the chronic propert shortage in this country. Increase supply and prices go down.

[Matt Day]

This was an interesting feature article in the Sunday Times newspaper in Perth 2 weeks. A key theme was the conversion of the majority of 18 hole golf courses to 9 holes to as a tool to limit urban sprawl.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/future-perth-900000-new-homes-without-the-urban-sprawl/story-fnknbeni-1227098457513

[Paul Gray]

This was an interesting feature article in the Sunday Times newspaper in Perth 2 weeks. A key theme was the conversion of the majority of 18 hole golf courses to 9 holes to as a tool to limit urban sprawl.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/future-perth-900000-new-homes-without-the-urban-sprawl/story-fnknbeni-1227098457513

Well that's certainly wonderful......if the aim is more congestion. One of your greatest commodities in a world of rising populations is lots and lots of land. But apparently it would be better to cram everyone in like sardines by removing green (or brown ) field sites. Genius.

[Sean_A]

The supply will never meet the demand...or should I say fake demand with stupidly artificially low interest rates.  Besides (and keeping in mind the outrageous interest rates which have caused bubble and burst previously), why is it down to government to mandate the building of houses? Surely, local authorities are best placed to decide where, when and how many.  What makes people think government is better placed for this decision-making...again, keeping in mind that government is massively pro-building as evidenced by low interest rates.  Where is it written that everybody deserves a house and that it is down to government to not only provide the housing, but seemingly the people as well?  England is overcrowded.  Spend a few days driving...its abundantly clear.  The pop density in England is double that of Germany and quadruple France.  I don't know where folks think the jobs and infrastructure is for all the new homes and people.  The good news is that the increased density is continuing to sky-rocket    

Even with the endless supply of folks...golf is down...not that this is a bad thing.

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

In the Manchester/Cheshire area it is a number of long-established clubs (over 100 years old) which are apparently most in danger of folding, two of them along the banks of the River Mersey in the Manchester suburbs. One small pay-and-play facility (Mobberley, 9-holes, very badly designed) closed recently in order for a wealthy local football star to build a very big house in the grounds.

I was working last week for a client in Plumley near Knutsford, and the conversation soon turned to golf. This brought home to me just how many golf courses have sprung up in the last 25 years in that area alone. Within 15 minutes of his home;

Vale Royal Abbey
Hartford
High Legh Park
Antrobus
Heyrose
Woodside
Peover
Mobberley

Of these, only Heyrose and Antrobus feature in Mark's 1994 book 'The Golf Courses of Cheshire', and they were brand new at the time.

These new proprietary clubs outnumber the more traditional members' clubs in the same area;

Delamere Forest
Sandiway
Knutsford
Lymm
Wilmslow
Mere (Proprietary but long established and very posh)
Dunham Forest

Anyone with any local knowledge perusing these two lists will immediately see that with the possible exception of Vale Royal all the quality is in the second one. It will also be clear that there would have been a real shortage of golf provision before all these new courses were built - the R&A announcement of 1989 gets a lot of stick but IMO it made a lot of sense - the trouble is that things went too far. In the area in question golf provision more than doubled over the next 15 years - that is a rate of increase that cannot be sustained in any industry.

And this is just one little area of rural north-west England which I happen to know about - I'm sure that it is not unique.

Recently of course, the inevitable failures have started to happen.  Mobberley and Peover went bust this year and have closed. There is no suggestion that they will re-open. Others will surely follow.

My client was a member at Peover, it being only a couple of minutes from his home. He joined there on taking up the game a few years ago. His criteria for choosing a new club were very interesting in the context of this discussion.

Firstly, he did not want anything to do with another proprietary club. His experience at Peover of poor maintenance over a number of years had convinced him that only a club owned and run by its members would suit him.

Secondly, he was not prepared to pay a joining fee. A successful professional man and a high net worth individual in his early fifties, I would not have thought that this would be a barrier, but he objected to the idea on principle. Thus ruling out the obvious candidates such as Delamere, Sandiway or Wilmslow, he had plumped for Lymm, a middle of the road, bog standard, OK but nothing special traditional members club with fees of under a grand a year. He clearly loves it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzwJA5KZAEQ

An anecdote about one man who took up golf in his forties - but I suspect that it may be significant.

He is exactly the type of guy the game (and the industry) needs to attract.

[Sean_A]

Duncan

The problem with your ideal candidate is that he is not interested in the long term health of the club.  He clearly believes when the current one closes, he will move on.  Joining fees are not a luxury for clubs.  My point, members like that are only a stay of execution for clubs trying to low ball their existence.  

UK clubs have had golf too cheap.  There can be no other explanation for the poor state of so many courses.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

All of this is correct and all of the blame can be laid at the door of successive governments that have failed to address the chronic propert shortage in this country. Increase supply and prices go down.

Property shortage - cause - increasing population - 5.2m more population since 2000 - that's a 8% increase in 14 yrs. From 1990-2000 the increase was only 1.6m or 2.5%. I suspect a certain Govt elected in 1997 had rather a lot to do with this.

BTW, I wonder how many of the 5.2m more since 2000 are - or arn't - playing golf!

atb

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Duncan,

Lymm is, indeed, bog standard - it gets very wet in winter!

[Adam Lawrence]

Lymm does however have an _extremely_ good course manager in Stuart Yarwood.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Duncan

The problem with your ideal candidate is that he is not interested in the long term health of the club.  He clearly believes when the current one closes, he will move on.  Joining fees are not a luxury for clubs.  My point, members like that are only a stay of execution for clubs trying to low ball their existence.  

UK clubs have had golf too cheap.  There can be no other explanation for the poor state of so many courses.

Ciao

Not so Sean.

The chap I'm talking about has joined an established members' club because he wants to be part of it in the long term, rather than just being a customer of a proprietor who may sell up or go bust at any minute. He is very much the kind of member all clubs would love to attract.

Joining fees these days are very much a luxury of those clubs fortunate enough to have full or nearly full memberships and with people queuing up to join. These clubs are in a small minority of clubs nationwide. My client's objection to paying a joining fee was interesting; I am accustomed to people being put off joining a particular club because the joining fee makes it prohibitively expensive for them, but this chap clearly can afford it. He just doesn't see why he should.

I can see this attitude becoming more widespread, with even fewer clubs being able to command a joining fee. Not paying a joining fee doesn't necessarily make for uncommitted members. Equally, a joining fee doesn't make people 'loyal'. It simply means that they lose money if they leave. It's almost blackmailing people to stay! It's no wonder if newcomers to the game are hostile to the very idea.

If all clubs had kept joining fees and no-one broken ranks, I agree that clubs would probably be in a better state today. I didn't pay a joining fee at my club because I didn't need to. These days no-one needs to. If I had had to pay one however, I would have had done. Not having paid a joining fee doesn't make me any less a committed and proud member of Reddish Vale.

For better or for worse, amongst mainstream clubs the joining fee genie is out of the bottle and will not be going back in any time soon.

[Sean_A]

Duncan

You view joining fees as an economic luxury, but in truth, over the long haul, for many clubs it is an economic necessity.  The thing is, we won't know which clubs will survive and clubs are rolling the dice blind.  That isn't necessarily a bad plan given the choices, but some how, some way at some point, clubs will have to properly invest in their courses. That funding has to come from source.  If not the members, will it be 10,000 rounds a year at £15 a pop...not likely.  As Adrian states, reduced fees for already cheapish courses and no joining fees is a death spiral.  That said, for the most part what is going down is no great loss. 

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

Joining fees per se are not an economic necessity for anyone.  If that income can be made up through increased annual subscriptions, green fees, or even profit on bar takings then a club can afford to do away with the joining fee.

What I am detecting is a cultural aversion to the very idea of paying a joining fee from an upcoming generation of potential golf club members. I'm not talking about kids; these are relatively successful middle aged men like most people joining golf clubs always have been.

I suspect that a more reliable way of predicting which clubs will survive and which will not will be the amount of debt that they are carrying. Adrian said on an earlier thread that not many UK golf clubs are heavily in debt. From what I hear back from meetings of golf club managers in the north-west this is clearly not the case, and many clubs are drowning under debt commitments, even with interest rates at a crazy low.

[Mark Pearce]

Last week, Josie and I played 9 holes at one of the most impoverished golf courses within a 30 minute radius.  It was a Thursday noon and the sun was out in this extended Indian Summer we have been having and the course was highly playable, with greens that were superb and a routing over heathland that any of the real GCAs on this site would die to be able to develop.  It will die sooner than my local course, because it's funding is so poor (we were offerred £8 daily for as many holes as we wanted to play, 7 days of the week), and the players who used to play there are getting older and more frail, every day.  The land is beautiful enough and close enough (and well seved by transport) to the money pots of Edinburgh to attract housing investment, which nearby areas have done already.

Rich,

Where is this?  Sounds worth a visit when  in the area.

Mark

[Adrian_Stiff]

There is no doubt that the customer hates the Joining Fee and it is for the reasons Duncan states. Sean's take is that a lot of green fees are too expensive and will pay the winter rate but not so keen on rack rate. You are both not so far apart and I find myself scrolling through the Amazon prices to save 1p on the price of a cd, so you can count me in on the same rat race.

Establishing that price is king, joining fee is horrible word and loyalty and discount are buzz words I did this a few years ago.

Membership was £850 per year and it was £1000 to join (they could pay £200 each year).

Then we removed the joining fee a couple of April's ago.

At the same time we put up the membership fee up £150 to £1000 and created a loyalty scheme where by members receive £150 discount if they have been members for 6 years. Everybody was gifted 6 years loyalty who were members previous year.

So we effectively run with two prices, no one tries to beat us down on the joining fee because there is not one. Members are happy with their lower price. The vile joining fee word is omitted and loyalty word included. ££££ = the same.

[Sean_A]

Arian

Okay, you significantly raised your fees.  That is a joining fee by another name.  Either way, you recognized the capital was necessary to make the course function properly.  In other words, you took action to stem off the obvious future decline of the club.  That is my entire point.  Clubs and courses cannot continue to operate well on smaller budgets in a competitive market.  At some point, clubs will have to take action and find ways to increase revenue.  If cutting the joining fees out and reducing green fees is still not getting the job done, what next? 

Ciao

[Jon Wiggett]

Sean,

clubs need to be able to live within the yearly budget and not rely on one off joining fees. Fortunately here in the UK joining fees have been historically non existent or very low. I am somewhat surprised by you apparent elitist attitude displayed in the last few post you have made. Low cost golf produces a lower quality of course condition where as higher prices should produce a higher quality. I think the majority of players here in the UK prefer a moderate cost for a moderate standard.

Jon

[Adrian_Stiff]

Sean I take the view if you reduce your green fees 20% you got to take 20% more to get back to where you were.

Raise the green fees 10% makes more sense and accept you are going to lose a few.

Our Summer weekday green fee is £48, Our County card, society rate, members guest rate is £36, Our Winter weekday green fee is £28.
I reckon we do 70% at £36, 20% at £48 and 10% at £28.

At £36, five or six 4 balls a day covers the costs.

Green fees are worth 50% of our golf income and Memberships the other 50%.

% of play is 80% members 20% visitors.

Members are the soul and you need them to make a club. I suspect a lot of the better clubs will have a similar split and that's why they can trade at less than 10 green fees equalling an annual membership fee.

Increasing revenue? I think clubs should look at their land and the possibilities of finding a few plots, perhaps a little reconfigure, or maybe lose the practice ground, might not be a pretty answer but it's like gangarine in the leg, lose the leg or lose yourself. Obviously no fixed answer for everyone, if clubs do have high debt then its hard to make a surplus in this climate, location can kill everything, what the locals are doing is a clear controller of what you can do and as Duncan has said many times the North West courses are all fighting for the same food that they have all negotiated down to crumbs.

Jon - In the South/West most had a joining fee, I can't think of one the did not, but that's the South, probably very different in other areas. I think your spot on with moderate and moderate, which as the £800 point I was trying to make. Scottish set ups look as if they have been set up that visitor income is a given, subs are very low (too low by 50%) if another 9/11 comes along and the Americans give up the travel you have business plans that won't work. The contra point is if Club A is £450 how can Club B be £700 when it's not so good an the doors are Open at Club A.......which returns us to No nice answers conundrum... Sorry to say but some clubs do need to close to make others sustainable.

[Rich Goodale]

Last week, Josie and I played 9 holes at one of the most impoverished golf courses within a 30 minute radius.  It was a Thursday noon and the sun was out in this extended Indian Summer we have been having and the course was highly playable, with greens that were superb and a routing over heathland that any of the real GCAs on this site would die to be able to develop.  It will die sooner than my local course, because it's funding is so poor (we were offerred £8 daily for as many holes as we wanted to play, 7 days of the week), and the players who used to play there are getting older and more frail, every day.  The land is beautiful enough and close enough (and well seved by transport) to the money pots of Edinburgh to attract housing investment, which nearby areas have done already.

Rich,

Where is this?  Sounds worth a visit when  in the area.

Mark

Ping me when you next plan up here, Mark.  I'll even pay for your green fee!  If I told you the name of the course on this gossip rag I would have to kill myself....

Rich

[Sean_A]

Sean,

clubs need to be able to live within the yearly budget and not rely on one off joining fees. Fortunately here in the UK joining fees have been historically non existent or very low. I am somewhat surprised by you apparent elitist attitude displayed in the last few post you have made. Low cost golf produces a lower quality of course condition where as higher prices should produce a higher quality. I think the majority of players here in the UK prefer a moderate cost for a moderate standard.

Jon

Jon

Not elitist at all.  When I see tree and rough encroachment, thatch in greens and drainage issues neglected, my response is the club can't afford to properly keep the course.  Clubs need surplus revenue each year...its called reserves.  Now that times are hard, choices are quite limited by lack of funds.  Members can have cheap golf if the club doesn't fold, but in the long run its better to take care of the asset.

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

Sean - Almost all UK courses have too many trees or rough encroachment, product of the game I think where the majority see hitting the ball straight off the tee as a key point to the game of golf. I don't see that as bad or improper management if that is there set up.

Thatch is a by product of turf, most have too much because the golfers demand great surfaces for too long, Spring perhaps Autumn as well they accept a couple of weeks of remedial work. Ideally work should be done monthly, but you do end up with producing great surfaces for a short time. Members bleat when there are holes and again when there is disease. No nice answer really.

Drainage can be bettered at some courses others could spend millions and on heavy clay with a wet winter not really get it dry...so horses for courses, the best sides are round the edges or on the hills and with the demand inferior sites are chosen as the location (the most important thing) is a big over-rider.

By an large in England you pretty much know what your going to get for pound note, the cheap quirky ones loved on here have other golfing flaws...that aside striving for better conditions are not always so costly, just removing the dew on heavy mornings help dry a golf course, on a sunny day why waste its power by letting it burn for 4 hours to get the dew off, two men each on a buggy with some hosepipe can clear 13 or 14 fairways in an hour.

Reserves are essential as you say.

[Jon Wiggett]

Adrian,

I do not know about the SW but certainly in the Northeast entry fees were not common until the boom of the late 80's when they became common place and even charging for being on the waiting list was done by some. So an example such as Howley Hall is that for the first 87 years it had none followed by 15 years of having an entry fee of 65% of the annual subs. Though Howley still has an entry fee many have now given it up hence my comment that joining fees have been historically non existent or very low.

I am not sure what you idea is on the average Scottish is but I can assure you that it is not a reliance on US visitors. Most clubs around here will not see more than a handful if any such players who are usually doing a tour of the big names. Were there to be a prolonged absence of US visitors then it would be the likes of King Barnes, Trump, Castle Stuart and I dare say Dornoch that would take the hit but certainly not the lesser courses.

The reason for lower fees in the Highlands is generally that expectations are lower. Clubhouses are usually shut through the week except in the high season and of a much simpler nature. There is far less play in the winter and the growing season is much shorter (I recon 2 months less than yours) hence lower costs and lower fees.

I still maintain that if you price is a fair one for the product you are offering then you will do okay though a course in a better location can demand  a higher price than a better quality course further away.

Sean,

I think you are super imposing your perception of 'properly keep the course'. I judge the a course by value for money and accept that a low green fee usually means a lower standard. Historically many clubs in the Highlands have just covered their costs from year to year and yet have managed to muddle through for many decades or even centuries. The membership rate is there to cover the yearly running costs and so low costs low membership fee. High costs, higher membership fee. It is surely up to the members what quality of course they want to pay for. Were greenfees revenue to collapse at a well know local club I doubt they would be able to triple the membership fees to cover the lost revenue.

I understand what you are getting at but do not agree with what you appear to be pushing which is there is no place for cheap membership clubs.

Jon

[Thomas Dai]

......... just removing the dew on heavy mornings help dry a golf course, on a sunny day why waste its power by letting it burn for 4 hours to get the dew off, two men each on a buggy with some hosepipe can clear 13 or 14 fairways in an hour

Interesting idea. Pretty cunning as well for not only will this remove the dew, but it also makes it appear to a players eye as if the grass has been cut but only 1 hrs manpower has been used and no normal cutting machinery, less fuel etc.

By the way Adrian, you, and Jon as well, have made some very pertinent points on this and other similar ongoing threads and been very open with many figures so thank you for this as it's really aided my understanding of matters to hear directly from those at the sharp end of the business.

Atb

[Adrian_Stiff]

Jon - Yes with Scottish clubs I know its only the top 20% and on a sliding scale that get benifit from tourists. There is still the fall out though that those great clubs (because of their US income) can offer the memberships at a price perhaps 30-50% less than it should be. Those outside that group that are still good courses have their membership fees driven down somewhat...would that be a fair assumption?

The North - South has always been a financial divide, the further you go West of Swindon the £££ dry up, golf in Cornwall is very cheap for membership, so its pretty universal.

We have had a pretty good year down in Bristol, I would have thought all the clubs have done okay. Could still do with a couple of closures though, hope its not ours or if it is, its because we got housing!

[Paul Gray]

All of this is correct and all of the blame can be laid at the door of successive governments that have failed to address the chronic propert shortage in this country. Increase supply and prices go down.

Property shortage - cause - increasing population - 5.2m more population since 2000 - that's a 8% increase in 14 yrs. From 1990-2000 the increase was only 1.6m or 2.5%. I suspect a certain Govt elected in 1997 had rather a lot to do with this.

BTW, I wonder how many of the 5.2m more since 2000 are - or arn't - playing golf!

atb

Respectfully, there's a lot of guff talked about population increases in a country which is still, inch for inch, overwhelmingly rural. It's much like the ridiculous argument being put forward that we're that desperate for land that we need to start seizing land on golf courses to built affordable housing. Utter nonsense.

The only housing problem in this country is as a result of government pandering to small minded nimbys that often live in marginal constituencies. As a result, housing gets ever more expensive in real terms, people therefore have to embed themselves in absurd levels of debt in order to buy astarter home and the first decent Governor of the Bank of England for quite a while has to keep interest rates ridiculously low in order to avoid mass repossession.