[Adrian_Stiff]

An aside here if I may.

Historically some clubs continued to exist but occasionally changed location. For example if paid £$€ by developers for their current urban site and move elsewhere as a result. Has there been much of this over the last few decades? Kings Norton in Birmingham, UK, would be an example from a few decades ago.

In addition, many a 9-hole club has increased itself to 18-holes over time. I appreciate the discussion we've had herein many a time that 9-holes doesn't cost proportionally less to operate than 18-holes, but have any declining 18-hole (or more) clubs sold off any of their land, for say development, and used the resulting £€$ to continue existing as say a 9-holer rather than going out of existance altogether?

Just curious.

Atb

In the UK, selling land for building can be around $1,000,000 per acre. The need to sell of half a course would really generate enough money to go and build 18 somewhere else. That aside, clubs may do away with their practice grounds to raise money. Plenty of UK clubs do not have one or a not great one and it does not overly detract. 9 hole golf courses are really unattractive to membership if nearby 18 hole options exist. Obtaining planning for housing on golf courses in many parts of the UK is literally hitting the jackpot, even a plot for half a dozen properties can be very lucrative.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Watching professionals play golf on television for millions of dollars during 4-5+ hour rounds sets a horrible example of how to play the game.

True, but part of it is just the sheer availability of television coverage.  Back in the day, you were lucky to have the back 9 on Sunday on TV.  Now they show the frigging pro-am!  And as far as tour pace of play, it has always been a problem.  Ironically, I recently watched a rebroadcast of the Trevino/Nicklaus US Open playoff at Merion and Nicklaus was absolutely GLACIAL.  I mean unbelievable.  Of course Trevino had the ball in the air before Jack's ball came to rest...

[Jon Wiggett]

Here in the UK there is a problem with the time it takes to play a round of 18 holes but for me it is the lack of exposure through terrestrial TV compared to the boom times which means very few none golfers ever see the game and so are not motivated to try it.


Jon

[Kalen Braley]

 All of these factors, economic, pace of play, equipment costs, busy-ness, jobs, family,etc all contribute to its decline and there is certainly no end in sight...

Its "all of the above" because its different reason for everyone.  I don't play nearly as much as I used to due to the cost factor and busy with kids ...

[Mark Pavy]

We're all very good at identifying the problems.....how about a solution?

There are two technological improvements that will dramatically change golf for the better.

1) Low cost, high power, mobile LED lights.
2) Strontium Aluminate Photoluminescent Golf Balls

The combination provides the ideal Night Golf experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgfCobC74-w

[Adrian_Stiff]

Here in the UK there is a problem with the time it takes to play a round of 18 holes but for me it is the lack of exposure through terrestrial TV compared to the boom times which means very few none golfers ever see the game and so are not motivated to try it.


Jon

I agree and I think we need Pro Celebrity Golf back on, that would do much more for getting new golfers.

[Sean_A]

.....there are too many courses for the current economy to support.  All the other talk is just talk.


Ciao

100% correct, but the next step is to identify the reasons why there are less rounds of golf played than before.
Here are a few, and there may be lot's more.


Time it takes to play the game.
Cost to play the game.
Less available time due to modern life pressures.
TV attractions now missing the big names, Tiger-Faldo-Nicklaus.
Game has become boring.
Courses have become boring.


Golf will always have to compete with other sports and past-times for it's market share.

Less rounds than what...the boom days?  The boom days was a spike in history and not a good baseline to determine how many courses were necessary to fill the supply. To me it doesn't really matter why people aren't turning to golf beyond the cost limitations. All the other reasons are fringe stuff and if solved still wouldn't provide enough golfers to fill the slots. There is no mass solution, only solutions on an individual course basis.  Its a bit like musical chairs....if you survive another 10 years things will probably look brighter.


Ciao   

[John Kavanaugh]

Only because inexpensive barely average courses are over crowded leading to slow rounds I don't think time to play is the problem. I mean really, once you get out and start having a good time is the wife any happier if you come home in three, four or five hours?

[BHoover]

I love that this same debate (along with the debate about cart/caddy/trolley) pops up every few weeks.

[BCowan]

I love that this same debate (along with the debate about cart/caddy/trolley) pops up every few weeks.

You are helping come to the realization I need to join a bowling league this winter.  Looking forward to some Pickleball in a few weeks! 

[Tom_Doak]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

Terry:


I agree with most of what you wrote [other than the sentence I highlighted in bold; I was in Montecito yesterday and I didn't see much suffering].  My point was that the 300-member model that's been the norm in the US for decades was terribly misguided and unsustainable for most clubs, and now that the economy is bad it's pretty obvious.  What Chicago needs is for ten of those clubs to go away and the members be incorporated into other, bigger clubs ... but nobody wants to be on the losing team, so they are all suffering.  [Well, again, not all.  The top 10% are doing just fine.]  And then, as Ben picked up, the dues would be affordable, too.

[Terry Lavin]

Tom:


You're comparing the Valley Club and Montecito to the upper middle class?  Montecito is not upper middle class. It's not what you call the "top 10%."  Oprah retired there. The Valley Club's average member lifts his economic leg and pisses on all of Chicago, but especially the South Side. Beverly could go to 400 members. Olympia could try for 1000. That wouldn't help the troubled business model a bit. Unless all of the Valley Club members would join our clubs as national members.

As if.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:


You're comparing the Valley Club and Montecito to the upper middle class?  Montecito is not upper middle class. It's not what you call the "top 10%."  Oprah retired there. The Valley Club's average member lifts his economic leg and pisses on all of Chicago, but especially the South Side. Beverly could go to 400 members. Olympia could try for 1000. That wouldn't help the troubled business model a bit. Unless all of the Valley Club members would join our clubs as national members.

I'm sorry Terry.  I misread your earlier statement as the "middle and upper classes".  Even after highlighting it!  I know what percentile Montecito residents fit into, and it requires a decimal point to state accurately.


Note:  Olympia Fields probably did have 1000 members at one time, didn't it?  And they found out once before that wasn't enough to support four courses, so they cut it back to two; but they didn't get back to 1000 members when they could have. 

[Terry Lavin]

Tom:


Not sure of the big # when OFCC had 4 courses but the recent high was 525 with a waiting list before the 2008 crash. I dropped in '10 when I went on the bench and I don't know the real numbers now but it was in the 15% dropout range at least. It will always survive, even if a couple neighbors join Ravisloe in going public or going to pasture. Bev and Oly will always be there. To think that some others may not is painful, but c'est la vie.

[Kalen Braley]

I'm curious, as I really don't know.  Is there any path for a private to take a public or city/county owned route?  Or is the land always too valuable that it'll be sold and put to use for another purpose?

[Craig Sweet]

Land is expensive
Golf is expensive
Golf is difficult
To many other things are cheaper and easier

[Jon Wiggett]

Here in the UK there is a problem with the time it takes to play a round of 18 holes but for me it is the lack of exposure through terrestrial TV compared to the boom times which means very few none golfers ever see the game and so are not motivated to try it.


Jon

I agree and I think we need Pro Celebrity Golf back on, that would do much more for getting new golfers.

I had forgotten about that and 'A Round with Alliss'. I agree, it would be great to get the pro-celeb back on again maybe with a few of the senior players. I am not sure who could replace Peter these days though.


Jon

[Mark Pritchett]

Course closures vary by market and also for various reasons.  Supply/demand, poor management, location, etc.

[RussBaribault]

Sorry Jack is just wrong about the golf ball! if anything AM's hitting golf ball longer only helps them get out more. The reason golf is down is time and money! Unless you are committed to golf, it's hard to make commitment. Also, give me a break with this distance stuff. Maybe this golf ball and distance stuff helps 5% of golfers. Go watch a driving range or the first tee at a private or public course. Golfers are worse now than they ever have been. Considering how great the balls are, how much better equipment is and how much more focus there is on fitness, training and video technology. The average handicap is no better than it was 20-30 years ago. The elite/professions/committed good AM's may be better, but that's about it. Finally, as a 35 year old with two young daughters and a two income family (played 42 times in 2016 and not a member at private club) they are too expensive on a per round average.

[BCowan]

Sorry Jack is just wrong about the golf ball! if anything AM's hitting golf ball longer only helps them get out more. The reason golf is down is time and money! Unless you are committed to golf, it's hard to make commitment. Also, give me a break with this distance stuff. Maybe this golf ball and distance stuff helps 5% of golfers. Go watch a driving range or the first tee at a private or public course. Golfers are worse now than they ever have been. Considering how great the balls are, how much better equipment is and how much more focus there is on fitness, training and video technology. The average handicap is no better than it was 20-30 years ago. The elite/professions/committed good AM's may be better, but that's about it. Finally, as a 35 year old with two young daughters and a two income family (played 42 times in 2016 and not a member at private club) they are too expensive on a per round average.

Russ,

   If i ever get to build a club you are my dream member.  Someone with common sense.  It isn't our fault that in the Golden Age we turned away from Golf and made it into a circus of weddings, swimming, tennis.  Building 40,000 sqft monstrosities to out do the jones.  Many are going to National member route and finding a solid course an hour away as an option. 

Then we went off the Gold Standard and two incomes needed to live same lifestyle our grandparents lived.  But hey, the Stock market is doing good for some.. 

[Dave Doxey]

There is a current oversupply of courses, due to over-building of unsustainable courses during the last 2 decades.  The law of supply and demand will correct that, although the process will be uncomfortable for courses that go away.   Better business models and operating efficiency will mark surviving courses. 


Sadly, the current oversupply means that costs to play are at a low point.  As supply contracts, prices will go up!


On the demand side, I don’t see anything doing much to increase the number of players.  For reasons mentioned in earlier posts, play will decrease, or stay even at best.  Fewer courses and higher prices will not help.


I suspect that in the future, we’ll see a game populated by mostly by true “enthusiasts”, with the casual/occasional golfer less involved.  Most of those joined during the “golf bubble”, when golf for the new fad.


Not sure about the private-public ratio…  Pace of play is the only advantage that I see in a private these days.

[RussBaribault]

Ben--I think these courses and most all of the private course have and some/public have these facilities for wedding and every other event is only good if they are profitable. Give me a fun/playable golf course with great people and get me around in under 4 hours and I would and can afford to join. Another thing about these private courses is they entice with what look like low dues, but nickle and dime you to death. They are run like corporations and everything is a "profit center" from the range, to the carts, to the pool ect ect.

For me.....I network get around on many private courses. I pay my greens fees ect and my cost per round is a heck of alot lower than the membership at one course...plus I played 36 different courses in 2016 on 42 rounds versus most at one course.

[Jason Topp]

I have always thought that the transition from competitive junior to young adult is an area where the game loses a large portion of participants who have already overcome the most difficult obstacle in the game - learning how to play.

What percentage of high school golf team members enthusiastically play the game when they are 28?  I suspect it is less than 25%.

I see hoards of kids working like crazy at their game, playing in junior and high school tournaments.  A large percentage of those people are not good enough to play college golf and, it seems to me, most of them stop during college or early in their professional life because of cost, time, professional responsibilities, kids and, probably most importantly, the game seems a bit hollow without the rush of competition and the fun of significant improvement juniors experience because their bodies mature and the significant amount of time they have available to work on their games.

I am not sure how to overcome those hurdles but it does seem to me that the industry could really build participation by focusing on ways to retain this group of people as enthusiasts.  I see a lot of junior golf programs but if I were in the industry, I would focus on programs for people 18-28.

[Tom_Doak]

I'm curious, as I really don't know.  Is there any path for a private to take a public or city/county owned route?  Or is the land always too valuable that it'll be sold and put to use for another purpose?

If the course was privately owned, the owner could donate it to the city and get a big tax write-off for doing so -- if he could convince the city to take it.  But I don't know that a member-owned course has any way to do that and pass the tax credits down to the membership.  If there was a way, I would guess a few clubs would be doing it.

[Jason Connor]

The fact that the ball travels much farther than it used to because of better club and ball technology - increases the time it takes to play and the cost of a round.  Pulling a ball off the tee and having it go 20-30 yards farther results in more balls lost and longer searches.   The need to have more real estate drives costs up significantly.  I believe these are the factors that Jack was alluding to.

Having said that - I also agree that his own personal style of slow play that was mimicked by a generation of golfers has been a big contributor!

This is precisely what i was thinking -- so thanks for saving me the time to write it!

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()