As mentioned in Richards post there are deals to be had in most areas when it comes to golf . As an operator it makes no sense to be in a business where the price point continues to fall.
While we offer a variety of membership options , a base price for a core membership under $2,000 a year including cart fees would be untenable without having 600 golf members. At that number the ability to run the tee sheet is completely hopeless. Moreover , the quality of the experience would be so diluted that you wouldn't keep the 600 very long.
Therein lies the problem and more closures will occur .
Our golf course is quite good , playable but difficult enough to challenge expert players . We have a superb location outside Ocean City , NJ , a great vacation town with many wealthy summer residents. Our members are awesome , and keep recruiting new blood for us as long as we make it fun and fairly priced. However, without our location it would be very hard to maintain quality standards.
It's hard to assemble land and build in NJ , which now seems more a blessing than a curse (can't believe I'm saying this ). Despite this many of our competitors are struggling , and the area was overbuilt during the "boom" of the late 90's. The addition of untaxed , unregulated government owned courses inventory hasn't helped the local operator , small business owner. Also , you don't see many member groups coming forward that want to risk the financial capital and liability owning a course entails.
Suffice it to say some of the courses in our area are really feeling the pinch and their pricing reflects it . However they can't maintain good playing conditions and retain good employees for long with deep discounting. However, it
makes it difficult to keep pricing running even with inflation.
Not many products that require maintenance and management that cost less than it did twenty years ago . Kind of tells you what the inevitable outcome will be .