Golf in Scotland is sinking fast

[Jon Wiggett]

I believe the threshold was once a month for non member golfers.

[Niall C]

To check out this thesis, today I stopped in at a small town club in Scotland which I'd never seen in my travels.  (I had only got to about 10km away before.)


They have nine holes of rugged links terrain with a few houses about.  The locker room had 14 lockers; the handicap sheet indicated about 20 full members and 40 seniors.  The honesty tray of used golf balls for 20p was a clear indicator.


I fear its time is short and the local golfers will have to drive to the next town 10 minutes up the road to play.  A shame really as it is a lovely wee course, and once it's gone, the kids who grow up there will be much less likely to take up golf.  The primary school is right next to the clubhouse.  Perhaps they will keep two or three holes even if the club folds?  One can hope.


I wish I had been there on a busier day to meet some of the members and hear what it means to them.

Tom

Without knowing which club/course you are referring to, I'd be happy to have a wager with you that this particular club/course will still be there in 5 years time. Once you get out of the central belt in Scotland, an awful lot of clubs are modest in scale and even more modest in budget. That's their normal MO.

Niall

[Adrian_Stiff]

I believe the threshold was once a month for non member golfers.

I don't think there is any rule as such. I consider myself a golfer and I play about 8 times a year, I got lots of mates than play perhaps twice a year they say they play golf.
I just did the playing stats for our course.


26% of our members played less than 28 times
less than 1% of or members played over 100 times
almost 2% never played once!
The main number range is 30-45 times


Quite a lot of people think if they only played 30 times they did not get their value from their membership.


All stats can be twisted but I think the main big minus is there are not as many rounds of golf played than previous years and that statistic is growing. If you are a member it is because you want to play lots, if your not a member then by and large you dont get value as you dont play enough. The gap between the membership and nomadic is widening to the Nomads though.

[Tom_Doak]

I think it is back to the how many rounds do you have to play to be a golfer and of course there is no definitive.
There is a distinct pattern though from
eager player to give up/rarely play


 = a member of a golf club
play for x years get better/ decent handicap/ win competitions


THEN COMES AN EVENT that changes your lifestyle...say a baby but it could be moving jobs, location lots of different reasons non golfing.  YOU FIND THAT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO PLAY AS MUCH so you stop being a member.


When you play you dont play as well so you dont enjoy it and if you dont enjoy it you dont crave further golf.


YOU ARE STILL A GOLFER BUT you might only play once a year.


STILL AS MANY GOLFERS but distortion of the amount of rounds golfers once played and deep down that is the important figure.

For many, the EVENT is that they can no longer afford to play so much.


The problem is, too many in the golf business don't care about that.  The business-focused goal is to increase total revenue, but they don't care how.  They don't care if they drive away a lot of lifelong golfers, as long as there are enough people who will pay 3x as much that they come out ahead.  This may be good for their bottom line, but it is killing the sport.


P.S. to Niall:  I hope you are right about the little course I saw.  I tried to think through the numbers and could not see how it would work except on a purely volunteer-labor maintenance operation, but I'm told they actually still have a greenkeeper, at least part-time.  Bless him for fighting the good fight.

[David_Tepper]

Loch Ness GC in Inverness to close:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/inverness/1990041/anger-over-lack-of-consultation-as-18-hole-golf-course-in-inverness-to-close-due-to-continued-losses/

[Jon Wiggett]

I believe the threshold was once a month for non member golfers.

I don't think there is any rule as such.

It was the threshold that the study I referred to set for someone to be counted as 'a golfer' but not a member.


DT,


no big shock about Fairways Inverness (Lochness) as it has been a rumour around these parts for the last couple of years. The owners have spent next to nothing on the course in the last two years due to this and I would expect to see the planning application for housing on it by the summer.


Jon

[Thomas Dai]

Smaller rural courses all over the UK have long operated on a semi-volunteer, limited staff, low expectations, small clubhouse basis and as long as the semi-volunteers are prepared to carry on helping out many will most likely continue to do so.
I would suggest however, that their location and especially their soil type is critical. If they are built on sand or are generally free-draining where less maintenance in comparison to a parkland course is necessary, even if this requires seasonal animal grazing, they have a better chance of survival particularly if the members are prepared to keep their golfing expectations low and avoid acquiring ideas and airs and graces above what they can sensibly handle.

atb

[Adrian_Stiff]

I think it is back to the how many rounds do you have to play to be a golfer and of course there is no definitive.
There is a distinct pattern though from
eager player to give up/rarely play


 = a member of a golf club
play for x years get better/ decent handicap/ win competitions


THEN COMES AN EVENT that changes your lifestyle...say a baby but it could be moving jobs, location lots of different reasons non golfing.  YOU FIND THAT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO PLAY AS MUCH so you stop being a member.


When you play you dont play as well so you dont enjoy it and if you dont enjoy it you dont crave further golf.


YOU ARE STILL A GOLFER BUT you might only play once a year.


STILL AS MANY GOLFERS but distortion of the amount of rounds golfers once played and deep down that is the important figure.

For many, the EVENT is that they can no longer afford to play so much.


The problem is, too many in the golf business don't care about that.  The business-focused goal is to increase total revenue, but they don't care how.  They don't care if they drive away a lot of lifelong golfers, as long as there are enough people who will pay 3x as much that they come out ahead.  This may be good for their bottom line, but it is killing the sport.


P.S. to Niall:  I hope you are right about the little course I saw.  I tried to think through the numbers and could not see how it would work except on a purely volunteer-labor maintenance operation, but I'm told they actually still have a greenkeeper, at least part-time.  Bless him for fighting the good fight.

Tom- In the UK golf is still very cheap as you know, but time is the big killer. If you have a young family its very hard to justify the time to golf as a member (weekly golfer). Most golfers at some stage end up with young families. I don't think its the price in the UK but there also are a lot more distractions these days than in the 70s or 80s. SKY TV eats a lot of some peoples time, internet, a lot more have weekend breaks and all eat into those 52 weekends which dont make membership golf so appealing. A round is 4hrs 15 mins, it used to be 3 hours. Quite a big factor.

[Kalen Braley]

I think many in the golf industry are incorrectly/unjustly driving themselves crazy in trying to slow/end the rates of attrition in golf, which in my estimation is almost entirely out of their hands.

Demands from family and work are the old mainstays and old guys have always died off, but the biggest changes in the last 2 decades is the onslaught of competition from TV, Gaming, and Internet related applications and diversions for ones leisure team... that often cost far less and don't require a 4-5 hour time commitment per whack.  Yes it sucks, but people need to give themselves a break.  A lot of courses have closed, and a helluva lot more will probably follow suit...

[Thomas Dai]

In the UK golf is still very cheap as you know, but time is the big killer. If you have a young family its very hard to justify the time to golf as a member (weekly golfer). Most golfers at some stage end up with young families. I don't think its the price in the UK but there also are a lot more distractions these days than in the 70s or 80s. SKY TV eats a lot of some peoples time, internet, a lot more have weekend breaks and all eat into those 52 weekends which dont make membership golf so appealing. A round is 4hrs 15 mins, it used to be 3 hours. Quite a big factor.

Time to play isn’t just a factor for the younger generations either.
I regularly see older folks not want to spend 4+ hrs walking, especially if it’s cold or very warm, the more so if the pace of play is slow. 3+ hrs often seems to be enough for them, and they’ll walk in irrespective of how many holes they’ve played.
Atb

[Duncan Cheslett]

Time to play isn’t just a factor for the younger generations either.
I regularly see older folks not want to spend 4+ hrs walking, especially if it’s cold or very warm, the more so if the pace of play is slow. 3+ hrs often seems to be enough for them, and they’ll walk in irrespective of how many holes they’ve played.
Atb

At Cavendish all winter comps and roll-ups are played over 13 holes, generally missing out the loop 9-13. A bracing two and a half hours in the hills is more than enough for even the hardiest soul.


There is a palpable sigh from senior members when play reverts to a full 18 holes in March...

[Niall C]

Tom


I can think of a number of clubs/courses that I came across when I worked up in Moray that had small memberships and minimal greenkeeping staff.


They used to say that Spey Bay would close as soon as the ancient gang mower they used eventually packed in and at that time they didn't have a full time greenkeeper, it was someone who looked after the course a few evenings a week. Back then (8 or 9 years ago) the clubhouse comprised a basic timber building with toilets and basic changing area and greenfees were put into an honesty box. The last I heard the "clubhouse" had been tarted up and now there was a cafe of sorts in there and it was now manned at peak times. I doubt they have any more than one greenkeeper.


Across the mouth of the Spey is the Garmouth & Kington course with another very basic clubhouse that was unstaffed other than peak times like weekends. I don't know for sure but suspect it didn't have a full time greenkeeper either.


Likewise Keith with its 150 members. They owned the land the course was on but rented the clubhouse from the Council for a couple of thousand pounds a year. They had 1 greenkeeper.


Wick had one greenkeeper who was helped out occasionally by his dad and pals on a kind of artisan basis. Even Fraserburgh had only 2 greenkeepers plus an additional greenkeeper on a seasonal basis and they had two courses. You could probably so something similar about most clubs/courses outwith the main conurbations.


I would think that places like RDGC, Nairn and Castle Stuart are actually the exception rather than the rule. What I think keeps these places (ie. the likes of Keith and not Castle Stuart) going is a sense of ownership with the members volunteering their time and effort when required. That sense of ownership seems to be getting eroded these days with the bigger clubs which is why I think more than a few of them are in trouble.


Niall

[Niall C]

Can I also add that, notwithstanding the possible closure of various courses, that the title of this thread is alarmist nonsense. Golf in Scotland is changing but it's not disappearing in the way the title suggests. Some of those changes will inevitably lead to course closures but as someone else said, their has always been course closures and indeed Harry Ward wrote a book about it.


Niall

[Brian_Ewen]

In the UK golf is still very cheap as you know

I just do not understand how anyone could call golf in the UK cheap .... baffling.

[Duncan Cheslett]

In the UK golf is still very cheap as you know

I just do not understand how anyone could call golf in the UK cheap .... baffling.

I guess this is what Adrian means;


https://www.golfnow.co.uk/tee-times/courses-near-me#date=Feb+06+2020


Similar prices are to found in most parts of the UK. Clubs selling golf at under £15 a round must be unsustainable in the long run. It is no wonder that fewer people are joining clubs when casual golf is available at such a low price.


It's not just crappy courses either. I could play Stonehaven today at 12.12pm for £15 on a "Hot Deal". The club gets none of that money as it is taken by GolfNow towards payment for the BRS tee-booking system.


The ubiquity of GolfNow makes it simple for golfers to compare prices across clubs, driving down green fees generally in a race to the bottom. The elite clubs have been immune to this for a while, but for how long?


I am already seeing the posher clubs in my area offering big discounts to all-comers on GolfNow and advertising membership deals on Facebook. These are clubs which twenty years ago operated a "dead man's shoes" membership policy and would only allow visitor play as a member's guest.


There is definitely a cultural shift happening away from club membership towards small informal groups of friends who play among themselves regularly at different courses and communicate easily via WhatsApp or similar. These guys have no desire to commit to membership at one club or to play in competitions and acquire an official handicap. A cheap green fee and a fiver side bet with their mates followed by a couple of pints and a plate of chips is their way of playing golf.


It's difficult to knock it from their point of view but it doesn't help the traditional golf club model.





 

[Jon Wiggett]

Duncan,


you are spot on. The effect that Golfnow would have should have been obvious to anyone who looked at it. The fact that most clubs did not have the finance nor the knowhow to set up their own booking sites was also obvious. This is where the golfing unions who are supposed to be representing the best interests of their members should have stepped in and done this country wide.


It would be possible to reverse this even now but it seems that even the few schemes set up are not pushed which is a shame. I do wonder what is the reason why a club is a member of a union these days?


Jon

[Ulrich Mayring]

I've just looked at the Golf Now chart. These are certainly great prices and I suppose they prove that golf clubs have a huge profit margin at regular prices, if they can go so low without losing money. Certainly, in most countries many would take up the game at those prices.

Ulrich

[Adrian_Stiff]

In the UK golf is still very cheap as you know

I just do not understand how anyone could call golf in the UK cheap .... baffling.

You obviously struggle with basic maths and business sense. The Scots pay about £500 a year for golf. In England it is nearer £1000 for similar standard annual membership golf. The minimum wage is £8.72 in both places from April 1st this year. The cost of fuel is the same, the cost of machines is the same, the chemicals cost the same....So in ABC terms the Scots have priced their product too cheaply and now reap what they have sown... Scottish Clubs are closing fastest.


The Scottish model is unsustainable and the young scots have less interest in the game.



In Global terms £1000 per year for an English golf subscription is still very low.


Where do you think the money comes from to pay wages, chemicals, fuel, machinery repairs?


That is before energy costs, rents, perhaps rates. Our run cost is c£800,000 so £20 per round if we do 40,000 rounds...if I price at £15 I am a fool. But here is the big point most courses do nearer 20,000 rounds!!!!


i expect you are likely to still be baffled.

[Jon Wiggett]

I've just looked at the Golf Now chart. These are certainly great prices and I suppose they prove that golf clubs have a huge profit margin at regular prices, if they can go so low without losing money. Certainly, in most countries many would take up the game at those prices.

Ulrich

No Ulrich,


what it shows is that many running clubs have as little grasp about the cost of running a golf course as you do. I am sorry if this upsets you but it had to be said.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I've just looked at the Golf Now chart. These are certainly great prices and I suppose they prove that golf clubs have a huge profit margin at regular prices, if they can go so low without losing money. Certainly, in most countries many would take up the game at those prices.

Ulrich

Well said Mr W. and it does need to be said because their are a lot on here with their heads burried. If we have unsustainable rates on shops we will have no shops. If we tax beer too high we will have no pubs. The world is full of idiots and many are still in government.


No Ulrich,


what it shows is that many running clubs have as little grasp about the cost of running a golf course as you do. I am sorry if this upsets you but it had to be said.

[Niall C]

Adrian


While I agree with your point that golf in Scotland is generally cheaper than some parts down south, and perhaps a lot cheaper than other places in the world, IMO the real barometer should be whether these clubs/courses are still paying the bills. In an earlier post I listed a number of clubs/courses that operate on a shoestring and always have done. Somehow they manage to keep things going by cutting their cloth to suit.


In recent years there was mention of Beith GC closing down but subsequently the members decided to carry on with 9 holes rather than 18. Maybe we will see more of that.


Niall


ps. some of the courses I refer to above might in the £400/£500 a year bracket, or even less, but most courses in the central belt and around Aberdeen and Dundee will be about £800 to £1,000 and even more I'd have thought.

[Lou_Duran]

I've just looked at the Golf Now chart. These are certainly great prices and I suppose they prove that golf clubs have a huge profit margin at regular prices, if they can go so low without losing money. Certainly, in most countries many would take up the game at those prices.

Ulrich

No Ulrich,


what it shows is that many running clubs have as little grasp about the cost of running a golf course as you do. I am sorry if this upsets you but it had to be said.

Jon,  I think you are wrong in your assessment as well.  My bet is that the subject clubs know their costs very well and, to borrow Niall's wonderful prose, cut "their cloth to suit".  Unfortunately, being starved for funds and not being able to affect the revenue line to the same degree, some are having to price their rounds below replacement cost. 


It is simple economics, as long as they cover variable costs in the short and medium run, they can stay afloat.  Eventually, because of competitive reaction (aggressive pricing) and deferred maintenance, operating expenses exceed revenues and some courses shut down.  As long as # of rounds played (demand) don't decline faster than # of rounds available (supply), things self-correct to some extent, but not without substantial pain to those affected.


Golf Now simply makes pricing more clear, which is probably a bane to operators, but a boon to consumers.  it likely speeds up the process.  Golf in a larger sense benefits by more comparable pricing as suggested by similar experiences in technology (mobile phones, cable and streaming content, e-commerce). 
 

[Peter Pallotta]

A basic/simplistic question for the Scots:

Is golf now, and/or has it ever been, Scotland's 'national sport' - or even close to it in any meaningful sense?

Growing up in Toronto/Canada, and from what I can tell still to this day, the reality of hockey being our 'national sport' is expressed constantly and in various ways:

Homemade ice rinks in backyards and local parks; pick up games with old & young and experts & beginners joining in, and with a couple of sets of water bottles serving as goal posts; every new/used sports equipment store chock-full of skates and sticks and pads and helmets; many many leagues (for different skill levels) available to join, and every second friend playing competitively in one of those leagues; hundreds and thousands of broken down 40 and 50 year olds trudging out late at night to local arenas with hockey bags over the shoulders for their weekly men's league (or women's league, or mixed league, or musicians' league) game, which they take very seriously; and most strikingly, street hockey games on dead ends and suburban neighbourhouds all over town -- and throughout the entire year: played in boots during the winter, in running shoes or roller blades during the summer and fall.

Hockey is (or can be, if played seriously and competitively) an expensive sport, and participation rates (from what I read) are indeed dropping, as kids play more soccer and basketball etc. BUT: the 'infrastructure' (rinks and leagues and volunteers etc) is so strong, and the love of the game and its history in (and meaning for) Canadian kids is so well established, that hockey is alive and well here, and I suppose can still be considered our 'national sport'.

Is that something akin to (or instead not at all like) golf in Scotland?

Thanks for any insights. I've often wondered about that but never asked it before.
   


 

[Duncan Cheslett]

Lou,


Basic economics dictates that the market price of anything is a function of supply and demand. This is as true of rounds of golf as it is of hotel rooms or airline tickets - anything that has a finite lifespan - once that timeslot has passed the commodity ceases to exist whether it has been purchased or not.


Intermediary platforms such as GolfNow provide a great service to end users by allowing easy comparison of prices between multiple suppliers. There is also a great potential advantage to golf clubs being on such a site because it increases exposure and allows clubs to offer difficult to sell tee times at attractive rates.


Unfortunately, too many clubs do not understand how to utilise GolfNow to their advantage; instead they pitch their rack-rate too low and then discount it further - not on a targeted basis, but generally throughout the week.


The most dangerous mindset is "any green fee is better than none". This results in the lowering of prices to levels below that which golf costs to supply. In turn this lowers the perceived value of a round of golf at that particular course and means that the club will struggle ever to obtain the full green fee from a visitor again. A full green fee that was already pitched too low!


Even worse, longstanding members who are paying £1000 per year and playing less than 50 rounds see one-off visitors being able to play for £15. The value of their membership is brought into question and member retention becomes increasingly difficult.


Supply and demand will always be the main driver of prices. Supply however, is something clubs have control of yet all too often fail to exercise. Instead of offering all that day's available tee times on GolfNow just offer 3 or 4. If those sell offer a couple more. That way the supply:demand ratio is managed and prices kept high.


In my view this is what the club pro should be responsible for on a day to day, hour by hour basis. Incentivise him accordingly to make the club's profitability more attractive to him than simply selling Mars Bars.

[Sean_A]

A basic/simplistic question for the Scots:

Is golf now, and/or has it ever been, Scotland's 'national sport' - or even close to it in any meaningful sense?

Growing up in Toronto/Canada, and from what I can tell still to this day, the reality of hockey being our 'national sport' is expressed constantly and in various ways:

Homemade ice rinks in backyards and local parks; pick up games with old & young and experts & beginners joining in, and with a couple of sets of water bottles serving as goal posts; every new/used sports equipment store chock-full of skates and sticks and pads and helmets; many many leagues (for different skill levels) available to join, and every second friend playing competitively in one of those leagues; hundreds and thousands of broken down 40 and 50 year olds trudging out late at night to local arenas with hockey bags over the shoulders for their weekly men's league (or women's league, or mixed league, or musicians' league) game, which they take very seriously; and most strikingly, street hockey games on dead ends and suburban neighbourhouds all over town -- and throughout the entire year: played in boots during the winter, in running shoes or roller blades during the summer and fall.

Hockey is (or can be, if played seriously and competitively) an expensive sport, and participation rates (from what I read) are indeed dropping, as kids play more soccer and basketball etc. BUT: the 'infrastructure' (rinks and leagues and volunteers etc) is so strong, and the love of the game and its history in (and meaning for) Canadian kids is so well established, that hockey is alive and well here, and I suppose can still be considered our 'national sport'.

Is that something akin to (or instead not at all like) golf in Scotland?

Thanks for any insights. I've often wondered about that but never asked it before.

This is a great comparison Pietro. Even though I was raised in a hockey mad area I always knew that across the river it was mad 10 fold. I reckon that if Canadians ever stopped taking the amateur level seriously as in junior hockey feeding all the way up World Juniors then the hockey would begin to be under serious threat in terms of Canada's game. Every year like clock work I am surprised anew how much the world juniors means in Canada. From my experience, no, golf isn't the of the same level of importance in Scotland as hockey is in Canada.

Ciao