(Over) supply and demand

[Thomas Dai]

The thread about the Blackpool MacKenzie muni has me wondering about supply and demand.


Are there figures published/available for UK clubs and how many have full memberships and how many have vacancies, and for those with vacancies, what it the ratio-% of vacancy places?


There are often generalisation type comments made but are there any hard figures available and if so where?


atb

[Adrian_Stiff]

The thread about the Blackpool MacKenzie muni has me wondering about supply and demand.


Are there figures published/available for UK clubs and how many have full memberships and how many have vacancies, and for those with vacancies, what it the ratio-% of vacancy places?


There are often generalisation type comments made but are there any hard figures available and if so where?


atb

I don't think there are any real figures per club, there is an amount of GGU levies collected annually so this is indication of the fall levels, from memory it has stablised a bit at the moment, which means with more clubs closing/less clubs each club has more on average. Most clubs I suspect would welcome 50 more members and the 50k would certainly make a big difference.


One thing I learned from my North west friend was that a club can be quite full if it has 150 very active members. If you get golfers playing every day of the week then they really do eat into the available space. A lot of clubs that were fairly full and busy with 500 members are now just as busy but they only collect 350 subscriptions.


The average member plays 40 times a year, some play more some play less. What happens in 2019 that never happened in 1999 the man that only plays 10 times can still be a MEMBER somewhere and pay a lot lot less. They managed to retain their members that golf 100 times a year though.


The race to the bottom with cut price deals like 15 months for 12, 2for1 green fees, teeooftimes, no joining fee, playmoregolf has all been great for the consumer. The END RESULT is what we see when you allow golf at £15 you divide the rounds of golf by actual costs and hey presto it actually costs £18. You still get the odd idiot that will champion..."yes but your getting some money for that tee time"....after time enough consumers know how to play their golf cheap.


The EGU should have developed their own teetimes system so the clubs get 100% and stop the 20% ponce schemes but they sit back drinking their port and maintain the stance that it is not their business and actually support some of these death schemes.


I did say all these things 10 years ago. Some agreed, some did not.


Run your golf course well, price your product at good value, charge TWO for price of TWO.

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks Adrian. Food for thought.
atb

[Duncan Cheslett]

In my immediate area I can say definitively that ALL clubs have vacancies for membership.


I know this because the three or four top end clubs (Stockport, Bramall Park, Prestbury) who still charge a hefty joining fee and until recently had a long waiting list have all been advertising on Facebook this year for new members.


The dichotomy between membership subs and green fees is illustrated perfectly by Davenport GC.


Full membership is £1210 pa.   https://www.davenportgolf.co.uk/page.aspx?pid=17302


Green Fees are £15-25 a round   https://www.davenportgolf.co.uk/page.aspx?pid=7660


With club membership in decline overall and the rise of the nomadic golfer such figures are hardly likely to encourage newcomers to the game to join a club.

[Robin_Hiseman]

Adrian:


Do I remember correctly that your formula for the ideal green fee vs annual subscription was along the lines of the subs being x 24-36 the green fee rate? If so, Duncan's example is of a club getting it drastically wrong.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian:


Do I remember correctly that your formula for the ideal green fee vs annual subscription was along the lines of the subs being x 24-36 the green fee rate? If so, Duncan's example is of a club getting it drastically wrong.

Yes pretty much Robin. 20-30 is the ideal range with the idea that the lower number is better and the lower kind of relates too the less likely you are, to go bust. Clubs that go over 30 will really struggle to retain the borderline members. Probably half the membership play less than 30 rounds at their home club, some when they realise look for cheaper options. Some move categories to save £30 a year, one even  left because our entrance road is a mile long and he factored the fuel cost. It hightlights how difficult it us for some people to make ends meet. You can offer the same product to two different people and one thinks its good value and the other makes a sound like he has been knifed in the stomach.


As soon as a club offers £20 golf it is really hard to make the numbers work. You end up substandard in some form or another. As Duncan say's though its hard up norf when a lot of decent clubs are offering their charms for £20.

[Ally Mcintosh]

My club’s annual dues are about 10-12 times the full green fee and I’d still be better off paying as a visitor I play that little.

[Jon Wiggett]

Ally,


I would say the formula is generally around the 13-15 time the greenfee so your club is not far off the mark. However this is just a rule of thumb and may alter quite a bit depending on the club and area. For instance there are a couple of clubs up here which have the ratio at either end of the scale with one been over Adrian's 30 times and the other been below 3 times. What I can say is the club going at 3 time blows most clubs out of the water disproving the theory it should be substandard somewhere.


It is all about what the market is and the context.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Ally,


I would say the formula is generally around the 13-15 time the greenfee so your club is not far off the mark. However this is just a rule of thumb and may alter quite a bit depending on the club and area. For instance there are a couple of clubs up here which have the ratio at either end of the scale with one been over Adrian's 30 times and the other been below 3 times. What I can say is the club going at 3 time blows most clubs out of the water disproving the theory it should be substandard somewhere.


It is all about what the market is and the context.

LOL

[Sean_A]

I don't understand the "formula" context here.  There is no formula, its simply a ratio, and a highly generalized one at that.  Clubs should charge what the market will allow keeping in mind the visitor disruption to the membership.  Some clubs in Ireland have run amuck in allowing too many visitors in chasing cash, thus damaging the quality of the membership experience.  Trying to peg an optimum greenfee to membership ratio for an entire country is rather pointless. 

I think my club is around 10 greenfees equals membership, I don't think this is uncommon for the better courses in England. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some places (Ireland?) which are 5x greenfee. 

I looked into joining a place near me and the ratio was about 31x greenfee.  This makes no sense in trying to entice on the fence members for clubs.  A lot of golfers simply will not play that many games and they know it.  For cheap courses, it may not even make sense at 20x greenfee, but try doubling the greenfee and see what happens!  This is partly why golf membership in the UK is struggling.  The traditional membership model is really about servicing hard core golfers and the increasingly smaller number who don't really care about cost so long as things stay in control.  On the fence guys can get their fix by joining a cheap system such as PlayMoreGolf or a tiered club.  Get the county card and search online for deals and Bob's yer uncle.  It is very difficult for lower end clubs to compete against this way of doing things.  This is why so many of them are part of schemes. 

The club I looked into is now part of PlayMoreGolf which costs £325pa.  They claim up to 50 games can be played without topping up the points.  Ok, lets say the real figure is closer to 25...that is still a year's worth of golf for £13 a game.  Although, I suspect more traditional style parkland courses will yield less games per year because they will probably charge more points per game. I haven't looked into the concept too deeply because the company requires contact details to get the proper points info...that in itself is a major turn off for me. 

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

The traditional membership model is really about servicing hard core golfers and the increasingly smaller number who don't really care about cost so long as things stay in control

Exactly.


The traditional "All you can Eat" membership model is beginning to fail. It is great value for those playing two or three times a week but an unjustifiable expense for those playing twice a month or less.


Time was when most clubs had a core of members who were happy to pay their annual subs to belong to the club even though they didn't play that often. Those guys are dying off and are not being replaced.


Club members these days want value for their membership, and if they are not playing regularly they will leave. They often carry on turning up to the occasional roll-up with their old pals and get signed in. Why would you pay upwards of a grand a year when you can do that once every couple of months for £15-£20 a time?


The PlayMoreGolf model is disparaged on here but it does identify a definite market for low volume members on a pay and play basis.  In most other areas of life the more you consume the more it costs. I don't see why golf club membership should be any different. The flat rate model is great for some but less good for most - as evidenced by the decline in membership overall.

[Jon Wiggett]

Duncan,


I think you are correct though what needs to be taken into account is whilst the number of club members is falling the number of golfers is not. It is easier and cheaper to be a nomadic golfer than ever before. The clubs have destroyed their own market through chasing any money they could and not looking at the bigger picture. Adrian's idea of fewer clubs leading to more members for those clubs that survive would seem logical but is wrong due to the increase of the nomadic golfer. The danger now is the lack of new, young golfers which needs addressing by the clubs, unions and golfing bodies in a serious manner which for the last 20 years has not been the case.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Clubs have less members >>> the ones they retain play frequently so the number of members is only say 75% of what it once had but the number of rounds played is say 95% of what it once had. >>income is LESS via membership.


Number of golfers is never really going to change, golfers pretty much are always golfers what changes is the frequency of play. You get golfers that only play a round or two a year, some even no rounds (but they still would say they play golf if asked). All things considered THE NUMBER OF ROUNDS PLAYED IS LESS THAN IT USED TO BE.


A nomadic golfer is mainly going to play from zero times to 30 times per year.


The real loss is the golfers that were members that used to play once a week that for various reasons are now nomadic. When you are nomadic you play less and you often hit a pattern that because you play less you dont play WELL and you dont enjoy so you play even less.....until the point when asked "do you play golf?" and you say "yeah" .... but you have not played for a while.


There IS NO SET FORMULA AS SUCH it is something I have made up/discovered via stats and the patterns of play for the various courses I have consulted at.


The lower the number (standard summer weekend green fee rate divided by standard full membership) the more likely you are to retain members.
The higher the number the more likely you are to lose members.
A high number also denotes the more likely you are to go bust. It is a good indicator of bad management but it can be caused by just being in a bad area (learned from DC).
The average through the country is closer to 30 than 20 (I have seen 50+). We do ours currently at 22.
What you can still corrupt is having really cheap ways of playing inside the standard summer weekend price, so if you did 2-4-1s (not many do this now) you are opening a back door. When you open your back door it normally gets infected.


Playmore golf is good for the consumer. Playing golf without paying a green fee is also good for the consumer. Playing golf at the full rate is good for the club as is being a member and paying the full price.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Jon,


The ageing profile of golf club members is all part of the same problem.


Family men and women with school age children are generally unable to take full advantage of traditional golf club membership as they are unable to commit to playing sufficient golf to justify the cost. This effectively rules out most of the potential market of those between the ages of 25 and 45 or even older. Instead these golfers pay the occasional green fee and play socially with friends or a society. The days when Dad had the freedom (or the desire) to disappear all day at the weekend playing golf and drinking beer are long gone. That is not a bad thing.


As you say, it is easier than ever to be a nomadic golfer. Thirty years ago this meant playing municipal courses or a proprietary pay and play while you waited for the opportunity to join a club. I remember when our local muni was booked up a week in advance. Getting a tee time was an experience akin to getting an appointment with your GP! Now nomads can simply click on Golf Now and choose from a wide selection of private clubs at no more than £10-£15 a round.


In any area, the green fees that clubs feel able to charge are now largely dictated by the local vagabonds in liaison with Golf Now. Clubs feel that they cannot afford to be undercut and lose custom so they join in the spiral of despair.


Clubs are not going to recruit these nomads into club membership via the traditional model. Even when the nomads' kids get older and they can devote more time to golf they are likely to have become so accustomed to playing a variety of courses that committing themselves to playing only one will not be attractive enough to warrant paying an annual fee of £1000 or more.


If some clubs have to change to some kind of Pay as you Play membership model so be it. It has got to represent significantly better value for money however, than simply turning up and paying a green fee. The easiest way to achieve this is to hike up the green fees. Why can't clubs all see this and work collectively in all their interests?

[Wayne_Kozun]

This thread reinforces the view form the other side of the pond that golf is ridiculously cheap in the UK.  Here in Toronto the better clubs have annual dues of about 50X a guest fee and those guests generally must be introduced and play with a member.  And the magnitude is way higher as well at guest fees of about $150/round and annual dues around $7-8k.  And that is even ignoring initiation fees.


Golf is one of very few things that is WAY cheaper in the UK than in NA.


I really wonder how your clubs are sustainable given those extremely low guest fees and the lack of reason to join a club given those guest fees and liberal access to the golf course for guests.

[Duncan Cheslett]

I really wonder how your clubs are sustainable given those extremely low guest fees and the lack of reason to join a club given those guest fees and liberal access to the golf course for guests.

Nail hit squarely on the head.


The bulk of mainstream golf clubs are operating as pay and play municipal courses while expecting members who play less than 40-50 times per year to pay substantially more per round than any Tom, Dick, or Harry who turns up with a twenty pound note in his hand.


Such is the desperation to scrape together enough money each week to pay the wage bill at many of these clubs that they will accept almost any amount of money to fill a spare slot on the tee sheet.


It is clearly unsustainable.

[Mark Pearce]

There are lots of variables that can affect this.  Crail has two courses and a green fee on the Balcomie of, I think, £90.  Membership is around £450, wherever you live.  But the club has 1500 members, most of whom barely ever play there.  I suspect the vast majority wouldn't pay the subs if the membership was more.  A substantial number of those members live outside the UK.


My home club, however, has a £60 green fee and a £1450 sub.  But it's not in Fife and can't claim the historic kudos of Crail.

[Peter Pallotta]

The golf season in GB&I is longer than the one in southern Ontario. I find that friends here, deciding on becoming ‘members’ (at semi private courses), use 30-40 rounds a year in their cost-benefit analysis. If they’d have to play 60 times a year to make membership ‘worthwhile’ it doesn’t work for them.

[Duncan Cheslett]

There are lots of variables that can affect this.  Crail has two courses and a green fee on the Balcomie of, I think, £90.  Membership is around £450, wherever you live.  But the club has 1500 members, most of whom barely ever play there.  I suspect the vast majority wouldn't pay the subs if the membership was more.  A substantial number of those members live outside the UK.

This is a model which clearly works well for renowned "destination" courses in not particularly affluent areas. Not only in Scotland, but also for other links courses such as Silloth and Royal St Davids.


At all of these, a full year's membership can be had for the cost of less than ten green fees.


For the majority of courses in the suburbs of major cities membership is far more expensive and green fees are a lot less. Everything has got horribly out of kilter and it is difficult to see how it can be brought back on track without the closure of a number of courses.

[Wayne_Kozun]

The golf season in GB&I is longer than the one in southern Ontario. I find that friends here, deciding on becoming ‘members’ (at semi private courses), use 30-40 rounds a year in their cost-benefit analysis. If they’d have to play 60 times a year to make membership ‘worthwhile’ it doesn’t work for them.

To be blunt, on pure economics it pretty much never makes sense to join a private course in North America.  People do it for other reasons: status, access to better quality golf, access to golf close to your home, significantly shorter all-in times, access to a network of influential people, etc.  The all-in time is a big advantage.  I live in the city and my club is less than a five minute drive.  I can play early morning on the weekend and be home before 11.  If I were to play at public courses it would be a much longer affair.


In Toronto guest fees are about $150 per round and pretty much any decent club is going to be above $7500 in annual dues, even without a pro-rata allocation of initiation fees or f&b minimums.  So you are easily looking at a 50X multiplier.

[Sean_A]

There are lots of variables that can affect this.  Crail has two courses and a green fee on the Balcomie of, I think, £90.  Membership is around £450, wherever you live.  But the club has 1500 members, most of whom barely ever play there.  I suspect the vast majority wouldn't pay the subs if the membership was more.  A substantial number of those members live outside the UK.

This is a model which clearly works well for renowned "destination" courses in not particularly affluent areas. Not only in Scotland, but also for other links courses such as Silloth and Royal St Davids.


At all of these, a full year's membership can be had for the cost of less than ten green fees.


For the majority of courses in the suburbs of major cities membership is far more expensive and green fees are a lot less. Everything has got horribly out of kilter and it is difficult to see how it can be brought back on track without the closure of a number of courses.

Golf membership is only "out of kilter" if we try to generalise across huge areas or if viewed from a myopic PoV. Economics is far closer to a social science than it is a hard science. Just as today, different models for different areas and outcomes is the way forward. Sustainability is a micro-market issue where golf is concerned.

Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

I get the per round breakdown, but what other perks come with membership at a typical UK club?

Club only Tournaments?
Preferred and Weekend Tee times?
Access to all parts of the Facilities?
Member dinners and networking events?
Member showers and parking stalls?
Secret handshakes or otherwise?

[Adrian_Stiff]

I get the per round breakdown, but what other perks come with membership at a typical UK club?

Club only Tournaments?
Preferred and Weekend Tee times?
Access to all parts of the Facilities?
Member dinners and networking events?
Member showers and parking stalls?
Secret handshakes or otherwise?

Interesting post Kalen  it highlights almost our 1965 model for UK golf course, the UK model has moved on (think the USA one will too). Club only tournaments >>There are a lot of OPEN competitions now so you can join a club for very little money get a handicap and play very cheap competitive golf. Preferred and Weekend tee times >>Yes this still exists and is quite a perk IMO though members doing their annual calculations don't see it Access to all parts of the facilities >>most UK golf courses are really just golf only, but most would include practice ground (not range) putting green and short game area (some are just a half tended green) better clubs have more and better players seek these courses members dinners and networking events >> these events are getting harder to get interest and are often supported by the same people, to most members they are unpopular members showers and parking stalls >> most clubs have changing and shower facilities though the size of the changing room needs to be only a fraction of what it once was, most people now change in the car park something that was once taboo, its a younger generation thing, its only at the older clubs it would still be frowned upon. secret handshakes >> still probably a valuable thing to some, but the majority of UK golfers are working class so don't benefit

Your post highlights something I had not considered deeply...the sliding away from what once was important to 'being a member' you had things like the estate agent was a member (but only played 5 times) he would want to be seen at social events and be part of the club. being part of the club meant he was in a preferred position to sale the estates and houses of the more wealthy...('kin internet again).


I am from a region where all the managers are pretty clued up, we don't have too many charlies, most run the club as a business and can understand the need to make a bit of money and store. We have one or two that have joined playmoregolf, but because there are not lots of courses close together the PMG model has not gained traction like it has elsewhere, perhaps we are still not free of it. PMG has grown and grown elsewhere and since we have been discussing it on this forum it has doubled and now 200 clubs are part of it. Duncan told me Reddish Vale were not happy with it and were dumping it but they are still onboard, I get the impression at RV there is one or two people there that are part of the mis-management and stopping it from being at cut above. The £15 grabbit mentality is in everyone though to some degree I suspect. if we had no food we would all steal.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Adrian,


Your reply to Kalen's post is spot on. Many of the factors that influenced golf club membership no longer apply. Only at the poshest clubs in any area are business connections an important consideration. Most UK golf clubs these days rely on tradesmen and other white van drivers to fill their membership.


I just checked on the PlayMoreGolf website and Reddish Vale does not feature on their list of clubs.

[Ryan Coles]

Can only speak for my own location but I get the sense that things are starting to turn slowly.


I.E. those on tee off times and doing stupid things the last few years are starting to struggle and lack of staff and course expenditure is starting to tell and it’s a vicious circle, until no one will bite however low the price.


This in turn has led to (some) of those who left traditional club membership behind into returning, as although not a market correction with Clubs closing, the gulf in quality between mid market and bargain basement is beginning to tell in terms of conditioning and facilities and I detect (some)  nomadic golfers are coming round to spending based on value rather than solely on price. For a while they could get something half decent for £15.


It’s what you do or did as a Club, when things got tough.


Club’s if well managed, and accepting that they need to adapt, can just about be ok, but it’s a tightrope. I think there is a point of no return, you pass and then it becomes irrecoverable.


Generally, below elite level in an area with lots of competing clubs, you need to either have


(A) a solid off course business.


Or


B) be renowned as a good winter course on main greens when others are not.


If you have both, you’re probably not far off elite, if you have neither, chances are the horses have bolted and no amount or hard work or good ideas is going to reverse where you are. 


Unless you do:


C) sell something, do a project and invest it in A or B and don’t make the same mistakes again.