Relationship of GCA to the wedding industry in the USA?

[Eric Pevoto]

Bolingbrook public GC in a far southern Chicago was built about 5 years ago with a monstorus clubhouse for exactly this purpose...but i have no idea how much business of this type they are getting

i do know the course itself isnt too good

Not as much as they would like.  The rates have gone down significantly according to local brides.

The course however is fantastic..........it even has an island green.........oh wait wrong website.

Minus the declining demand and rates, this sounds pretty familiar.

[Dan Herrmann]

Jeffrey will fit in perfectly here, won't he!

[Steve_ Shaffer]

My former club built a golf only clubhouse in a  location overlooking the 9th hole with locker rooms,pro shop and a nice sized grill room and remodeled the former club house overlooking the 7th hole into a banquet and meeting facility. I understand it's doing very well.

http://www.commonwealthmanor.com/

[Mike_Young]

Bill Brightly has got this nailed.

Like it or not, over the last 50 years clubs have counted on certain revenues from banquets and carts. Banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at most clubs. Historically they underwrote all sorts of other expenses. Those revenues are in steep decline at the clubs I know something about. These are all well established, well capitalized clubs.

It is a big problem. Cuts will be forced in golf maintenance, food services, health facilities, swimming, etc. Across the board.

Worse, I don't see the situation turning around for several years. It will begin to show quickly at most clubs, particularly so with respect to gc maintenance. To paraphrase Bette Davis, buckle up your seat belt. It's going to be bumpy ride.

Bob

 

Bob,
Come on...ya'll are using that same accting firm that stands in front of the memberships at all the ATL clubs and tell them how well food service is doing and golf is out of whack....I will never be convinced that banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at a club....if you take the suare footage devoted to food service and banquets and don't subsidize it with the dies strcuture it will ose every time....
Why don't we see more of these shopping centers with converted grocery chains as wedding halls?  It might work if you could have a wedding or two a day but not when it is just weekends and a few Rotary Club meetings....
If one accounts fro food based on food sold per square foot of dining room then the weeinie machine and grill will justify existence...

Say it ain't so BC...don't drink that kool aid....

[Ken Moum]

Having said that, a place like Wal-Mart is (much to my dismay) an example of quite lucrative operation that at least pretends to offer everything to everyone at one location.  But then again, they also don't pretend to have any real variation from location to location.  It is their monotony that aids in their success. 

We have Wal-Mart golf here in NE Kansas.

http://www.greatlifegolf.com/ offers family memberships for $29.00 a month that include unlimited golf at 10 golf courses and unlimited workouts at 5 or 6 fitness centers--located at its courses.

They have thousands of members, which has distorted the golf business around these parts.

K

[Anthony Gray]

  What has hurt in West Virginia is the no smoking law.This has forced weddings outside and has reduced the amount of weddings inside the golf clubs.It would be better if they made exceptions and limited the no smoking to the guest and stil let the bride and groom smoke.It would help the clubs financially.

  Anthony

[BCrosby]

McYoungster -

Weddings, corporate banquet/reception revenues are indeed the single most profitable revenue stream at a club. They underwrite all sorts of other expenses. Why? Because they generate revenue from fixed assets that would otherwise sit idle. It's low cost, found money. It's like selling empty airline seats.

For a long time those events provided a steady, growing revenue stream. That's suddenly changed. The main culprit is businesses spending much less on entertainment. (Weddings have kept pace pretty well.)

So regular f&b, golf, health and swimming are now being asked to pay their own way. Which is a whole new deal.

You could look at the above as you do. You can reallocate fixed costs to banquets. It's not crazy to say that the profitability of banquets is overstated. But whatever your accounting method, the fact of the matter is that there is still a budget shortfall to deal with. And since you can't charge more for banquests that aren't going to occur, other club activities will take the hit.

Bob

   

[Bill Brightly]

Bill Brightly has got this nailed.

Like it or not, over the last 50 years clubs have counted on certain revenues from banquets and carts. Banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at most clubs. Historically they underwrote all sorts of other expenses. Those revenues are in steep decline at the clubs I know something about. These are all well established, well capitalized clubs.

It is a big problem. Cuts will be forced in golf maintenance, food services, health facilities, swimming, etc. Across the board.

Worse, I don't see the situation turning around for several years. It will begin to show quickly at most clubs, particularly so with respect to gc maintenance. To paraphrase Bette Davis, buckle up your seat belt. It's going to be bumpy ride.

Bob

 

Bob,
Come on...ya'll are using that same accting firm that stands in front of the memberships at all the ATL clubs and tell them how well food service is doing and golf is out of whack....I will never be convinced that banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at a club....if you take the suare footage devoted to food service and banquets and don't subsidize it with the dies strcuture it will ose every time....
Why don't we see more of these shopping centers with converted grocery chains as wedding halls?  It might work if you could have a wedding or two a day but not when it is just weekends and a few Rotary Club meetings....
If one accounts fro food based on food sold per square foot of dining room then the weeinie machine and grill will justify existence...

Say it ain't so BC...don't drink that kool aid....

Mike,

I live in the northeast US, and almost every top notch club that I can think of (except maybe Pine Valley, NGLA, Fishers Island, etc.) works under the model of great course, big old clubhouse (read that expensive to maintain) supported by reasonable (not exhorbatant) dues, significant cart revenue, significant outing revenue and weddings/banquets.  Personally, I hate the cart revenue line because we beat up our courses with carts, actually FORCING people to ride if there are no caddies...just to generate revenue. I was on my board for 7 years and could not come up with a finacially sound way to do away with a rule that I hate! Outings are a similar problem as they really interfere with a day that should be devoted to golf course maintainance.

The problem is that if you try to ween yourself off of that income, you will be forced to raise dues. The more you raise dues, the more your club becomes unaffordable to the "average guy" and your membership gets skewed to a "wall street" and "daddy wrote the check" membership. So to me, weddings are the least objectionable way to generate revenue to help offset dues increase and allow for a healthy golf course maintainance budget.

One of the things I think we might start seeing is club mergers where two memberships merge and only one of the clubhouses is kept fully open for fine dining and weddings. There are certainly problems to be overcome, and you probably have to go to a tee time system, but there are also tremendous cost saving possibilities: one Superintendent, one GM, shared machinery, outings at one course on a Monday while the maintainance crew works on the other, etc., etc.

[Mike_Young]

Bill Brightly has got this nailed.

Like it or not, over the last 50 years clubs have counted on certain revenues from banquets and carts. Banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at most clubs. Historically they underwrote all sorts of other expenses. Those revenues are in steep decline at the clubs I know something about. These are all well established, well capitalized clubs.

It is a big problem. Cuts will be forced in golf maintenance, food services, health facilities, swimming, etc. Across the board.

Worse, I don't see the situation turning around for several years. It will begin to show quickly at most clubs, particularly so with respect to gc maintenance. To paraphrase Bette Davis, buckle up your seat belt. It's going to be bumpy ride.

Bob

 

Bob,
Come on...ya'll are using that same accting firm that stands in front of the memberships at all the ATL clubs and tell them how well food service is doing and golf is out of whack....I will never be convinced that banquets are the single most profitable revenue source at a club....if you take the suare footage devoted to food service and banquets and don't subsidize it with the dies strcuture it will ose every time....
Why don't we see more of these shopping centers with converted grocery chains as wedding halls?  It might work if you could have a wedding or two a day but not when it is just weekends and a few Rotary Club meetings....
If one accounts fro food based on food sold per square foot of dining room then the weeinie machine and grill will justify existence...

Say it ain't so BC...don't drink that kool aid....

Mike,

I live in the northeast US, and almost every top notch club that I can think of (except maybe Pine Valley, NGLA, Fishers Island, etc.) works under the model of great course, big old clubhouse (read that expensive to maintain) supported by reasonable (not exhorbatant) dues, significant cart revenue, significant outing revenue and weddings/banquets.  Personally, I hate the cart revenue line because we beat up our courses with carts, actually FORCING people to ride if there are no caddies...just to generate revenue. I was on my board for 7 years and could not come up with a finacially sound way to do away with a rule that I hate! Outings are a similar problem as they really interfere with a day that should be devoted to golf course maintainance.

The problem is that if you try to ween yourself off of that income, you will be forced to raise dues. The more you raise dues, the more your club becomes unaffordable to the "average guy" and your membership gets skewed to a "wall street" and "daddy wrote the check" membership. So to me, weddings are the least objectionable way to generate revenue to help offset dues increase and allow for a healthy golf course maintainance budget.

One of the things I think we might start seeing is club mergers where two memberships merge and only one of the clubhouses is kept fully open for fine dining and weddings. There are certainly problems to be overcome, and you probably have to go to a tee time system, but there are also tremendous cost saving possibilities: one Superintendent, one GM, shared machinery, outings at one course on a Monday while the maintainance crew works on the other, etc., etc.

Bill,
I understand cart revenue as agree with you as to it being a necessary evil...but my stance on weddings and banquets is that fi you fire the staff and close the rooms that perform the weddings you will have much less expense than you would additional income by keeping such...you sort of mention the same thing when you discuss merging....
Reality is that if weddings were that profitable we would be seeing some of these old grocery sotre buildings in the strip centers being developed into wedding centers etc....it only works thru subsidizing thru dues....Golf in America still cannot come to the realization that we are going to be shuttering or tearing down some of these clubhouses.....IMHO

[Dan Herrmann]

Mike,
Rochester NY used to have exactly what you describe - huge "Party Houses".  I think many (if not most) of them are gone now.  This speaks well to your argument.

[BCrosby]

Mike -

Three things. First, the clubs I know about do not have permanent staff dedicated to banquets. Mostly it is existing staff that is used, often on an over-time basis. They are eager for the work and have taken big hits with the down-turn. We may lose some good people because we can't give them as much extra work as we once did.

Second, the clubhouse space for these events was built before you and I were born. It is there and can be used at minimal extra expense. Again, it is like an empty seat on a Delta flight. The fixed costs of the flight have been incurred. Any additional revenue is pure gravy.

Third, people would rather hold family and  business functions at a nice private club with all the bells and whistles. Just any sort of big room in a shopping mall won't appeal for that market. Which is why you don't see old Krogers being converted to banquet halls.

Bob