[David_Tepper]

There is an interesting article in the "How To Spend It" supplement of the Financial Times about a new hybrid membership plan instituted at the Goodwood Golf Club in England.

http://www.howtospendit.com/golf/44113-a-fairer-way

While the club is private, it appears (as best I can understand it) that the members pay dues/fees based on the number of rounds they play, rather than paying fixed dues for an unlimited number of rounds. The club appears to be taking additional steps to encourage the occasional golfer to join.

Is anyone familiar with the club and what they are now doing? Anyone familiar with the James Braid-designed course there?      

[Mark Chaplin]

David these schemes have been around as long as I have. They are a classic proprietary club sales technique aimed at the more occasional golfer who wants a membership. If you want to play off peak 15-20 times a year they are a great idea, the average member club senior playing 2-3 times a week would pay thousands a year!!

[Paul Gray]

The Downs course at Goodwood is very highly regarded. The membership used to be.

[Adrian_Stiff]

John Day (who designed around 15 courses himself) told me about this method in 1974, so its not new although the points bit is because of the peak/off peak parts.

It is a fairer way but ALL people want different things and this membership only suits the band that play 10-20 times.  700 members playing 40 times plus 4,000 Green Fee rounds is getting th balance about right. So a high user is one who exceeds 40 rounds. The person that plays 2 or 3 times per week will not want this 'fair' system. As MC stated he would be paying lots. This system does not reward lots of play and your regular customers eventually leave.

The only way things can work is to offer both packages or various tiers, based on volume of play equate to £/$ but with an all you can eat option. There are various pros and cons but it is probably the way forward for the UK.

[Ulrich Mayring]

A typical occurrence in these parts is that young families get their first child and Mom and Dad leave the golf club. They don't have enough time to play more than a few times a year and the saved membership dues come in handy to finance the toddler. Then, a few years later, a second child arrives and that certainly doesn't lead to rejoining the golf club. Dad may play 10 rounds on a public course per year, both may play one or two rounds in their holiday resort. Fast forward 20 - 30 years later, both children are out of the house, Mom and Dad are looking to become those golfing seniors, who play 2-3 times a week. The children, if they do play golf at all, have of course joined a hipper club, that is not full of old geezers

A club that thinks there's nothing wrong with that situation may live happily ever on I suppose.

Ulrich

[Adrian_Stiff]

It is quite hard to play golf for many 25-40 year olds with the time restraints of young families. Getting people back to golf at 40 with these taster memberships and then they play more and upgrade or less and fade away.

[Mark Chaplin]

Ulrich this is the reason many clubs will have hefty joining fees for over 40s and over 50s to balance the reduction in revenue per round as people play more when they are older. It's not an issue if someone had been a full member for 30 years.

[Ulrich Mayring]

An interesting way to express that the club wants to get its ex-members back

Ulrich

[Duncan Cheslett]

Ulrich this is the reason many clubs will have hefty joining fees for over 40s and over 50s to balance the reduction in revenue per round as people play more when they are older.

Not sure that I agree.

Clubs have joining fees for a couple of reasons;

1.  Because they can. Most clubs can't any more because no-one would join.
2. To deter members from ever leaving as it would mean kissing goodbye to a chunk of cash. Blackmail, in other words...


As for the problem of retention of 25-40 year-old members, I advocate a 50% discount in annual fees for parents of children under the age of five. Better to keep young dads on the books rather than lose them and try to entice them back later.

There'd be good chance of getting the kids involved as juniors, too.

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