Join Ran Morrisett at the Affordable Golf Symposium!

[Mike Nuzzo]

Lynn
I don't think golf is a business.
The business of golf does suck right now for many.
Cheers

[Kris Shreiner]

JC,

I'm sorry you couldn't make it. There's always next year. Pinehurst is a special area. Amazing, there are almost 50 courses there. I had no idea there were that many.

I believe those who did got a lot out of it. The range of folks attending, from all walks of life and professions, made for some lively discourse. Rich has discussed enlarging his Symposium website to include relavent posting, of articles and information, so greater sharing of successful, affordable golf insights can be gleaned from a more centralized source. The more that can be learned from others that have been resource responsible, while also profitable, for sustained periods on modest budgets, relative to their facility niche, the better.

Cheers

[Willie_Dow]

Richard Mandelll put together a truly remarkable event, with a collection of extremely knowledgable people, which I hope will go forward in the years to come.

I especially liked the input for "Affordable Golf" from across the pond.  Alan Chainey, former Captain of The North Berwick Golf Club, East Lothian, Scotland. 

We can learn a lot more from the "birth of golf", and I look forward to greater participation from that part of the world to make the game more affordable.

Thanks, Richard !  You have really started something !

[Ron Kern]

I suppose this symposium was a good thing.  It does make me chuckle that the golf business has come to the point of requiring such a symposium.

It is interesting that my father, Gary, made a career out of designing affordable golf course that many, many players have enjoyed but never really got much credit for it.  His work wasn't flashy or high budget enough for the magazines and his courses weren't so far out that they caught the golf media's attention.  His mentor, Bill Diddel designed and built many golf courses that were W.P.A. projects during the depression.  Bill instilled the appreciation of the every day golfer into my father's philosophy.  There were plenty of unheralded golf course architects that designed a lot of great, affordable and relatively unknown golf courses.

Now that the golf business realizes that it shot itself in the butt by hitching its star to real estate, glossy magazines and country clubs for a day, etc., etc. it might be too late to recover but will have to remake itself.  I agree that bringing kids into the game is paramount.  But after years of operators ringing the cash registers and not paying attention to fueling the future of the game the golf business is up against it.

Today technology drives culture.  Kids shape their lives around technology that helps them, to a point, elude reality.  Golf is a healthy dose of reality that takes time, effort and dedication.  I'm not sure there are enough kids interested in the game for its future to be anything but suspect.  Having golf be a part of family life is one idea, but the way families are wired these days I don't know if it is possible.

IMHO there will be a huge correction in the golf business where many people in the business are already seeing enormous life changes.  It will take a while; change doesn't happen quickly.

An old golf pro that I knew for years told me a long time ago that golf was really a lousy business but there wasn't a better way of life.  It is too bad we lost that perspective.

Good luck with future symposiums.

[Kris Shreiner]

Ron,

Those words from the old pro were priceless. Thanks!

Cheers

[Willie_Dow]

Tony Muldoon will remember our early morning outing at Brora, and our meeting with those fivesomes of kids playing alternate shots, hitting team balls, and running to make the next shot.

The enthusiasm of that display brought back memoriesof my game when I was five years old.  My how fast I could run then !

[Richard_Mandell]

Greetings frm China.  Sorry I haven't been able to throw in a quick synopsis of the Symposium but I left for Beijing the very next morning and this is the first chance I had to respond.  By the way, affordable golf in China - forget about it for now.  Nor are they interested, which does not bode well for the future.  I am making small strides over here with my Skydoor project but when the wrong site is chosen and the wrong equipment is chosen, that is just the beginning of cost challenges.  Another topic for another day.

Wanted to let everyone know that we had 75 attendees at the Symposium on Affordable Golf, including representatives from the USGA and GCSAA as well as superintendents from courses which have hosted USGA majors in the past.  Some of these people are who we need to be part of the discussion.  More importantly, we had a good group of just 'Joe Golfers' attend and actively participate, which is what I wanted.  Rarely do you get an industry event together and include the end user so it was good to see them interact with everyone including the USGA and GCSAA people.  That is how we will get things accomplished regarding affordable golf - by hearing from the golfer's mouth.

One thing that must be clarified:  There wasn't a soul in the room that honestly thought we were going to solve the world's problems last week, but we all did recognize that good dialogue was a move in the right direction.  It also must be pointed out that others have addressed affordable golf and that this effort is just a small part in an overall effort by all who love the game who want to make the game more affordable than it is in many places in the world.  Granted, we all know that golf IS affordable in many places, but we all know that the golf BUSINESS is not healthy because of cost and expense.

Our efforts are part of a grass roots movement that requires every individual to make small strides toward making the business of golf more sustainable and the game more affordable as a result.  One of the things we delved into was how to define affordable.  We all agreed that affordable was a relative term on many levels and that sustainable and profitable are terms that need to go hand in hand with affordable.

My next step is to summarize the day's findings and I will make that available on the Symposium on Affordbale Golf website for all to review and of course, discussion here will be even more raoucous than before.  My deadline for finishing it is December 15th but hopefully others who attended the Symposium will chime in on their thoughts until then.  In the meantime, I would love to hear from others about topics for next year's symposium as well as case studies of affordable efforts.

Thanks to all who attended and I hope we can double that number of 75 next year.  Just making baby steps working in conjunction with everyone else who has a concern for this sort of thing.

[Garland Bayley]

Good Post Ron!

To bad Pete Dye didn't learn as much from Bill Diddel as you dad did.

[Carl Rogers]

Are transcripts of the talks (or papers or case studies) available somewhere?

Did any finance, banking or real estate developers attend?  If so, how many?  To me, the $$ person is the audience to reach.

[Richard_Mandell]

Carl:  I will be preparing a White Paper on the day's discussions and will make it available on the symposium website (www.symposiumonaffordablegolf.com) as well as my website (www.golf-architecture.com) around December 15th.

There were no money people there and there were no large management groups represented there either.  You are right Carl, the money people (and management) should be the target audience for affordability efforts.  These people always show up at other conferences witha wealth of ideas and expertise to share with the unsuspecting yet these people are the problem wiht why the industry has so many failing operations.  They have no clue about the game and many of them have come rom other industries applying those philosophies to golf.  This was a major observation made at the symposium.  it always amazes me how many of these mnoney people come and go as employees of different companies over the years.  Isn't that a red flag?  I have seen many of them at the Golf Inc. Conference since 1993 and almost every time a new organization is represented.  I have also seen hundreds of these so-called experts disappear as quickly as they arrived at these conferences.  Their expertise gone with them.

Ron - Great post.  There are many unheralded golf architects doing great work now as well as in the past but because of the focus on things other than design, these efforts are ignored by the media.  Only the big-money efforts get attention and there is a direct correlation between that and the lack of affordability in golf.

[Chris Buie]

The local paper did a write up of the symposium.  It was accompanied by a photograph of some fellow named "Ron" Morrissett.  Oh well, this was the point of the Symposium - get the discussion going - change the perspective incrementally - move closer toward a more pure and economically feasible game.
http://www.thepilot.com/news/2010/dec/05/tackling-issue-affordable-golf-subject-local-sympo/

[Mike Nuzzo]

"I think bunkers should be raked about every four days"

Only Melvyn would play there if someone did that....
Me, Ron and Ran too I guess.

Stuff like this will help people dismiss the more important points.

[Tim Nugent]

Richard, hope things are going well in China, building foreign locals brings a whole different approach 
I'm looking forward to your White Paper.  Much like Nuzzo stated, I hope at least the concept of Affordable was flushed out.
We did developed and operated (mom and pop) what we determined was Affordable for 15 yrs and now a new owner (former Limited Partner) and a major mgmt. co. are operating the place.  After 2 seasons, I would love to be able to compare year-end statements.  For years, our friend Joe Jemsik would groan about munis not having the same expenses and the ability to subsidize to the deteriment of the Mom and Pop operator. And Mgmt companies bring their own set of problems to the business model.

PS Mike Young - whether or not the ASGCA is involved in any symposium has absolutely no bearing on whether individual members attend or not. And it's a poor assumption that owners wishing for Affordable will not seek the knowledge and experience of someone who knows how to skin the cat six ways from Sunday.  We're talking Affordable here, not Cheap. Ever hear the saying, "that free (stuff/advice) was the most expensive thing I ever got'"?

[Chris Buie]

Richard has written a magazine article regarding this issue which you will most likely appreciate:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/c0eb8eee#/c0eb8eee/72