Still have questions about the golf economy?

[jeffwarne]

Jeff,

Agreed.  We can start by making kid's tournaments fun instead of watching 10 year olds grind over 5-footers all weekend in stroke-play events so we can statistically get a jump on the college scholarship wannabe market...

Absolutely. I banned marking the ball at my Section's event we hosted (cheater line delays )

We kick-off with the adult/parent-child/grandchild jr. chipping shootout.
For the record, my son's partner last year was a woman  (not his mother) so the chauvanism has at least skipped a generation.

[Brian_Sleeman]

What are clubs in your area doing to attract and retain juniors and women?  I'd love to hear some ideas that are outside the box.

I've just begun work this season at a family club where juniors are covered free of charge under their parent's membership until they are 28, at which point they either become a family guest or must obtain their own membership.  

And their junior guests also play for free, which overcomes a huge obstacle faced by kids at most clubs.  They rarely if ever want to play by themselves, and their circle of friends isn't confined to members of their particular club, so if you tell them they can bring a buddy for $50 each they're going to find something else to do.  A free pass certainly won't work for all clubs, but charging a kid a reduced guest fee of $10 or $20 to bring his buddy might do the trick.

From what I've seen so far this is a big winner.

We also offer junior clinics five days a week to accommodate kids' schedules.  Sometimes only two or three kids show up because it's a big day for soccer or baseball or hockey or vacation, but it beats trying to figure out and work around all of the other schedules kids have.  The moms love it because we're always there, and we make sure the kids have fun for 90 minutes or so on the golf course, even if they're not necessarily playing straight-forward golf.

What ideas are being implemented at your clubs?  I'd love to get some more.

[Jonathan Mallard]

The golf economy will not be 'fixed' until it understands the main tenet of the Freakonomics guys:

People respond to incentives.

Ergo, what are the positive incentives of:

• 6.5 hour rounds?
• Fees and rate increases that far outpace the rate of inflation?

We can certainly include discussions of sustainability, walkability, and gender equality and many others under incentives.

If the responses from the industry start to mitigate against this overall theme, I think the golf economy will improve.

If the responses from the industry ignore this overall theme, I expect little to no improvement in the golf economy.

[Anthony Butler]

Positives + Negatives in the Massachusetts market:

The folks at Butterbrook just took over running Shaker Hills. I find it curious how both Red Tail and Butterbrook thrived with double-wides for clubhouses and Shaker Hills, which seemed to have its fair share of weddings at their fancy clubhouse, went under...

On the other hand the pro at Shaker Hills just landed a job at Wedgewood Pines in Stow... by the end of summer you should be able to add 45 mins to your round when you play there...

[Tim Nugent]

Businesses and Industries want growth. But, we should ask ourselves, do we really need golf to grow?  It seems that this is taken as fact accomplished rather than an option.  Let's face it, everything goes in cycles because the free market is not efficient at matching supply with demand (reactive rather than proactive).  When the NGF came out with it's infamous "Course a Day" mantra, they were using current data to extrapolate far into the future.  Societies, however, do not remain stagnet, they evolve.  NGF was assuming that as the huge Baby-Boom generation retired, they would be wealthier and live longer, more active lifes post work.  Reality had other ideas.  Many lost huge percentages of their retirement nest eggs, had to stay working longer and were not able to migrate to areas as predicited  (and had built courese in that anticipation).
So, perhaps the best thing for a whiile is to concentrate on tending to what we have and making that economically secure.  There are plenty of marginal courses that could use upgrading and that would be more economical than going out and adding to the stock.  Plus, they wouldn't be canabalizing each other.

What I really fear is the fact that so many Gen X and Y's are nowhere near the wealth accumulation as Boomers at the same point in life.  Instead of buying homes, they are living at home and trying to pay off their student loans.

[Jud_T]

Tim, 

The other problem is you now have a whole generation coming up who can play games online with their buddies in whatever time increment they have available without having to commit the better part of a day to a game they don't see as being cool.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Jud,
I've heard that argument a lot. Just remember that sometimes those games can be a parent's best babysitter. Its easy to blame the kids.

As for golf not being cool, I've yet to be turned down by one of my kids when I ask them if they want to go play golf with me. (or go fishing, or hiking, or a ball game, or a movie...)

[Craig Van Egmond]

From the same article...

"Golf isn't for everybody. It's not easy to learn, and it's impossible to master. It's expensive. It's time consuming. It's intimidating. It's humbling. Its rules often defy common sense and some of its traditions are downright primitive. For the last 20 years, golf's powers-that-be have tried to "grow the game" with all sorts of "initiatives" and pie-in-the-sky, if not delusional, promotions--with zero success. "

[Doug Siebert]

The problem isn't golf's economy, its this blind urge to "grow the game".  It is a short sighted goal much like the cities that are constantly seeking to "grow the tax base" for their own purposes, and use tax incentives as giveaways to lure new businesses or development to town in a zero sum game.

This drive to grow the game succeeded in getting some new golfers with marginal attachment to it to take it up.  Or, perhaps more likely, they did so merely because of the Tiger hype.  Now that those marginally attached golfers have left the game, it is seen as a big problem by the powers that be, when the simple fact is that most of those new golfers were never going to become lifetime golfers.  It takes more than a first tee program to get kids interested enough in the game to leave them with the desire to stick with it for life.  Once that subsidy and easy access is over, and they discover the true cost of the game (which has been made worse by the push to "grow the game") they either can't afford it or have other priorities.

I'm not trying to promote an elitist attitude and keep the "riff raff" out of the game - I say that because undoubtedly some people will read it this way.  I just don't think that there's any particular reason the game of golf, overall, needs to grow, and I've stated so here on GCA for many years.  Its not a bad thing if it does, the problem is that it is taken as gospel that this is goal #1, and everything else follows from that.

This ignorant push (along with the housing bubble in the US) caused the creation of many more golf courses than would or should otherwise have been built.  While it lasted, that was great for architects and those depending on them for work, but as with every bubble, they are now paying the price for that excess, just like many developers and construction workers are paying the price for the housing bubble's excess.

[Mike_Young]

A couple of more things that never are talked about.
To grow golf you have to grow it during the week when tee times are not being used.  Before the great recession and the huge slow down in construction there were plenty of guys who were in the construction trades who could set up their day and be at a club by lunch time or early afternoon to play golf almost everyday.    The bottom dropped out for most of those types...and there is no segment of the population to take the times they were using....so we can blame the economy for part of the decline in golf as much as anything...rumor is clubs such as Atlanta Ath Club( which had a large developer/builder membership) lost 900 out of 2600 members...and that's not a slap at AAC but just an example of the affect.
The other thing that is rarely discussed is the deduction for dues and the number of companies who have cut back on expenses and therefore the salespeople don't take the clients ot the golf course like they did.  That has to come back.  If we don't have sales people and others who are not tied to a desk form 9-5 playing then there is no market for most for the week....kids or no kids playing...

[Jud_T]

Mike,

Folks can't bitch about bankers getting government handouts and in the next breath bitch about bankers not taking clients out for golf. Some of those rounds simply aren't coming back...(as an aside did you see the estimates that came out the other day that the government will end up MAKING $10-100 BB on the financial crisis bailouts when it's all said and done?).