[Bill_McBride]

Scott a members club should make a net profit of around 5%, on a million turnover that's £50k. Unless clubs make a profit every time they need to make significant capital expenditure they have to go cap in hand to the bank - not easy in this climate - or to the members. Anything less than that and a couple of weeks of really bad weather can put a severe strain on cash flow. Very few costs go away even when the course is closed.

So far over a couple of threads I've heard RCP is too expensive for members, too expensive for visitors and too expensive for guests yet not one suggestion of who or what should pay for the running of the club. We could cut two or three greenskeepers and then the course will suffer and that will be a longer term loser. Cutting a few clubhouse hours and the hut saves in percentage terms very little but impacts on everyone.

When setting up the B&B an industry expert told us if less than 20% of your guests think you are too expensive, then you are too cheap.

Just don't lay off Laura!

[Jason Thurman]

This thread is very pertinent to a battle going on in Lexington, KY, where I attended college and still play once or twice a year.

Lexington has a fantastic municipal course system that, unsurprisingly, requires a subsidy from the local government. The city has had to cut back on local spending, with fire station brownouts and other funds getting cut, and golf has come under fire. For whatever reason, the golf courses (and pools, for that matter) are looked at as businesses that need to make a profit for the city to justify their existence while regular parks would never get held to such a standard and are community beacons.

The city wants to at least limit the subsidy the courses receive, which really seems fair enough. But the question of how to improve the margins of the courses has arisen, and I've debated it with friends to no better resolution than the local government has reached.

Aside from other things discussed in the thread, is it beneficial financially to close courses for the winter even in climates where winter play is frequently an option (avg January high is about 40 degrees, with quite a bit of variation)? I've wondered if closing a few of the courses for the winter months might keep them from operating at a loss during those months, but I've read in this thread that significant upkeep would still be required. Is it easier or more difficult for a public course to make a winter day profitable?

[Bruce Katona]

Jason:Look at the tee sheets of the various Lexington courses month over month.  Some will have more play than others in off-peak times due to conditions, demographics, price point, etc.  The courses bringing in the least revenue or operating at the biggest loss could close during non-peak season play, driving their market share to other public facilities which positively impacts that facilities bottom line.

If the grass grows in the coolest months, it has to be maintained and cut, but not on the same schedule or frequency as during peak season.

Here in the northeast, unless there are more winters such as this most recent one, turf will go dormant arounf 11/15 and the weeds begin to grow 3/15 or so.  Most seasonal staff come back around 3/15-4/1 and are let go around the Holidays.  Only salaried employees work through the winter, maintaining equipment, tree trimming etc.

[Tom_Doak]

This thread is very pertinent to a battle going on in Lexington, KY, where I attended college and still play once or twice a year.

Lexington has a fantastic municipal course system that, unsurprisingly, requires a subsidy from the local government. The city has had to cut back on local spending, with fire station brownouts and other funds getting cut, and golf has come under fire. For whatever reason, the golf courses (and pools, for that matter) are looked at as businesses that need to make a profit for the city to justify their existence while regular parks would never get held to such a standard and are community beacons.

The city wants to at least limit the subsidy the courses receive, which really seems fair enough. But the question of how to improve the margins of the courses has arisen, and I've debated it with friends to no better resolution than the local government has reached.

Aside from other things discussed in the thread, is it beneficial financially to close courses for the winter even in climates where winter play is frequently an option (avg January high is about 40 degrees, with quite a bit of variation)? I've wondered if closing a few of the courses for the winter months might keep them from operating at a loss during those months, but I've read in this thread that significant upkeep would still be required. Is it easier or more difficult for a public course to make a winter day profitable?

Jason:

My home club is officially closed from November through April each year due to weather, and due to most of the members being somewhere warmer.  There is still a skeleton maintenance staff around for most of those months ... you can't just abandon the course for the winter, as you say.  But they figure they would lose money if they staffed the clubhouse and pro shop during those months, so they don't.

So, officially, the course is closed, but when we have a mild winter like this most recent one, the course is still out there and it's no problem if we go and play on it.  I've played a few times this spring, and the minimal maintenance was plenty, and it didn't cost anyone a dime.  It's been a gift from the gods.  But your town could do the same, if they really cared about people enjoying themselves.

The people who would object more are the ones who own the other public courses around town.

[BCrosby]

Living in the SE it's not an issue we face, but I would think that hiring a maintenance staff every spring and offering employment that runs only through Halloween must be very difficult.

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

Bob:

Typically there are 4-5 regular guys who work through the winter (with some vacation time), and the rest are seasonal guys, many of whom have been coming back for years.  The seasonal guys don't just work six months, though, more like 8 months for most of them, with some college kids for the summer months.

In the old days, some of the seasonal guys would go on unemployment in the winter months, that was a way of life up here.  Don't know if anyone still does that.

[Neil Noble]

If you think about it there are a lot of businesses who open and close seasonally; amusement parks for example.  If you have a detailed written training program established, and 3-4 key staff you can deal with turn-over and train new staff quickly and not miss a beat. 

Getting summer staff is easy like teachers & students, the harder part is the shoulder early Spring and late Autumn so more and more clubs are using retirees and golf team high school students.  Even many municipalities in the Mid-west are now using snowbird retirees from April - November to keep their payroll down.

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