Jason
Public courses yes, but public also bans walking.
What public courses ban walking? A quick glance at the public courses I've played finds that over 90% allow walking.
There are a small portion of us, that refuse to play certain public that ban walking.
That's commendable I guess. I doubt very seriously that you comprise a large enough segment of the market to really damage their bottom line though.
Private clubs that have 50% of their membership walk do just fine.
Is that a universal truth? Do you have a source for it? Or a number of clubs that you're basing your observation on? Like the "cart fees should go to a rainy day fund!" line earlier, it sounds like you're just saying this because it's fun to say and you wish it was true. Bring some facts to support this nonsense.
The public/private courses will be very successful if they know how to maint. their course in a cost effective way. Private clubs have a spending problem, not an income from golf cart problem.
Cost effective maintenance is important, but it's doesn't rectify lack of revenue. I'm personally familiar with several private courses in my area that keep a relatively low maintenance budget and still don't have the revenue to stay in the black. It's just a reality of the market right now. Ballyneal is a higher profile example of a course that has a low-input maintenance meld but still experienced some financial difficulty a few years ago. Clubs need to minimize expenses, but it's a simple fact that they also need revenue. A private club that does 12,000 rounds a year and gets cart fees on 8,000 of them just took in revenue equaling over half of your suggested maintenance budget of $280k. Do you really think $160,000 isn't a valuable addition to the bottom line in the current economic climate?
My parents club has lowest dues of all the private and as many walkers as any other club.
I'm sure that's not true. Do you mean the lowest dues in Toledo? And how do you know they have as many walkers as any other club? Isn't Inverness walking only for people under 60 without a medical issue?
When cart revenue is used to meet budgets, people use that philosophy to justify trail fees and overspending and waste in other areas.
Sometimes they do. Other times they just add it to their bottom line. For your own sake, you should really stop posting nonsensical generalizations with no supporting facts.
Clubhouses losing money, so we have to blame walkers for being cheap and not paying for carts.
It sounds like you've been around some memberships that really hate walkers. I haven't seen the same trend. There are plenty of lower-budget clubs that have modest clubhouses, reasonable dues, tighter-than-average maintenance budgets, and still rely on cart revenue as part of their bottom line despite fostering a strong walking culture.
The average maint. of a private club in the north is $700k and i have seen impeccable courses maint. at $280k.
What is your source? $700k actually seems low to me, but I'm in the lower Midwest so our 12-month maintenance schedule and more extreme climate during growing season might explain why. Where was your "impeccable course" at $280k? And define "impeccable." Here in Cincinnati, I don't know that you can even keep bentgrass fairways alive for $280k a year. My club's maintenance budget is right around $700k, and I've seen the numbers for other clubs in town. Ours is among the lowest, and our superintendent does an excellent job. I serve on our greens committee though, and our allotted budget leaves some very difficult decisions about what to allot money to. In my mind, when you have to make very difficult decisions, it means you've set your budget correctly. We spend to take care of needs, but we don't have many costs left to cut and certainly couldn't keep the turf alive on your implied suggestion of $280k. If my club has dead grass everywhere next summer, we'll be able to go to our annual meeting and proudly announce that we don't have a spending problem. However, there won't be any members left to make that announcement to, which means we'll have a big revenue problem.
Have you gone to city view tavern-best kept secret in Cinci?
I have not.
I have to agree a bit with Chris. It's clear from your posts so far that you're accustomed to being the smartest and most enlightened golfer in the room when you discuss courses and maintenance and cart revenue and the long term success of the game. You've really mastered the basic talking points of GCA. I didn't mean to go all Mucci on you in this post. I just want to make a point. A thesis is not evidence, and you can't simply string together thesis after thesis into a paragraph and post it as though it's a rational argument that sheds light on an issue. When guys like you and me are at our clubs, we may be the smartest and most enlightened golfers in the building. But when we're posting here, we're total idiots compared to all the guys who make a living as experts in this industry. You'll learn a lot from this site if you learn to read a bit more and type a bit less. There has been a large amount of discussion about the economic situation facing golf courses over the last few years. The issues facing golf courses in the current environment are MUCH deeper than a simple question of whether or not they allow trolleys, and shoestring maintenance budgets are a bit of a double-edged sword.
It's really important for clubs to strike the right balance between generating revenue and attracting members. There's a place in the discussion of finding that balance to talk about trolleys, which may help attract members despite not generating the same revenue as carts. There's also a place in that discussion to talk about maintenance budgets, which need to be set high enough to attract and retain members but low enough to not bankrupt the club. But it's really not a simple discussion and I doubt very seriously there's a meaningful correlation between financial solvency of clubs allowing trolleys versus that of those that don't.