2024 Visitor Fees UK & Ireland

[Sean_A]

In my experience, with the exception of the odd Irish course, prices don’t drop. There may be more deals to be had, but rack rates don’t drop.

Just at Cruden Bay…it was steady busy…not rammed. North Berwick was rammed. Fraserburgh was nearly empty on a Sunday.

Ciao

Sean,

How did you like  Fraserburgh? We really enjoyed it last year. We had the course to ourselves (admittedly, a raw day). 100 pounds if I remember correctly.

Ira

I was surprised, better than I expected. Loads of variety considering the hill and routing basically running along the coastline.

Ciao

[David_Tepper]

"Ben I also noticed last week that Dornoch was rammed, yet Brora and Cruden Bay had only the odd minibus."

Brora may only have the odd minibus, but there is enough demand that they are now charging a 140 pound green fee for non-UK visitors. That is roughly 4 times what they were charging 20 years ago.
 

[Niall C]

I don't believe that the private clubs in the UK and Ireland are allowing visitor play out of the goodness of their hearts.  Yes, no doubt some would do just fine without the visitor revenue but they would have to significantly increase their member dues which is not necessarily something that every member can afford.  The same is true of overseas members who I would speculate by and large do not play enough to be a positive economic decision for them.  The private clubs must demonstrate to their members that allowing visitor play makes economic sense especially where member play becomes significantly restricted.

Jerry


Generally speaking clubs have always welcomed visitors for reasons other than economic. From the days when the well healed clubs left the commons to find land of their own for their own course they have allowed visitors on certain conditions. Playing on other "greens" was part of the culture, so yes clubs have always earned a bit of money from visitor fees but that was not the only or indeed primary reason they allow(ed) visitor play. Therefore a level of visitor income has always been built in to the finances of clubs.


However I do think it would be a mistake to think clubs would have to, or choose to, significantly increase the members subscriptions on the back of visitor income disappearing. I'm not sure how such a scenario would happen but bear in mind the vast majority of UK clubs are owned by the members, and members in these clubs are loathe to spend money. I think they'd be more inclined to either cut cost or increase income by way of increasing the membership, or a mixture of both.


As for the very small percentage of clubs that have recently hiked their greenfees on the back of a surge of visitors, I doubt any are using the large increase in income to allow members subs to be lowered to a nominal amount. Instead they seem to be spending on frippery such as half way houses or clubhouse extensions in an effort to substantiate the greenfee.


Niall


 

[Jerry Kluger]

Sean: I remember back about 10 years ago going to Ireland to play Ballybunion and Lahinch where in each case I had a member as a caddie.  Each one told me that they had what I thought was very limited access to the respective courses as a great deal of the play was visitors who paid substantial visitor fees.  The member dues were roughly 500 Euros annually which were possible through those visitor fees.

[Thomas Dai]

Being a member at an elite UK club can be very frustrating. I know I’ve been there.
Whilst visitor income might help keep subs down if the balance of member vrs visitor play isn’t correct it can be really, really annoying.
Not just the lack of playing opportunities for the membership but other aspects like for example the pace of play of visitors and their behavioural patterns in relation to the usual clientele.
Plus at elite clubs many/most maybe even all the members aren’t usually short of a few quid so likely wouldn’t care if the subs were higher, even appreciably higher, provided it gave them more access and more flexible access to their course, their course, the course they own.
Many folks I know who are members at UK private member clubs would happily pay more in the way of subs etc in exchange for their course, their course, and I can’t emphasise this enough, their course, being less busy.
Atb

[Niall C]

Sean: I remember back about 10 years ago going to Ireland to play Ballybunion and Lahinch where in each case I had a member as a caddie.  Each one told me that they had what I thought was very limited access to the respective courses as a great deal of the play was visitors who paid substantial visitor fees.  The member dues were roughly 500 Euros annually which were possible through those visitor fees.

Jerry


Not sure whether you were responding to me or Sean but let me suggest that 10 years ago that 500 euros for members subs was not a really low number. I suspect that at Ballybunnion as elsewhere with a lot of visitors the money was likely being spent on more greenkeeping staff relative to comparable clubs as well as the frippery I mentioned in my earlier post.


Niall

[JohnVDB]

An interesting video from Forbes on Mike Keiser and Bandon including some financial numbers


https://youtu.be/4kAGLugETU4?si=63Rf7-I_ScBmLMKg


I’ve been going to Bandon since before it opened and love it.  The problem is that it is a long way from NJ (harder to get to than Dornoch) and unless I want to put together a group and plan a year or two in advance, it isn’t very practical. I can come to Scotland and get on most courses as a single with no real advanced planning.