How many annual rounds is too many?

[Carl Nichols]

I heard someone say recently that the number of rounds played last year on our course was too high to be sustainable--that is, to keep conditioning at the current level.  Is there any easy way to think about that question, or is it highly budget-dependent? 

[Kevin_Reilly]

How many months is your course open?

[Matt Schoolfield]

How many months is your course open?

Is rounds/month a metric in the industry? Weather-adjusted rounds/day? There must be some standard to normalize wear-and-tear across courses.

[Craig Sweet]

Depends...

[Kevin_Reilly]

How many months is your course open?

Is rounds/month a metric in the industry? Weather-adjusted rounds/day? There must be some standard to normalize wear-and-tear across courses.

No, just the original question was about annual rounds.  In an area where courses are open 7-9 months per year, the number is different than a course in California that is open for play all year.

[Carl Nichols]

How many months is your course open?

Is rounds/month a metric in the industry? Weather-adjusted rounds/day? There must be some standard to normalize wear-and-tear across courses.

No, just the original question was about annual rounds.  In an area where courses are open 7-9 months per year, the number is different than a course in California that is open for play all year.

I was just assuming that you could annualize a number for every course based on how many months it’s open, but Matt’s question works too—are there rounds/month or rounds/playable day standards in the industry?

[Craig Sweet]

In the original post you mentioned sustainability.....And that depends

[mike_malone]

Probably more than 200 is too many.

[Carl Johnson]

For those in the know, how much depends on player care for the course, such as properly fixing divots and ball marks?  Is that material, or not?

[Carl Nichols]

In the original post you mentioned sustainability.....And that depends

The person I overheard used the word "sustainable," which I interpreted to mean:  if we have that many rounds each year, at some point we won't be able to keep the course in the same condition.


I was therefore looking for whether there are general metrics or industry standards about wear-and-tear, etc.  But I can be more specific.  I belong to a club in Montgomery County, Maryland.  Last year we had 30,000 rounds.  The course is open year-round, weather permitting, and last year we didn't have any major snowfall or long periods where the course was closed (unlike this year, where the course has been closed for about 10 days and counting because of snow).  The person I overheard was thus stating that if we keep going at 30,000 rounds/year--or 82 rounds/day, or 2,500 rounds/month, however you want to count it--at some point we will be unable to "sustain" our current level of conditioning.  That struck me as wrong, hence the question.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Climate pays a massive part; is the plant semi dormant? or at its peak?


Somebody said to me (UK)  22 rounds in June = 1 round in January (in terms of wear). Winter wear patterns need to be factored into the desin, with wide walk offs and little bunker interference.


150 rounds in a day is quite a lot. 200 is chaotic.


40,000 in the UK was the number used to work out profit rates/fees ect but in reality 30,000 is a busy course

[Thomas Dai]

This is akin to this thread I raised a couple of weeks ago - https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,72571.0.html
Courses need rest.
Atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

The busiest course I ever saw was the Las Vegas muni - over 100K annually.  Of course, at least 364 play days, and usually played to near capacity of 300 players per day.  Actually, I did the math and it looks like the average is 274 players per day.


However, 300 is usually considered the absolute number of golfers per day, and at one time, many public courses got that on weekends, and maybe half of that on other days.  One rule of thumb is your 5 days of weekday play typically equal your weekend play.


In Dallas, popular public courses can play up to 65K in a 12 month season.  Most were more like 45K in the early 2000s but dropped during recessions to 30K or less.  Post covid they are spiking back up.


You can estimate the max capacity of a course per month as 30 days minus average rain days, times hours of operation, and typical number of foursomes per hour (usually a max of 7, should be less, like 5-6 groups per hour)  Of course, the pro or GM should probably have a record of play, but those are often surprisingly inaccurate, and many don't differentiate between 9 hole rounds.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Carl, I think I know where you are a member now. I have only played it a few times. Each time it seemed the course was wet. Wet courses don't heal very fast. If you remember, Four Streams had a lot of unhealed divots in the winter that didn't heal til well into May. Monday outings are particularly tough on courses. Few divots get replaced, and fewer ball marks are fixed. The practice tee takes a beating. Guys in outings do not know how to take divots there so you get a dozen different divots from a dozen shots.

[Craig Disher]

It seems to me that the design of the course has a bearing how how the course responds to the number of rounds played. A course with small greens will suffer more from heavy play than a course with large ones. If carts will be allowed, are there design features that can be employed to minimize wear and tear? If a course is designed for walking only and later carts are permitted and are used on the majority of rounds, will the course have unanticipated maintenance problems? I'm suggesting that keeping a course at a high level of maintenance is very much dependent on how the course is intended to be used and how that fits with the design. A mismatch cranks up the maintenance costs.

[Tom_Doak]

In my experience, year-round courses start to show the wear once they get up over 40,000 rounds per year.  Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes are in that zone, and I believe Harbour Town has raised the price and cut back the number of rounds to somewhere around that.


The hard part about doing that is if the demand stays high after the price increase, now you are turning down more $$$ if you limit the play!

[Grant Saunders]

For those in the know, how much depends on player care for the course, such as properly fixing divots and ball marks?  Is that material, or not?

Yes, it does have an impact for sure


Probably a bigger area that golfers could assist in course care would be if they were better at recognising stressed/worn turf and adjusted their traffic patterns as a result. I have literally had conversations with people bemoaning a muddy or thin area on a course while they are driving their cart across the very area they complaining about

[Craig Disher]

Tom,If an owner asked you to design a public course which would host +30K rounds/yr, would your design be very different if he was planning for only 10K rounds for a private, walking only course on the same site?

[Anthony_Nysse]

In my experience, year-round courses start to show the wear once they get up over 40,000 rounds per year.  Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes are in that zone, and I believe Harbour Town has raised the price and cut back the number of rounds to somewhere around that.


The hard part about doing that is if the demand stays high after the price increase, now you are turning down more $$$ if you limit the play!

When I was an Assistant Superintendent at Long Cove Club, I remember a visit from Mr. Dye & when he was on the 4th tee, he remarked, (paraphrased) "What the hell are all these people doing here?!? I designed this place for 50 rounds a day!" Today, Long Cove Club does between 35,000-38,000 rounds a year.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,If an owner asked you to design a public course which would host +30K rounds/yr, would your design be very different if he was planning for only 10K rounds for a private, walking only course on the same site?

For sure.  Just check out Memorial Park or The Legends (Heathland), which both play about 60,,000 rounds per year, compared to my other courses.  [CommonGround does about 35,000, but they've got some winter included.]


At this point, it's more the other way around . . . what would I do if I had a client who only wanted 10,000 rounds.  For that project, I'd consider building very small greens, because it's the only chance I have anymore.  [However, the course we are building in FL right now probably won't do more than 10,000 rounds per year, and we are still building fairly large greens.  Go figure!]

[Jonathan Cummings]

Isn't Ala Wai in downtown Honolulu year in and year out the most played golf course in the world?  When I lived there in the 80s I remember that stat.  Open 365 days a year, if my memory serves me right, don't they log something north of 150k rounds a year??

[Kalen Braley]

Isn't Ala Wai in downtown Honolulu year in and year out the most played golf course in the world?  When I lived there in the 80s I remember that stat.  Open 365 days a year, if my memory serves me right, don't they log something north of 150k rounds a year??

I've heard this, but wondered how the math works out.

Nice thing about that location is their number of daylight hours doesn't vary much, 11 in winter and 13 in summer.  So for this exercise I'll use 12 hours per day, and stipulate a 4 hour round.

12 - 4 (Assuming you want them to have time to finish) = 8 hours per day of useable time to send groups out. If you send out 4-somes on 8 minute intervals, that's 30 golfers per hour.

365 days per year X 8 hours per day  X 30 golfers per hour = 87,600 rounds per year. (240 per day)  Perhaps you could squeeze out another 30 golfers in the last hour and say "no guarantees of finishing"...but that still only gets you to 98,550k rounds per year. And this doesn't factor in weather, maintenance, group events, slow play, or other one off issues that could interrupt that flow.

Perhaps they are also counting back 9 rounds in the morning and front 9 in the evening as complete rounds?

[Tommy Williamsen]

The Dormie network wants only 75 rounds per day. It doesn't always work out that way, but 15-minute tee times does limit play.

[Wayne_Kozun]

This story says nearly 200,000 rounds per year at Ala Wai:  https://spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/sports/2022/02/17/hawaii-state-junior-golf-association-takes-over-operation-of-ala-wai-golf-course-driving-range

[Jeff Schley]

150 rounds in a day is quite a lot. 200 is chaotic.

Adrian you don't mean in general I assume?  10 min tee times for 8 hours straight 7-3 pm which is entirely reasonable in summer yields 192 rounds a day.  It is the 10 minute tee times and NO fivesomes that make it reasonable IMO.  If you crush it to 8 or 7 min tee times and fivesomes yes chaos.