CGMS golf management

Barnseire

Folks,
I've just attended a special meeting of my club and there was a proposal to bring in the services of the above company. I was just wondering does anybody have experience of them or similar management companies and what the end result was. The proposal was purely for management of the course NOT marketing or increasing green fees etc. There was a very mixed reaction from the membership, and I am interested in any other experiences. If this is against forum rules then maybe somebody could PM me,
Thanks.

J6P

They're doing an outstanding job in corrstown since last April. The greens are as good as anywhere I've played and have been throughout the winter.

scubapro

Who are CGMS , is it Carr golf?

PARlance

scubapro wrote: »

Who are CGMS , is it Carr golf?

I was thinking it was Carr Golf Management Services myself, if it is then I can say that I've gotten to know a few of the guys from my visits to the Spawell driving range that they run.
They also run Elm Green, Corballis and a few more courses.

I think they're trying to break through and get hold of a few more higher end courses. I think they were in for management of Castleknock recently.

All I can say is that they seem to know their stuff and know golf in Ireland. They probably work more in the budget end of things at the moment but I'd have no doubt they could work with any level of club. They are all mad golfers and they seem pretty clued into the business side of things.

golfguy1

They took over the course maintenance in Killarney golf club for about 6-9 months last yr.
They did improve the course but were very expensive. Pretty sure our new greenkeeper could have done it without them.

Barnseire

Thanks for the responses. Seems positive to date. Apologies it is Carr golf (its actually GCMS not what I quoted above) but I think there's a couple of arms to the business. Their proposal is that they can come and manage our current green keeping staff, supply materials, and maintain machinery all at a cost neutral basis. There were 4 courses mentioned in the presentation and Corrstown was one of them. I was wondering if their were other experiences out around ?

golfguy1

Sorry for my stupidity but what is a "cost nuetral basis".
Im sure we paid them €160,000

Dealerz

I'm only assuming it means the club was already paying €160k to do all this maintenance with its own staff- the benifit I'm assuming is a guaranteed service level without having to manage staff/pay staff/ admin of staff/ account for machinery etc

golfguy1

Carr golf had 2 lads working with us for months. Pretty sure they got paid that amount and our staff were still being paid outside of that money.
In my opinion if your greenkeeper is good at his job you dont need these people.
They are in it to take over struggling clubs at no/little charge and make large profits for themselves.
Cant see the benefit for the club itself

GreeBo

I guess the saving is on machinery maintenance/depreciation etc.
If Carr golf own and are responsible for it they take the hit (but also the upside in being able to share it around their courses)

I think depending on the quality of the offering your course wants, it may be suitable.
I have no idea what sort of quality they offer, but I cant see how they could provide "championship" (ugh!) quality for all of their clients at a cost neutral basis.

slave1

They ran and maintained New Forest AFAIK for the guts of two years and I'd no complaints when playing it

Barnseire

By cost neutral I meant, we have a figure for maintenance which includes the maintenance of machinery, supply of seed/sand etc. which our own staff currently source. GCMS have said that they can provide those services and supplies and also provide the management services for a fixed price which is the same at what we are currently playing.

They are linked in with the K Club, and apparently they bought 2m worth of equipment for the Ryder cup and this is a method of "sweating" their assets.

GreeBo

Barnseire wrote: »

By cost neutral I meant, we have a figure for maintenance which includes the maintenance of machinery, supply of seed/sand etc. which our own staff currently source. GCMS have said that they can provide those services and supplies and also provide the management services for a fixed price which is the same at what we are currently playing.

They are linked in with the K Club, and apparently they bought 2m worth of equipment for the Ryder cup and this is a method of "sweating" their assets.

If its costing your club the same.....whats the point?

PARlance

GreeBo wrote: »

If its costing your club the same.....whats the point?

They are getting the management services for "free".
So their fee is the same amount the club is currently spending on the maintenance side of thing, Carr will do this maintenance work. But as well as that they will be running the Pro shop, comps etc I believe at no additional cost.

Eoinyh

Wouldn't like them running the comps, is this not the men's club job

golfguy1

Parlance
If cgms take over the management for "free" and dont preform aswell as the club management was who foots the bill?
No doubt that they have good people in the greenkeeping side of it just cant see benefit to clubs if they charge the same fees as it currently costs clubs

PARlance

golfguy1 wrote: »

Parlance
If cgms take over the management for "free" and dont preform aswell as the club management was who foots the bill?
No doubt that they have good people in the greenkeeping side of it just cant see benefit to clubs if they charge the same fees as it currently costs clubs

There's many different models that can be used but it's generally "management services" that I've seen being provided, rather than the overall management of a club.

So, they may manage the Pro Shop (i.e the guy behind the till would be paid by CGMS) ,
They may also manage things like the Comps (in terms of the collection comp fees and distributing prizes). So the club would give them the diary of the comps they wanted and CGMS would take it from their.

Apologies if my last post was confusing... I don't think companies like this are looking to get involved in the running/governance of a club (there's no money in that), instead they are providing services to the club.

It's basically just Outsourcing for the Golf Industry.
Going back to a previous example:

Club X is paying €160,000 for greenkeeping
A golf managmenet company like CGMS comes in and says we'll do all the green keeping for €160,000 but we'll also run the Pro shop and we'll put one of our Pro's into it, we'll also pay for another guy to help out in the shop. This would represent a big saving to the club and it is what I was calling "management services".

Another big benefit of something like this would be seen every few years. If a management company is providing the equipment for green-keeping then the club doesn't have to make any capital investments on machinery.

I'm not quite sure what you mean with the "Who foots the bill question"?

Tin_Cup

GCMS is golf course maintenance only. The services side is a separate side of the business. If it's GCMS mostly likely would just be the maintenance not running pro-shop comps etc

Barnseire

Tin Cup has it spot on, it's purely course related services. However, the proposal is that they will in effect manage our current green keeping staff. So one of their staff would leave a task list each week with the Head green keeper of what was to be done and also review last weeks work and report back to the Greens committee.

The concerns that I would have are in relation to delineation of responsibilities, adding in additional layers of management and demoralising the current staff. I was wondering if they have implemented this model anywhere else.

bustercherry

Barnseire wrote: »

Tin Cup has it spot on, it's purely course related services. However, the proposal is that they will in effect manage our current green keeping staff. So one of their staff would leave a task list each week with the Head green keeper of what was to be done and also review last weeks work and report back to the Greens committee.

The concerns that I would have are in relation to delineation of responsibilities, adding in additional layers of management and demoralising the current staff. I was wondering if they have implemented this model anywhere else.

Sounds like a waste of money.

GreeBo

I cant imagine any head greenkeepers worth their salt being too happy about an outside agency telling them how to run their course.

Perhaps thats the saving, you dont need a head greenkeeper if these guys are handing out tasks and rating the results.

golfguy1

Sorry lads still cant see any benefit to bringing in carr glf.
As far as I see it they will run the course at exactly the same costs as already done by the club. But somebody has to pay carr golf.
If your bringing carr in your basically telling your greenkeeper/staff there not up to it.
Why not jst replace the greenkeeper?

Dealerz

golfguy1 wrote: »

Sorry lads still cant see any benefit to bringing in carr glf.
As far as I see it they will run the course at exactly the same costs as already done by the club. But somebody has to pay carr golf.
If your bringing carr in your basically telling your greenkeeper/staff there not up to it.
Why not jst replace the greenkeeper?

It's beginning to sound like a staff (head green keeper) discipline issue rather than an exercise that would benefit the course or members!

John Divney

Like every other area of business, it's the first step to sacking your green staff permanently.

mike12

The saving will be long term. If they are buying sand fertliser in bulk they will be able to buy it cheaper than any 1 club plus by sharing the equipment between clubs they can do it cheaper than and one club. As far as i know in Corballist all the guys work for Carr not the Fingal CC.
I'm sure there are also a lot of wasteful and outdated practices that are being done by the green keepers in a lot of clubs with old equipment.
I can see a lot of clubs opting for this in the future if you know you are getting all your green keeping done for €120,000 each year and you don't have to worry about the price of diesel or a mower breaking or the cost of sand going up.

bustercherry

mike12 wrote: »

The saving will be long term. If they are buying sand fertliser in bulk they will be able to buy it cheaper than any 1 club plus by sharing the equipment between clubs they can do it cheaper than and one club. As far as i know in Corballist all the guys work for Carr not the Fingal CC.
I'm sure there are also a lot of wasteful and outdated practices that are being done by the green keepers in a lot of clubs with old equipment.
I can see a lot of clubs opting for this in the future if you know you are getting all your green keeping done for €120,000 each year and you don't have to worry about the price of diesel or a mower breaking or the cost of sand going up.

I would agree with all this but from the thread it doesn't appear to be fixed price solution. It would appear to be proposing some sort of management consultancy with the club still having to fork out for the staff (possibly supplying their own tools and materials). Without seeing the actual proposal it is hard to know but what is being posted doesn't add up and would be hard to see why you would pay for an additional management layer.

Tin_Cup

In fairness from what I have seen with Carr they have always kept the head greenkeeper at each course they work with. The savings come from as outlined above. Bulk buying in products and having a machine pool which eliminates the maintenance cost for the club also.

GreeBo

Tin_Cup wrote: »

In fairness from what I have seen with Carr they have always kept the head greenkeeper at each course they work with. The savings come from as outlined above. Bulk buying in products and having a machine pool which eliminates the maintenance cost for the club also.

but would you want to be a head greenskeeper if you are not "in charge"?

mike12

From what i have seen the condition of Corballis and Corrstown are always good. Not sure exactly how it works but it seems to work well.