Independent Golfer Ireland

No offence, but I'm not sure you've thought that fully through.

• There aren't that many opens at weekends, not in my area for sure (south east). But a plethora of opens during the week, fourballs, seniors/juniors/ladies, mixed gents & ladies
• If you live in area where you can play opens for 15, 20 quid (at that price I'm assuming mostly senior opens or very rural) you can probably get a membership for well under a grand too, like maybe 750, 800, maybe even 650.
• By the time you finished chasing and travelling to your opens and your ranges and par 3s and paid your iGolf fee you're probably most of the way towards your 750 or whatever you have to pay for the club in your area. Which you could use to play there whatever day and time of the week you want just around the corner without all that hassle of travelling. And it actually also entitles you to play all those opens without a question.

Like I said before, it might suit some. But I think when people do the maths and think about travelling and the arranging of the matey groups and everything else it's not gonna be such a no-brainer and the band of players for whom this will truly make sense will be probably narrower than you think.

On the surface 25-40 w career n family commitment. Can only play 6-12 per year. Makes financial sense but being restricted to weekends makes things awkward w opens and travelling and getting all the mates together. Also that group doesnt seem to like being away from home for golf for 6 or 7 hours. They always crying about slow golf I need to get back home already.

Or on the other hand a gang of retirees. They have a senior open lined up in their vicinity nearly every day Mo-Fr. Heaven sent for them. But they're retired and like their comfort too. They like a clubhouse w friends and a grub and a card game and a bet on the tv with the racing channel on. And statistically their demographic group is relatively strong on the spending power. Retired, no mortgage, they might just simply pay membership on their local for convenience and Sunday - to heck with the grand - and do their rota anyway.

https://irishgolfer.ie/latest-golf-news/2024/10/05/igolf-clubs-fear-losing-out-on-attracting-younger-members/

Meetings have already taken place with Golf Ireland and amongst clubs themselves in previous months. This is what brought in the 3 year stand down period as far as I understand. Unless, there is going to be a new batch of them…

Clubs withholding subs to Golf Ireland is bananas stuff and could adversely damage cash flow. Which has knock-on effects to staff and various programs, international teams etc. That could easily trickle back down to clubs. There is no need to be escalating this further to a "strike" situation and going nuclear. It's quite simple for the clubs that want iGolf. Don't accept iGolfers for comps and/or put a premium rate in place.

By all means vote and have motions at the AGM etc, but pulling money is not going to help anyone. Do they think this is some sort of industrial dispute like teachers or nurses pay?

Remember that R&A were directly threatening to position a private company in charge of iGolf if GI didn't run with it. That would have next to zero accountability to clubs than GI, you can be sure it would do everything to make a profit. This would be a significantly more dangerous situation.

Like it or not the R&A/USGA want iGolf type programs all over the world. It's already in other countries and will be more widespread. You have to find a way to balance club concerns and live with it.

Technically, opens aren't the only option. They're the only option to play a competition, but they can always play general play rounds, paying a normal green fee

Yes, but can't maintain a handicap without the iGolf membership

I wasn't suggesting people would sign up "just" to play casual golf but if you can maintain an igolf handicap by just playing casual golf then that would allow you to play in classics etc. That seems a bit mad to me.

It's def'ny added income and very welcome, but it's only a small percentage of the budget. Very low single digit %. I'd say if you lost just 20 or 25 full members to iGolf you'd all but negate that added 'opens' income annually.

Opens are a win/win for members & clubs. Members can play elsewhere in a comp without paying full whack and the clubs have some added income. I think the concern for the clubs is clearly about possibly losing members to it. And from a members point of view maybe some irrational or not thinking of where is the justice them playing (and possibly winning) here for 'perk' rate when they have no home club to offer to play at.

Regular Open competitions are not win/win for clubs and golfers. Below cost selling of golf diminishes the value of membership, this lead to the proliferation of distance memberships for handicaps. These clubs became the enemy for fulfilling a need created by the clubs themselves, and now iGolf is becoming the enemy instead.

The reality is clubs who host weekly open competitions are making a mistake and they need to look inwardly. With the fees that clubs charge there is little revenue to be made from them

By all means, host an Open week to give potential new members an opportunity to see the course but hosting regular open competitions will make members whose play is low and diminishing leave the club.

Exactly

However, the clubs that are going to charge ‘extra’ for iGolf members are just throwing money away because that money will go elsewhere.

Can’t imagine accountants/treasurers would be too pleased with that.

Or if they get two igolfers each week in their open they'll cover 4 memberships. I don't think there will be much of a difference in terms of revenue for the clubs, but the biggest impact they'll see is if they don't allow them.

I don't think revenue is the sole reason for holding opens - it's probably the only way to hold a mid-week comp too. But the way some people are talking about it, you'd swear the money was irrelevant. If a club can get 30 visitors each spending €35 between comp fee and pro-shop / bar that's about €55k. Add in members spend and it could easily be €60k. After costs it's probably still worth 50k to the club. That's important money to keep clubs going. If you think about the member clubs that don't do weekly opens (not counting the really big name courses)- they're the richer ones, the ones that can still charge entrance fees. Malahide down the road from me don't, St Anne's don't, Milltown, Clontarf, Grange. I'd go as far as to say that if clubs don't have to do a weekly open because they need the money, they probably won't bother.

I think clubs would be mad not to accept them anyway. It won't just be the igolfers you'll lose, you'll find that their playing partners will choose their mate over a course and it won't just be the igolfer the club will lose out on some weeks. And if they're hoping to get these igolfers as members it'll be a negative against the club if they didn't let them play in their comps as an igolfer.

Midweek open comps are incredibly common - it’s a way to keep a flow of players coming in. An open comp is far more attractive than straight up green fees, hence why most do them.

The only problem with that is they will have to avoid a huge number of courses so.