New type of membership in golf club

Seems like a copy of castleknock's membership system

Senecio wrote: »

Sounds like a no-brainier for people who work Monday to Friday and would normally require a 7 day membership just to get 20 to 30 qualifying rounds in from March to October. Where do I sign up?

Great idea ,would suit me and a few of my friends down to the ground.
I rarely play a full 18 holes due to injuries ,I usually play 12-14 holes and play every second week on average so this would be perfect.

Nice to see clubs bringing in options like this .

Are the rangers there at 6pm on a Saturday evening?

Dr_Colossus wrote: »

So what's the club, Kilcock?
Perhaps it was an oversight but can't understand why the OP didn't mention the club in his post or the general secrecy in mentioning clubs in this forum. The options look flexible with something to suit everyone so if people knew the club in question they might consider moving or at least being able to factor in travel time and commuting cost.

Yes the club is Kilcock.
Article about it here in golfing weekly on page 21
http://digital.golfingweekly.ie/issue/265369/0

I'm a member there for the last year and would recommend the place as everybody is friendly and welcoming.
The speed of the greens were holding the course back a bit but a programme to quicken them has been agreed so they should be up to full speed for the summer months.At the price point I think they offer excellent value and all competitions including captains etc are available to play under the flexible membership scheme..So something there for everybody.:)

Yes you would according to one of the guys in the shop, but there is an unlimited offer for 799 and that gets you as much golf as you want

golfwallah wrote: »

That may be ok when the club has other choices as regards raising the revenue it needs to survive.

But choices are running out for a lot of clubs, with the recession continuing (e.g. government medium term economic strategy 2014 - 2020 based on very limited economic growth) and membership declining (down from 177,000 to 135,000 in last 10 years according to reports from GUI AGM).

It's amazing what can be done when you have no choice and are determined to survive. For example Ryanair's low cost model succeeded, despite government restrictions and competition from established carriers. In the process they transformed the aviation industry. Before Ryanair, air travel was for the privileged few - now it is affordable for anyone to fly.

Yes, there are issues to be resolved (e.g. control, etc.) and no, it ain't perfect, but it can work. Maybe that's the way forward for golf in Ireland - we certainly need more playing members and have too many clubs.

I guess time will tell, but good luck to those who are trying innovative new membership solutions!

No it wasn't, this is common myth perpetuated. Competition on routes drove down prices.

Not too long to wait Golfwallah, the wheels are in motion. But the first sign of the supply/demand balance being addressed, or the first sign of an uplift in the economy and we'll be back to doing what we do best and "tearing the ar*e outta it".

You just have to look at Dublin house prices (their recent rises) to see how quickly we forget as a nation and how quickly prices rise thanks due to this "forgetfulness" to put it nicely.

Golf may become even more affordable, but we'll soon correct that IMO.

In other news, Fyffes to merge with Chiquita to create world’s largest banana company... With HO in Ireland. We're not a banana republic in the true sense... We're just bananas.

First Up wrote: »

This (flawed) argument hinges on an assumption that there is an untapped market of new golfers that will emerge once prices drop to some magic level that creates enough business to allow clubs balance the books. There isn't - or at least not nearly enough of them to make this theory work.

All the research (here, UK, US) shows that golf clubs are competing in a fairly static market. The competition is between clubs but in a fairly stratified market structure. Druids Glen is not competing with Elm Green.

Sure there is scope for some creative pricing/flexibility that can influence maybe 5% of the market but that's it. We have too many courses for too few golfers. Huge variation in quality, huge variation in costs, huge variation in club finances. If you have a debt free facility that can tick over on a few hundred subs plus green fees at marginal costing - grand, but you will get what you pay for in terms of course quality, maintenance etc. and forget about future investment.

If you want better than that, you have the option of paying more and getting a better product. There is over supply and therefore will be failures in all categories but that doesn't mean the business model for one segment can be made fit another.

In every industry, competing on price is a mugs game.

Exactly.

With flights, you pretty much get the same product each time. i.e. you end up where you want to be. (give or take a few miles with Ryanair!)
With golf you dont.
Playing 18 holes in one course doesnt equal 18 holes somewhere else.
You cant have a price war with someone if you arent both selling the same thing.

First Up wrote: »

This (flawed) argument hinges on an assumption that there is an untapped market of new golfers that will emerge once prices drop to some magic level that creates enough business to allow clubs balance the books. There isn't - or at least not nearly enough of them to make this theory work.

All the research (here, UK, US) shows that golf clubs are competing in a fairly static market. The competition is between clubs but in a fairly stratified market structure. Druids Glen is not competing with Elm Green.

Sure there is scope for some creative pricing/flexibility that can influence maybe 5% of the market but that's it. We have too many courses for too few golfers. Huge variation in quality, huge variation in costs, huge variation in club finances. If you have a debt free facility that can tick over on a few hundred subs plus green fees at marginal costing - grand, but you will get what you pay for in terms of course quality, maintenance etc. and forget about future investment.

If you want better than that, you have the option of paying more and getting a better product. There is over supply and therefore will be failures in all categories but that doesn't mean the business model for one segment can be made fit another.

In every industry, competing on price is a mugs game.

I’m not suggesting that the only answer is price reduction – even though at least one long established club I know of has recently launched new prices for the rest of 2014 at a massive 60% discount in the first year of full membership and 33% discount in year 2.

Who knows how all this will pan out but survival this year seems to be the objective for some clubs – however about the medium or long terms?

No, rather I was thinking of flexible membership offerings based on a points system similar to that operated by Castleknock and now being implemented by Kilcock. The flexible offerings would be based on more restricted playing rights than those available to full members but would provide for playing rights for differently priced times (e.g. week-end, week day, twilight, etc.), all supported by software that would deduct points from the members GUI card.

Sure, it’s a fairly static market particularly for full membership and, yes, we do have too many courses. But even the debt free establishments need to plan for annual member attrition, which England Golf puts at 10% on average (and may be higher for many Irish clubs). No matter how well-off you are, if natural wastage is 50 – 60 per annum and you can only recruit 10 – 20, this presents a real problem, if not immediately, then in a few years time. And the economy isn’t forecast to recover for some years to come.

Look, no one, including myself, likes change and it is a difficult issue to manage (particularly if you don’t want to alienate the existing membership base), but the problem won’t just go away. So clubs need to address it, some sooner than others, or face even more unpleasant alternatives (like going out of business).

I agree that competing on price alone isn’t desirable. Most clubs have lots of spare capacity, so it’s a matter of finding ways to match that spare capacity with customers who have neither the time nor money to justify full membership. To me, flexible / lifestyle membership seems like an option worth considering. You also have to compete with the guys next door who are slashing prices.

It isn’t easy and it isn’t simple – but it can be done and, I believe, that those who rise to the challenge, aren't too remotely located and have a reasonably good facilities will succeed!

Good, so it's agreed then.

We're all going to join Kilcock, excellent!

First Up wrote: »

I don't know if any economists have applied price elasticity theory to golf but the studies that have been done on other service industries would not support your argument. The impact of price reductions on demand is consistently over estimated.
We have too many clubs for the size of the market. It is inevitable that more will fail. Ideally they would be the ones that least deserve to survive but unfortunately that may not always be the case.
Those with the best chance are those that are based on member support, rather than on trying to squeeze revenue from fancy pricing structures.
What I DON'T want to see is the overall quality of the courses declining while clubs engage in a futile price war.

Russman wrote: »

Not to be pedantic, but I'd say a lot of members play less than 50 times per year. They'd all want to jump onto the lower price plan and/or would be happy to reduce their golf to 50 rounds in return for saving, whatever, €300.
There's also the issue of membership, how do you value that ? I would argue that "membership" isn't just x number of games for a certain price. No club will survive if everyone reduced their golf to that equation. Guys would just chase deals and join different courses year after year, which is happening a lot already.

I agree clubs need to try to come up with solutions/new ideas, but most are in fact doing all they can already. The market just isn't there. Even 5% of the people who have emigrated in the last 5 years were golfers, how many clubs is that lost ? Yet, nowhere near that number have closed.

I don't buy for a second the idea that out of the 300 (or whatever the number is) clubs in Ireland they're all just sitting back stuck in the old ways. I know that's not exactly what you're saying. Of course, some are, and some ideas are quite simply unpalatable to them, but they'd be in a minority. Most members I talk to are well aware that no solution is going to be "fair" to everybody. Someone is going to feel that they overpaid for something somewhere.

There are lots of problems, from there being too many clubs for the number of golfers, to the current race to the bottom meaning that people have totally unrealistic expectations. With a huge number of clubs at that sort of "bottom line €1k" price point or thereabouts, potential members are choosing based on other factors - course, greens, facilities etc.

One thing for certain - running a golf club in recessionary times has become more of a conundrum and subject of debate than it used to be in the 10 years up to 2007. But the main priority right now is revenue generation through member retention and recruitment.

The answers among all the options out there, I guess, depend on where you’re coming from. Economists are usually advisors, who don’t always have to live with the consequences of their predictions (most are better at explaining the past than forecasting the future). Existing members don’t like change and potential new members are looking for the best deal they can get.

In member clubs there’s a voluntary committee and chairman trying to steer the club through difficult waters, develop options, choose a course of action, bring a majority of members along and implement. Some have more time available to find solutions than others – mainly brought about by their financial situations. Then there’s location, condition of course, facilities, etc. It ain’t easy and there is on one single answer.

It’s a bit like the game of golf itself – you do your preparation, make your decisions and then go out and play the game. I’ve been there myself for a few years and run successful membership campaigns that generated a lot of money for my own club. The only common factor in these successful campaigns was that the existing business / marketing model wasn’t working and we changed it. The precise solutions that worked for us depended on the situation we were in, working out alternatives, getting committee / member buy in and a properly resourced implementation plan.

All that said, there is a very interesting experiment going on out there at the moment. Compared to 3 - 4 years ago, most clubs have scrapped or reduced joining fees, many have reduced their annual rates and a small number have brought in pay as you go or pre-paid points options. Some clubs have gone under, some are backstopped by NAMA, banks or local authorities. But many are struggling, now that they know how many members they are likely to have retained for 2014.

In football parlance, it’s now “squeaky bum” time for many clubs - will be interesting to observe what happens in the real time case studies that are rolling out right now and see what strategies succeed and fail – that is , if you have the luxury of time to wait and see before having to do something yourself.