The future of golf in Ireland?

GreeBo wrote: »

I disagree.
Courses are limited by only having 18 holes and X hours of light in the day.
You cant get economies of scale here unless courses start sharing machinery and group together for some buying power.

You dont get economies of scale when you cant scale your product.

You cant halve the price and try to double the number of customers, its not a bums on seats situation. You have one plane that costs X to run...other people have cheaper planes that cost half x to run. You cant compete with that if you want to keep your own plane, especially if people are only looking at price.

How do you provide a top level service for a mid level price when you cant cut your costs any more?

I never said halve or slash prices. And machinery sharing isn't practicable, from experience at our club.

All I’ve said is take a leaf from the airlines. They have found and keep working on ways to equalise supply and demand efficiently. But it is an ongoing job – not just decided upon at an annual AGM, based on non-existent or inadequately prepared facts and figures. And as the market is constantly changing, they treat this as a very high priority area, throwing considerable resources into filling aircraft and at the same time getting as much revenue for their seats as possible. All seat prices are not the same. They have segmented the market and constantly match customer needs with available capacity to maximise the return for themselves and the value to their customers.

Turning back to golf clubs, most have lost members, there are very few non-playing members remaining, heavy member demand at weekend but there are truckloads of spare course capacity midweek. Usage patterns can be obtained from club computer systems to facilitate a good understanding of what is happening (as opposed to anecdotal evidence).

A bit of market research on the general economy, on existing and potential golf members will provide pointers on what people can afford – not only financially but timewise as well. You can find out a lot about existing members, either through surveys or focus groups and from your membership database. There’s lots of web based marketing data available on potential member wants and needs, if you only go looking for it. There’s also quite a bit (plus ideas on possible new membership offerings) in the GUI, ILGU, PGA study “Promoting Golf Club Membership”, that I referred to earlier. But you do have put a bit of time into all this, including documenting / presenting / communication with members – there are no magic wand solutions.

Would love to work with you a bit to demonstrate how it can be done (i.e. recruiting and retaining members) – did it successfully and profitably myself for 2 years in my own club a few years ago, despite all the naysayers.

Would only spend the time again, if those responsible in a club were open minded enough to go on the journey required to adapt to our changed economic circumstances. The alternatives are to do nothing, hoping others will go bust first, or wait for the new Confederation of Golf in Ireland (CGI) to help. CGI are supposed to come up with ideas for new golfing packages in ways that make it easier for clubs to act on them in a structured, “officially recommended” manner. But that will only put a club into the pack with everyone else, as many more clubs will start much more aggressive selling of new golf membership packages at that stage.

sydneybound wrote: »

One small note I wonder why clubs which are clustered together don't share expensive machinery. Surely it would make sense say if three clubs in close proximity say for arguments sake Forrest Little, Roganstown and Corrstown each shared round a type drainage equipment which would be too much of an investment for one club to buy on their own.

Although that idea isn't anything new I feel in clubs need to start thinking outside the box to break even in years to come.

In 10 years time only the real top clubs will have full time general managers. A lot have been got rid of now anyway. That role should only be able getting money into the club, marketing/attracting society's/new members etc and not getting involved with committee matters.

Clubs have started doing this but I think it will become more common in that members have to be out by 10/12 on a Saturday to let society's play in the afternoons. This might have a knock on effect on membership but it's trying to make you the ourse is in use at all times thus bringing in revenue throughout the day without leave parts of the timesheet empty.

Entry fees for courses will never come back into full force in clubs like the headfort, royal tara, blackbush.

Agree with most of what you said except the bit about sharing equipment, especially between formerly "friendly" neighbouring clubs, who are now in a competitive race for survival.

At first glance, it sounds attractive. However, it would require a lot of management - for instance what happens when expensive machines break down? There are arguments about who broke what and the "Bart Simpson Defence" come out - it was like that when I got it or you'll never prove I did it, etc.

There are also situations (I have experienced) of a neighbouring club proposing equipment sharing, when our club had just replaced all our equipment but the neighbour's equipment was "life expired". So good in theory but not so easy to implement in practice, particularly with the extra management demands it would place on voluntary committees.

GreeBo wrote: »

Sorry but the statistics don't prove that clubs aren't doing anything!
If you have less consumers it doesn't matter what you do, someone losing out...

Clubs are going to fail, no matter what they try to do. The market of golfers can't support the current number and offering of courses...It's impossible for them not to fail. We are agreed that there is a lower limit costs to maintain a course, we are also agreed that there are fewer golfers than the peak....other than some courses closing and their members getting redistributed to the rest, how do you think it's just a matter of effort to ensure all clubs survive?

Clubs exist to provide a service at a standard and price people will pay. If there is too much supply then logically sine have to fail, right?

First of all, I never said the statistics prove clubs aren’t doing anything. Nor did I say that it’s just a matter of effort to ensure all clubs survive.

All the statistics show is that clubs are losing members. And, certainly, it’s neither desirable nor possible for all clubs to survive – there are just too many out there.

When it comes to survival, there are no guarantees. We don’t live in a risk free world. And the positions of some clubs are more risky than others. For example, if you are near to major centres of population and have a reasonable quality course, you are better placed to survive than clubs in more remote locations.

But, location and course quality alone are not enough. You also need membership offerings that potential members want and the people you are targeting have to know about these offerings. So if you haven’t the membership packages to sell and don’t know your target market, it will not be possible to meet the latent demand out there.

It’s not exactly rocket science, but I’ve often been taken aback by the number of clubs out there that very few people even know about. Sometimes members assume that just because they know about their club, everybody does and this is often not the case.

I genuinely believe there is still a mismatch between what clubs are offering and what consumers are prepared to pay for. So, contrary to what you say, I don’t believe there are fewer consumers but only that there are fewer consumers for the limited range of full or 5 day membership type offerings currently available in many Irish clubs.

There are big market segments out there for more affordable golf – just like has been demonstrated in the airline business (and by a limited number of golf clubs), if the price and service levels match the demands of those consumers, they will join golf clubs.

All the above being said, there is more widespread evidence of gradual change out there in the last few months – progress is slow but we are getting there. And to increase a club’s chances of survival, IMO, positive action is preferable to the “wait and hope” approach.

Sandwlch wrote: »

England with declining golfer members for 10 years now. And unable to reverse the trend. Ireland got a greater, faster, and more complicated shock. So no reason to expect it will do any better. Not that the suggestion of jeans and mobiles will have any effect either. http://www.golfclubmanagement.net/2014/03/clubs-urged-to-end-bans-on-mobile-phones/

While no one wants to be the club that bites the dust, in the big picture, the most enlightened thing the GUI/ILGU could do is to identify the best canidates, and assist and promote the closure of some clubs for the long term greater good of golf and golfers.

Good link - and, you're right, however about the big picture of some clubs needing to close, no one wants to be the club that suffers that fate.

If you look at the England Golf report this article is based on, "Membership Recruitment and Retention, Key Themes For Implementation", you will note that the 55 clubs interviewed, who were successful in recruiting and retaining members:

all placed emphasis on:

• Flexible membership packages - these recognised that one package no longer fits all and that the member who plays occasionally is still a member worth having. These schemes particularly target the younger golfer, aged up to 40.

• Friendliness – a friendly, convivial environment, where it is easy to socialise and find people to have a round of golf with, was found to be hugely important in attracting new members. Some relaxing of the rules, for example concerning jeans, trainers and mobile phones, was common.

• Low-cost ways to get into golf – clubs sought ways to help people try golf without a big initial expense. These include ‘have a go’ days, involving existing members and offering an opportunity to enjoy the facilities, and trial memberships.

Not so sure about your suggestion that the GUI / ILGU should assist in some club closures - you would need to look at their constitutions to see if they have the power to do stuff like that. From my experience, their main role is promoting the game of golf, rather than the business side of things. Anyway, you can imagine the furore, if clubs' representative bodies got involved in promoting member closures.

They have, however, (after 7 years of recession) set up the Confederation of Golf in Ireland (CGI) to promote golf more widely in Ireland and to put forward ideas on how clubs might better retain and recruit members.

Maybe this will help - better late than never, I suppose!

golfwallah wrote: »

Agree with most of what you said except the bit about sharing equipment, especially between formerly "friendly" neighbouring clubs, who are now in a competitive race for survival.

At first glance, it sounds attractive. However, it would require a lot of management - for instance what happens when expensive machines break down? There are arguments about who broke what and the "Bart Simpson Defence" come out - it was like that when I got it or you'll never prove I did it, etc.

There are also situations (I have experienced) of a neighbouring club proposing equipment sharing, when our club had just replaced all our equipment but the neighbour's equipment was "life expired". So good in theory but not so easy to implement in practice, particularly with the extra management demands it would place on voluntary committees.

I think we could see golf course maintenance being done by an outside company. As far as i know Corballis, Elm Green, Navan are all done by a contractor. The machinery for 1 club could easily look after 10/12 clubs bar green/tee cutting nothing else really needs to be done every day.