Course Owners Innovate As Golfers Play Less
While the idea of running a golf course may sound like a dream job to any of the sport’s many devotees, it’s not such a glamorous business to be in nowadays.
Business is down. Really down. In fact, the National Golf Foundation recently reported that 10 to 15 percent of golf courses it surveyed nationwide reported being “seriously challenged” financially. And that statistic is backed up by many local golf course operators, including Tim Gordon of Niblick Golf Inc., which manages the recently opened Shining Rock Golf Club in Northbridge and the private Hopkinton Country Club.
He estimated that profits at the average course are likely off 10 percent in the past 11 years.
“For some, that was their breathing room,” Gordon said.
With the golf season fast approaching, Central Massachusetts course owners report that business has not returned to brisk pre-2001 levels, but they say that they are adopting strategies aimed at golfers with shifting lifestyles in order to keep tee times booked. And they are cautiously optimistic.
Teed Up
Michael Gordon (no relation to Tim Gordon), owner and president of Blackstone National Golf Club in Sutton, said that many golfers today either have less money to spend or less time to spend.
“What happened in the last two or three years is people were either unemployed or they had to fire some people under them and they’re now working ungodly hours and they’re no longer sitting in the golf cart with their BlackBerry, doing business between shots,” Michael Gordon said.
Of course, course owners aren’t just throwing in the towel. They are designing new membership packages, using the Internet to communicate with golfers and offering smaller packages that include several rounds and other benefits.
Massachusetts has certainly not been exempt from the financial troubles that have plagued courses in saturated markets like Florida, South Carolina and Arizona.
The private Sterling National Country Club in Worcester was sold through a foreclosure auction to the Jan Cos. of Rhode Island.
Even Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton, which has hosted 33 PGA events, was foreclosed upon and sold at auction late last year. It will reopen this year, remaining as a private club.
The 30-Year Cycle
In the golf course business, ups and downs have been triggered by boons and busts in real estate and dot-com companies as well as by the emergence of popular golfers like Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie.
Tim Gordon, of Niblick Golf, has tracked such cycles during his career in the golf industry, and said that between Boston and eastern edges of Worcester, they seem to restart every 30 years.
Right now, the industry appears to be about halfway through the current cycle following a bust that occurred in 2001, he said.
“It’s amazing how predictable, at least historically, the curve has been,” Tim Gordon said. “It’s just a question of what’s going to trigger it.”
Course owners yearn for the conditions of the mid- to late-1990s, when memberships were increasing and golfers were playing plenty of rounds.
“The heyday of the late 90s were great years, but post-2001 has been tough,” said David Frem, owner of Cyprian Keyes Golf Club in Boylston and president of the New England Golf Course Owners Association. “What’s a little bit disconcerting is the amount of avid golfers has definitely shrunk a bit.”
Despite somewhat gloomy indicators for golf, course owners said they are working hard to adapt to a changing marketplace, trying to keep current customers and to attract new ones.
Blackstone National is one course trying something new this year.
The course’s website presents a color-coded menu of membership options ranging from 20- to 50-round packages in addition to the classic unlimited rounds package.
Members can choose their package with or without a motorized cart and couples can share the membership.
Michael Gordon recalled discussions last year with members that led to the change.
“They came to me and said, ‘I just can’t be throwing three grand at this membership anymore because I’m only playing 20 rounds a year,’ ” he said.
In response, Gordon and the board of directors devised memberships of varying levels and prices. It’s still too early to tell how effective it will be, he said, but so far so good.
Cyprian Keyes offers package deals under its Keyes Card program.
“It’s a card geared toward somebody who doesn’t play enough to be a new member yet,” Frem said.
Shining Rock has partnered with four other area courses so that its members can play those other courses for $10 with optional cart fees during off hours, Tim Gordon said. Such reciprocation, he said, is becoming more and more common.
“I think the new golfer wants variety,” he said. “Whether or not they actually use it that much is unsure, but they want to know they have that option.”
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