Anyone involved in the golf business knows that the past year has been one of our most challenging, despite the return of Tiger Woods. Professional golf hasn’t suffered, at least not to the extent of recreational golf as an industry has. The PGA still sells out events, drawing crowds and raking in money from television deals, product endorsements and video games. But ask the pro at your local golf course and chances are you’ll hear a different story. The club I work for is in the same boat. With the country firmly in recession and people cutting back on expenditures and luxuries, maintaining a membership at the country club, or even playing a few rounds a month at the golf course is frequently low on the list of family priorities. Which begs the question: if memberships and bookings are down significantly, how does a golf course reduce costs? Because if revenue takes a hit for an extended period of time at the same time that costs remain constant (or increase), the situation usual ends with the course shutting down. We had an all staff meeting and implemented suggestions from every department from the green keepers to the pros and even the kitchen staff. Did you ever see the episode of Arrested Development where Lucille was shocked by being served â€curly fries†at her country club? Well, don’t laugh; we downscaled our menu and added items like gourmet hamburgers and curly fires in place of the bacon wrapped fillets. We dimmed the lighting during evening hours, offered half-price green fees on Sundays, two-for-one yearly memberships, and even went so far as to buy grass seed in bulk from a discount supplier instead of the premium product our groundskeeper had used for decades. Perfect greens aren’t going to be appreciated if there’s no-one around to hit a ball, after all. One of our biggest savings was in the golf cart pool. We have a significant investment in carts due to an older demographic and extensive grounds; we have sixty carts in service, which is probably more than a lot of courses. Servicing those carts can be an expensive proposition, but our cart wrangler/mechanic came up with the brilliant idea of buying replacement parts from an online supplier instead of our usual source. It’s shaved a considerable amount off of his maintenance budget, but an unexpected bonus has been more uptime for the carts. His online supplier always has what’s needed in stock instead of having to source it and shipments usually arrive within 24 hours. That’s one change that will remain in place even after the economy has bounced back.
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