Golf Is Evolving

Change Has Already Begun

The world of golf operations has changed over the past few years. Many owners are realizing they must rethink their criteria to remain competitive. An inevitable paradigm shift has begun that requires not one but a variety of solutions.

A Variety of Challenges

Golf operations management includes several distinct categories of facilities: equity clubs, corporate owned, daily fee and municipal courses. The needs of each facility have changed due to a variety of social and economic impacts.

• The effects of the recession remain a challenge to budgeting.
• Course saturation has created increased competition and diluted the available pool of players.
• The general population is aging and a younger clientele has emerged that are on the move, not joiners dedicated to one facility.
• On average an individual golfer plays fewer rounds of golf in a year than the same golfer played in prior years.
• The proportionate increase in golf operations and management costs has greatly out paced the increase experienced by inflation in recent years.

The Bottom Line

Profitability has been a challenge for many years. There is no single solution. Each type of course and region of the country has its individual challenges. There are however a few things common to making any course economically viable. Golf facilities must be operated as a business with long range planning that embraces solutions to all the challenges facing golf today.

The major trend is the marketplace has changed. The demographics of golfers is very different than it was a decade ago. The facilities that will remain on top will be those that successfully market to the new generation of golfers.

The Next Step

These inevitable challenges facing the golf industry today call for a new set of solutions – the old business models are not versatile enough. Landmark Golf has already developed strategies that will work for all types of facilities.