PowerPlay Golf
If you tuned into the Golf Channel this week to watch their special on PowerPlay Golf, you may have come away wondering what’s all the fuss about and how in the world could this possibly increase rounds or attract new players.
First a couple of comments about the telecast. It was atrocious! Not only did the anouncers fumble the whole concept of PowerPlay Golf, they bounced all over the map when it came to showcasing the actual play. There was never really a flow to the game which made it really hard to understand how PowerPlay works. Maybe it was their over-the-top excitement every time they thought there might be a PowerPlay, like it was a decisive penalty kick in extra minutes. Ironically, PowerPlay Golf is intended to be a faster method of playing, yet the telecast dragged on for nearly three hours for a nine hole match.
The telecast aside, PowerPlay Golf is supposed to be a faster version of the full game without losing any of the fun and excitement. It borrows from Cricket Twenty 20, which shortened matches into a manageable time so players could actually complete a game in hours instead of days. PowerPlay Golf is a 9-hole game so certainly can be played faster than a full round but it also introduces new concepts to the game in an effort to make it more exciting.
PowerPlay uses two flags per green and lets players decide whether to go for the easy one (normal) or the harder one (a PowerPlay). It also uses Stableford points for scoring, a format which is better known in the UK than in North America. That alone may be enough to kill the idea on this side of the pond.
I tried PowerPlay Golf a couple of years ago at Copetown Woods when GM Barry Forth put on a media event. Forth owns the rights to PowerPlay here in Canada and has been promoting it and trying to get other courses interested. Several have tried but as far as I know, only Copetown offers it on a regular basis and only at certain times.
I found the game intriguing. Part of that was the curiosity of a new and different format. Like most games that lend themselves to betting, it has some possibilities. However, for me, it wasn’t the “grabber” that the inventors and promoters hoped it would be. Perhaps a little too gimmicky for a traditionalist.
There’s another PowerPlay Golf launch coming soon for North America, complete with another made-for-TV match. If the promoters hope to gain any traction over here, one hopes they’ll make some adjustments to the presentation. Otherwise, PowePlay Golf may be D.O.A.
Why is the golf industry in trouble?
In the days of yore, there was a comedian named Professor Irwin Corey, who appeared on stage in rather beat up formal attire and a pair of running shoes. One of his routines was to address the question, “Why do I wear running shoes?” Corey would suggest that the question really needed to be addressed in two parts. To the first part, “why”, he answered that it ventured into existential philosophy beyond all human understanding and tested the deepest, most remote parts of his personal psyche. In other words it could not be answered. To the second part, “do I wear running shoes?” the answer is yes!
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been inundated with a multitude of press releases, articles, blogs and columns all asking essentially the same question, “Why is the golf industry in trouble?” Of course they all purport to have the answer to the why part and ready solutions as to how to fix it. However, very few of them even question their opening assumption that the golf industry is in trouble.
Is it really?
There are too many golf courses; not enough golfers; it’s too expensive; too time consuming; too difficult; members are aging; not enough young people are joining; the demographics are against us; society has changed; technology is the way people play today; there are too many rules; and the weather is bad.
On the other hand, there are a lot of golf courses to choose from; they’re not overly crowded; at least that high green fee keeps out the riff raff; the chops won’t be playing this brute; good thing we’re not inundated with a lot of young punks etc etc.
Perspective has a lot to do with whether you think golf is in trouble or not. Mark King, President and CEO of TaylorMade, suggests that golf needs to change the rules to attract more people. In other words, TaylorMade has captured about as much market share as they can so now the only way to sell more clubs is to make the pie bigger.
Some golf course owners think golf is in trouble because their tee sheet isn’t full all the time. Kind of a self centred attitude. Personally I think it’s great that I can get a tee time whenever I want, sometimes at a discount.
The fact of the matter is that some parts of the golf industry are in trouble – some courses, some manufacturers, even some tours. The pendulum swung way too far and now it has to swing back. It happens to national economies and other industries too but they usually figure out a way to survive. It means adapting but not necessarily changing who they are or what they do. Just because Ireland is having a bit of a debt crisis doesn’t mean the Irish people should all become German. Or General Motors should switch to making cell phones. Or we should amend the rules of golf.
Many parts of the golf industry are not in trouble, many are thriving. Good managers figure out a way to win in spite of the circumstances. One byproduct of every market downturn is innovation. Some course owners are moaning about third party tee time sellers and discounters – a realtively new phenomenon (innovation). Traditionalists complain they can’t compete with the discounters. Forward thinkers, however, are using the discounters to their advantage, filling surplus tee times by generating additional traffic at a very low marginal cost.
Could the industry do better? Absolutely! But not until the new thinking takes hold, the paradigm shift works its way through the system. There will be some casualties. The golf industry is adapting to changing circumstances but many of us are resisting the changes. We want it to be like it used to be. Well it’s not, so get over it!
So back to the question, why is the golf industry in trouble? “Why” covers too broad a spectrum to tackle in this limited forum. As to the second part, “is the golf industry in trouble?”
No!
Flawed stats lead to flawed conclusions
There’s an old saying that suggests that there are three sides to every story: your version, my version and the truth. Along the way some math geek added a fourth version – statistics, with the suggestion that they represent the indisputably correct conclusion. As we all know, stats lie.
An infamous press release a couple of years ago relied on stats to make a point about golf participation in Canada. The Ipsos Read poll found that approximately 94 million rounds of golf were being played in this country annually. Starting with a relatively low number of consumers and extrapolating the anecdotal findings lead to this astronomical number. If it were true, course owners would be pretty happy people and employers would be chaining people to desks.
More recently, Golf Canada used a statistical report to determine how large the market might be for their membership drive. Finding that there are nearly six million golfers in Canada and only 360,000 of them are current Golf Canada members, the future looked pretty bright for their marketing campaign.
With just 10,000 new members added to the Golf Canada roster in the past year, the results certainly can’t be put in the success category. And the departure of Peter Beresford as COO and the recent exit by Steve Carroll as a regional Membership Director can’t be just written off as personal career changes either. They are symptoms of a much larger problem.
Beresford came to Golf Canada after a long career at McDonalds. Some will argue that marketing is the same, it’s just the product that’s different. Well, marketing hamburgers and golf memberships is not the same. People eat at McDonalds because it’s cheap, consistent and convenient. The bottom line is people have to eat and if you’re in a hurry, Mickey D’s is a realistic choice.
Nobody really needs a Golf Canada membership, at least certainly not in the same way we need to eat. For competitive amateur golfers, they do need a handicap but for the bulk of golfers there is precious little that Golf Canada can offer them that they need. Beresford and company decided to tart up the Golf Canada membership with perceived benefits such as lower insurance premiums, travel discounts and discounted golf rounds.
Most people see these kinds of promotions daily. There isn’t a credit card company, travel company, insurance company, phone company or bank that isn’t bombarding us incessantly about how we can save and get special benefits by joining their latest program. Much of it is annoying, most of it is bogus and none of it really benefits you.
Unlike McDonalds, where you could always offer a trinket to get the kids to bully their parents into the store, there is no magic hook to make people buy a Golf Canada membership. There are just three reasons people have one: they get one whether they want it or not because they are members of a private club; they need a handicap to compete in provincial or national amateur competitions; or they want to support the good things that the RCGA does.
So now it comes back to stats. Currently there are 360,000 Golf Canada members. Using the estimate of six million golfers in the country, that’s only 6%. Seems like a lot of room to grow.
However, that six million figure is made up of occasional golfers, core golfers and avid golfers. Occasional golfers are those people who play 1-3 rounds per year. They make up almost 55% of the total. Unless they want to help Golf Canada out of the goodness of their heart, they don’t need a membership.
Core golfers, depending on whose studies you believe, play anywhere from 8-20 rounds per year. That works out to something less than one round per week over our short golf season. No need for a Golf Canada membership amongst these folks either although more of them may be sympathetic to Golf Canada’s objectives. The core golfers make up another 35% of the total.
That leaves just 10% for the avid golfers – those of us who play in excess of 20 rounds per year. For private and semi-private club members and addicts, that number likely exceeds 50 rounds.
So, out of six million golfers in Canada, the number of people who can most benefit from having a Golf Canada membership is down to 600,000. Sixty percent already have one. Of the remainder, one could argue that a lot of them play many rounds of golf but don’t ever play competitively where they might need an official handicap. They don’t need a new insurer or travel discounts either but I think we’ve already covered that.
Sixty percent of any market sounds pretty good but getting any significant part of that other forty percent will be very tough. There is no compelling reason to make them join. One answer lies in turning more occasional and core golfers into avid golfers, another very tough proposition.
Perhaps the best solution is a long term one that can start now. The Golf in Schools program is one of the most successful ever at introducing new people to golf. The kids aren’t big spenders yet but if they develop a love for the game early, they will be the avid golfers of the future.
Golf Canada needs to give every kid who goes through the Golf in Schools program a membership card. Don’t charge them anything for it but attach some real benefits to it – benefits that will get them out to a golf course and something they can get excited about. If the kids get excited their parents will get involved too. It works for McDonalds.
The kid’s card should definitely have an online aspect to it that ensures they’re part of a community. That seems to work for Facebook, gaming sites and others.
By the time these kids reach adulthood, having a Golf Canada membership will be an accepted part of playing the game and something they want to have rather than something they may or may not need.
By expanding the statistical base to include a new market, Golf Canada can target a whole new segment that will have both short and long term results. Besides if they give away a quarter million cards to kids, their stats will look better too.
The X factor
The mood of golf course owners and managers can change with the weather and usually does. For those that can step back from day to day operations and take a longer term view of things, there is always the economy to worry about. Or pesticde bans. Or the HST. Or a whole boatload of other ulcer inducing conditions.
In 2008 and 2009 the weather sucked for golf here in Southern Ontario. Two years ago, the economy was headed into the tank and fully resided there last year. This year was supposed to be different. We had fine spring weather that lead to a glorious summer. The economy was supposedly on the rise. So what happened?
According to most public course managers I’ve spoken to lately, rounds are up slightly this year but revenue is flat and profit is trending down. The explanation is that there is an increased cost to generating those extra rounds and that has a negative effect on both revenue and the bottom line. Although more people through the door should translate into increased sales in the pro shop and the grill, it’s not happening that way.
Those increased costs needed to generate additional rounds aren’t the usual marketing, advertising and promotion expenses generally associated with trying to grow a business either. They’re discounted rounds and it’s a trend that has a lot of people worried.
Depending on which side of the fence you’re on, discounting has either ruined or saved airlines, hotels, consumer electronics and clothing. Despite making all of the above more affordable to larger numbers of buyers, discounting has substantially altered the business model for the manufacturers and suppliers of those products and services. And not without major impact to the companies, personnel and shareholders.
Almost all golf courses have practised one form of discounting or another. Usually it’s a reduced price to play in a soft time – twilight or Monday/Tuesday rounds. This type of discounting is similar to the demand pricing models used by airlines and hotels.
Now, however, discounting is invading those full value rounds that used to be inviolate. This type of discounting is more a result of competitive pressure as owners try to keep the tee sheet full. It’s like a gas war. If course A drops his price $5, then you drop yours $6. That has turned a round of golf into a commodity, something to be negotiated, traded or bartered. Like other commodities, it’s bought and sold solely on price. For golf course operators, this is a scary proposition. No longer is it enough to differentiate their product from the competition by promoting course design, location, value and off-course amenities.
But for a lot of golfers, this type of discounting has been a blessing. If you used to play four rounds of golf at $50 and the course drops its rate to $40, that’s a whole extra round you can play for the same price. So what if you have to play after 3 PM? Same golf course, same guys, same experience.
In the old days it was an accepted practice that you supported your golf club by making your equipment purchases in the pro shop, having a hot dog at the half way house and a beer or two afterward. Now golfers load up on balls at Golf Town or Costco, jam their bags with fruit, sandwices and bottled water and often head staight to the parking lot from the 18th green. Whether they have somewhere important to go or are looking to save a few bucks, the result is the same. Discount players don’t spend as much money in the clubhouse.
Discounting isn’t just about price either. If it were, then everybody would play the cheapest course around. It’s really about perceived value or getting a deal. A friend of mine plays 3-4 times a week with the same group of guys. I once asked him where they play and his response was “wherever we get the best deal.” His group has identified about two dozen mid-range courses in the GTA that are similar in price and amenities and are acceptable to the group as “good places to play”. Beyond that, it’s all about the deal. Which course is offering a free cart? Who has the best price at that time of day? Who has coupons, 2-for-1′s or half-price replays?
Naturally all that research takes time but with the internet, e-newsletters and Facebook, he can always tell me in mere minutes who has the best deal at any given time.
Is this the trend for golfers in the future? It would be logical that there will always be avid golfers who like and support a favourite course regardless of price. But more and more golfers are looking at a round of golf as a commodity, and that means less loyalty and more competition for course owners.
Some owners have been able to buck the trend with multi-play packs, better marketing and just plain stubborness. Those with really deep pockets may look at discounting as a passing fad and are willing to wait it out. Others, who are operating closer to the line, may have to play the game and that’s a step down a slippery slope.
While discounting may benefit golfers in the short term, the long term outlook isn’t so rosy. Reduced margins means less money spent on maintenance, eventual insolvency of some courses and ultimately fewer courses to play. That’s not good for anybody.
Maybe the pendulum has to swing further before we see a return to more traditional values but if the example south of the border is any indication, golfers and course owners are in for a rocky, wild ride.
PowerPlay Golf
Former British Amateur champ and Walker Cup Captain Peter McEvoy was in town this week to officially launch PowerPlay Golf and explain his concept to the media at Copetown Woods, a very strong public course just west of Hamilton, where GM Barry Forth has signed on to become the first PowerPlay Golf site in Canada.
PowerPlay Golf was dreamed up by McEvoy and a partner back in the UK to stimulate play on a public course they managed. The idea was to offset the time and cost of play with something that delivered all the positives of golf but could be played in far less time than a traditional 18-hole round.
McEvoy explained that the idea originated with other sports like cricket which used to take five days to play and alienated all but the hard core cricket fan. In today’s faster paced world, he suggested, people want a quick fix but if you’re going to take something away from them, then something has to be added back to compensate. Cricket came up with something called 20/20 cricket which can be contested in a few hours but adds a few twists to sweeten the excitement level.
In golf, McEvoy says, it’s not enough to just shorten a round to nine holes. You need to add something to compensate for the loss of the other nine. Hence PowerPlay Golf – a nine hole game with the added excitement of two flags on each green and the chance to gain additional points for scores made on the more difficult hole positions. (and the potential for even more betting.)
The basiscs of PowerPlay Golf are pretty simple. It’s a 9-hole game using the Stableford scoring system to record points for each net score. A bogey is 1 point, par is 2 points, a birdie 3 and an eagle 4. Each green has two flags – a white flag representing an accessible pin position and a black flag denoting a more difficult one. During the round, each player has three “PowerPlays” in the first eight holes and an optional fourth PowerPlay on the 9th green. When a player calls a PowerPlay he then plays to the black flag and his points are doubled for that hole. So a net par becomes 4 points, a net birdie 6 points and so on. No points are lost for net doubles or worse. On the 9th, if a player elects to use his final PowerPlay, the major difference is that points can be lost for a net double or worse. (you wouldn’t think that any self respecting golf scribe could make a net double but it could happen in theory if you snap hooked your drive and then perhaps pumped a pair into the pond fronting the green.)
I was paired with Jason Logan from Score Golf and freelance writer Rick Young as we each tested PowerPlay Golf for the first time. Before I heard about PowerPlay Golf, the idea of two flags on a green seemed gimmicky but right off the bat we all found that you really only focus on the flag you have chosen and the other is forgotten. It’s usually best to choose your PowerPlays where you get strokes so you can really pile up the points. The game was simple to grasp and the added excitement of making net birdies and eagles with double the points really added some pressure.
It took the three of us just under two hours to play nine holes and I think we all felt we had completed a game. I certainly didn’t feel cheated that I had only played nine as I might have if PowerPlay weren’t involved.
The strength of PowerPlay Golf is that it utilizes the basics of golf but the scoring and potential for wagering add excitement. The 9-hole format obviously takes less time and because it’s a net game, it can be played competitively by anyone.
If there is a downside to PowerPlay it is that North Americans are not up to speed on Stableford scoring. We still think most often in terms of score not points. That downside should be short lived as more golfers experience PowerPlay golf. Course operators need to print special cards that permit the recording of gross score, net score and points. Players eventually will ask how many points did you make as opposed to what did you shoot.
Personally, I enjoyed PowerPlay Golf. It will be interesting to see if it catches on with golfers generally but there’s no doubt it’s a viable alternative to those five hour rounds.
Note: In addition to Copetown Woods, PowerPlay Golf is being introduced at Caledon Country Club, Braeben Golf Club in Mississauga and Peninsula Lakes Golf Club in Niagara.
Are we constrained by artificial lines?
My column from the Spring issue of Fairways Magazine:
A recent column by Jim Koppenhaver, a respected golf industry analyst from the US, explained that in the past he had been guilty of not giving due credit to all forms of golf when defining and assessing the current state of the game. By that he meant that so-called recreational golf was often overlooked as being part of the sport. Recreational golf in his view meant anything that could not be distilled down to an 18-hole competitive round. He elaborated that so-called recreational activities were often considered by golf industry associations as “an assault on competitive golf and the abandonment of tradition.” People who played recreational golf therefore were not real golfers.
One has to wonder then what exactly is a golfer? Does that mean that anybody who doesn’t post a score for handicap purposes isn’t a real golfer? Do the folks who only play nine holes every Wednesday afternoon not count? How about the ones who play five or six times a week but take mulligans, improve their lie and concede putts? Is that not real golf? Are they not real golfers?
By some counts there are approximately six million golfers in Canada but only about 400,000 of them are members of the RCGA through their provincial golf associations. Does that mean there are only 400,000 real golfers in Canada and the rest are not? Certainly golf course owners who rely on the other 5.6 million non-members to pay green fees and buy beer would disagree. Equipment manufacturers, golf pro shops and retail stores that sell clubs and balls would consider them all to be real golfers. If you asked any of the six million if they considered themselves to be real golfers, the answer would undoubtedly be affirmative in every case.
Now let’s take this a step further. Is someone who only plays miniature golf a real golfer? Traditionalists would scoff at such nonsense but The Rules of Golf define the game as follows, “the Game of Golf consists in playing a ball from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules.” That happens in miniature golf. Ergo, they must be real golfers.
Between the PGA Tour and miniature golf is a vast range of activities that include the use of a golf club and golf ball. Modern technology has given us simulator golf where you can play courses all over the world without leaving town. If you have mastered simulator golf but never set foot on a real golf course does that make you a golfer? Is that real golf?
I must admit that, like Jim Koppenhaver, I too have a bias towards 18-hole competitive golf. My brother recently reminded me that I used to say that playing nine holes was like kissing your sister. However I’m evolving. Occasionally my wife and I will go out late on a Friday or Saturday evening and play as many holes as daylight will allow. I consider that real golf.
I also used to denigrate all forms of golf that involved anything other than playing your own ball on every shot. That meant I wasn’t a big fan of scrambles, shambles or alternate shot formats. If it included three flags on every green, holes the size of hubcaps or buying mulligan tickets those weren’t games for me either. But, as I said, I’m evolving.
It’s not really about what I prefer or any other individual for that matter. Golf is really anything that you want to make it. If 18-hole competitive golf occupies one end of the spectrum, there are a wide range of things that most traditionalists would find abhorrent on the other end. But those other activities, if they involve swinging a golf club at a golf ball, can be part of the game too, at least in the broader definition.
Most prudent people have an abiding dislike of waste. One of my pet peeves is that a large percentage of our property tax dollars go towards the building and equipping of schools that are unused for sixty percent of the year. I acknowledge that there are insurance issues involved but couldn’t the gymnasiums and classrooms be put towards valuable use on nights and weekends for sports leagues or adult training classes?
Similarly, golf course owners might look at unused tee times as an opportunity to develop alternatives. Private clubs might open the tee on Monday and Tuesday afternoons to public league play. As tough a pill as that may be to swallow for hard core private members, the added revenue and the exposure of the course to potential future members might be the club’s long term salvation. Public courses too can embrace activities that don’t impact the regular patrons. Witness the growth of PowerPlay Golf in the UK and elsewhere. It’s not a game you’d want to play every day but it’s fun, takes less time to play and still demands all of the skill required in “real” golf.
The bottom line is that if your tee sheet isn’t full all the time, then there is opportunity to explore alternate forms of golf. As Koppenhaver acknowledges in his article, many of the non-traditional activities, once thought of as an “assault on competitive golf and an abandonment of tradition” are really feeder systems for people who might ultimately move on to playing full 18-hole competitive rounds.
As an industry, we need to stop drawing lines that exclude new concepts and people who participate in non-traditional forms of golf. To expose golf to as many people as possible and grow the game, we must learn to embrace the alternatives. Hug a miniature golfer today!
Fantasy or reality? The glass is half full.
Psychologists tell us that February is the most depressing month of the year. Enough winter, enough gray days, enough shovelling. “Just let me get my hands on that groundhog’s scrawny little neck!”
To make matters worse, every day newspapers and TV stations are full of economic doom and gloom. Tales of bankruptcy, bailouts and despair. If you still have a job, you’re going to lose it. If you still have a business, it’s not for long. If you’re not depressed, there’s something wrong with you. The end is near so don’t be buying any green bananas!
What’s the point of even getting out of bed in the morning? Everything sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it. Even Dr. Phil looks unhappy.
Except someone forgot to tell the golf industry how bad things are. These guys just don’t get it. They act like the sun’s actually going to come up tomorrow. In fact, they act like it might get warm again too.
Perhaps someone should launch an investigation to see what these guys have been smoking. Why aren’t they depressed?
Maybe it’s in the DNA. Golfers seem to be imbued with an irrepressable optimism that non-golfers don’t have. How else to explain the absolute faith that you can launch a high soft 2-iron to a tight pin when your normal score is well into three digits.
Listen to the general manager or head pro at any course. “Despite evidence to the contrary, there is green grass under all that white stuff. People are going to come here in a few months to play golf, drink beer and have fun. Things are good but they’re getting better.”
Crazy talk!
Listen to the membership director at any private club. “Yeah we have a few openings but the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Christmas. We expect to be full come spring, maybe even have a bit of a waiting list.”
That’s nuts! Don’t they read the papers?
Retailers are even worse. “Sure we have lots of inventory but there’s a lot of exciting new products out there and we’re in a selling mood. Maybe people aren’t buying new cars but they sure like our new drivers!”
What’s happening here? Are they drinking the Kool Aid?
I’ll tell you what’s happening here. Business! Maybe not business exactly like usual but business none the less. The golf industry is definitely a glass half full crowd. Maybe even three quarters full. Just listen to some of them:
Unemployment is up to 7%! “Yeah but 93% are still employed.”
Companies will be laying off even more people. “Unfortunate, but maybe now they’ll have more time to play golf.”
The stock market has lost half its value! “Sounds like a good buying opportunity.”
The world is going to hell in a hand basket! “Have you seen this new line of hand baskets we just brought in?”
Whether it’s fantasy or reality, people in the golf industry are really hyped for spring. It’s infectious.
“Buy now! Join now! Book now!”
Shout it ten times quickly. The sun really is going to come up tomorrow.
Orlando Show Short on New Ideas and Attendees
The 2009 PGA Merchandise Show did little to brighten the hopes of golf pros and retailers throughout North America. With an ailing economy and the golf industry on the downswing, manufacturers couldn’t come up with anything innovative to spark the interest of those who made the trek to Orlando. Cosmetic changes, minor tweaks and a fresh coat of paint are about all that golfers will have to look forward to this year.
Perhaps the innovation envelope has already been pushed to the limit and the USGA lines in the sand are starting to have some effect. Without anything to grab our fancy, several companies (Nike, Nickent, TaylorMade and Callaway) are pushing the adjustability factor in the hopes that gear heads will jump on the do-it-yourself bandwagon. TaylorMade’s new R9 driver has about 875 combinations of lie angle, face angle, tilt, swivel, weighting and graphic presentation with a new adjustable connector. While the new driver features a fairly traditional look, for those of us that can barely handle one driver fitted correctly, this is overkill in the worst way.
Titleist came back to the Show this year but didn’t have anything new to demonstrate that we hadn’t already seen at the fall Shows except the latest iteration of the Pro V1 that presumably gets around all those nasty little patent infringement issues that caused such a fuss before Christmas. Ping had a neat display with lots of historical presentations to showcase their 50th anniversary but nothing startling in terms of new clubs.
While the attendance numbers aren’t available yet it’s safe to say that more folks stayed home this year than last. Cost cutting in the current economic climate can be blamed for much of that although maybe people just knew there wasn’t going to be much to see. The 2009 Show featured acres of empty coloured carpet representing last minute cancellations by exhibitors. MacGregor was one of those and rumours abound that Norman and company have already pulled the plug or are close to shutting the doors.
Nike and TaylorMade had no presence at the Show at all this year while Adams, Mizuno, Nicklaus and Wilson once again chose rooms off the Show floor for small displays and presumably cheaper rent. That left a lot of space to fill in the Equipment Hall. Both Nicklaus Golf and Bobby Jones Golf were rumoured to be on the brink of collapse which just goes to show that even a famous name doesn’t guarantee success as a club company.
Over in the Apparel Hall it looked like everything had been spread out to fill the available space rather than organizing exhibitors as in year’s past. Several clothing companies reported that they were offered much larger booth space for no additional cost if they could just fill it up.
The brightly coloured exhibits always look great in the Apparel Hall although after a while one cotton shirt is hard to distinguish from another. The eye candy is the real attraction at that end of the building and once again didn’t disappoint.
After two days of traipsing up and down the aisles, jawing with PR people and sales reps, examining more chrome, graphite, stainless steel, pima cotton, mercerized cotton, polyester and leather than I thought existed, one product finally stopped me in my tracks and caused me to laugh out loud. Stuck at the end of an aisle in the Trinkets and Trash section of the Show was an exhibit for Anti Monkey Butt Powder – something for golfers who sweat profusely in their derriere.
Every year there are inventors who pin everything on a breakthrough at the Merchandise Show. Most don’t come back the following year. I suspect we may add Anti Monkey Butt Powder to that list.
Pssst! Wanna buy a golf course?
Last week I had a call from a business broker in Florida wanting to know if I was interested in buying a golf course. Very good cash flow, lots of real estate potential. Oh yeah, it needs a clubhouse.
I’m not in the golf course buying business but I was very curious how he got my name. According to the sales rep, it came up in some sort of Google search that I was in the golf business so I was added to the database. Apparently I can look forward to future calls of the same type now that it has been established that I’m a potential golf course buyer. I can hardly wait.
The irony here is that there are plenty (maybe dozens?) of golf courses for sale in Southern Ontario yet rarely does anyone hear about them until after the deal has been done. Case in point – Timber Ridge Golf Club in Brighton sold recently to Gerard Waslen (Launch, Markham Golf Dome) but almost nobody knew of it until well after former owner Aart Van Veld had decamped for greener pastures.
According to Paul Martin, a real estate and business appraiser in Aurora, most golf course transactions are done quietly because there is such a small nucleus of buyers around that anybody on the sell side already knows who to call. Once you get past ClubLink, GolfNorth and a few private investors who currently own courses, there really aren’t a lot of serious players.
ClubLink’s Charles Lorimer indicated recently that their phone is ringing as much now as it did in the late 90′s when they were most active with acquisitions and development. The big difference he says is that courses here haven’t felt the pinch enough to make the purchase price attractive enough – yet.
So we know that there are golf courses for sale and there are serious buyers looking. When can we expect a few more deals to get done? Both Lorimer and Martin are hesitant to predict but in agreement that this fall and winter will be a major hurdle for local owners. That’s the time they get to tally this year’s results and see what’s left over to invest in next year’s operations, course improvements etc. For some it will also be the time to decide that enough is enough.
Don’t expect to hear about too many deals on this side of the border though. The market is like a private club. If you’re on the inside you’ll know what’s going on and if you’re not, then you’ll only know when a new face appears behind the counter at your favourite course.
Meanwhile, now that I’m on the “inside” as a potential buyer in the American market, I can let you know the next time a hot deal crosses my desk. Stay tuned!
Not everyone wants to “grow the game”
A few years back the various golf associations in Canada – RCGA, NGCOA, CPGA, CGSA, CSCM, CGIA and the Canadian Tour – got together and formed another association called NAGA – National Allied Golf Associations, sort of the mother of all associations. The purpose of NAGA was to find new ways to grow the game of golf in Canada and to ensure that the various individual associations weren’t running conflicting programs. Out of NAGA sprang a program called Play Golf Canada.
I was invited to sit on the Play Golf Advisory Committee as a representative of the Golf Journalists Association of Canada (GJAC) and attended my first meeting last week during the Canadian Open. Since then I have spoken to a lot of public players and private club members and while there is a massive laundry list of ideas about how to make golf better, there are two recurring messages: make golf more affordable and play faster.
However when people focus solely on the concept of growing the game, the message gets fuzzier. For instance, one player I know quite well explained that he was all for introducing golf to more kids, women, minorities etc but certainly didn’t like the idea of a foursome of giggling thirteen year old girls in front of him every time he played. Another player was also supportive of the concept but hoped it wouldn’t affect his access to the tee. As he explains, right now it’s a buyers market in Southern Ontario and anything that clogs the system can only diminish the experience for local golfers.
There’s obviously a larger conceptual issue in ensuring the long term viability of golf in Canada but to many people the idea of growing the game is like protecting the environment – it’s the right and proper thing to do, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience me.
As Play Golf Canada and the NAGA members introduce programs intended to attract more people to the game it will be interesting to see how much support they get at the consumer level and the grass roots level within the golf industry. Most of us in the industry understand the need for managed growth but I’m not sure that message will be palatable to a lot of existing golfers.
Peter Mumford is the Editor and Publisher of Fairways Magazine in Toronto. Fairways is intended for avid golfers and this blog site is an extension of that same philosophy - we don't dumb it down for the uninformed!