Throughout the hustle and bustle of everyday life, everyone needs an outlet, a place to relax and just enjoy being away from all the pressures of life. For decades now, playing a round of golf has provided that for many Americans. The demographics of golf have changed targeting the 29-49 year old age group. Golf brings in 1.5-3 million new golfers each year but also loses the same number. Unfortunately, in recent times, things have changed and golf has become less of a social epidemic. According to the Bleacher Report, The number of core American golfers (those playing eight rounds or more per year) has fallen between 3 and 4.5 percent every year since 2006. As we are currently living in economic times where extra disposable income for recreation has become a thing of the past for many and free time seems to become less and less. With that lack of disposable income rounds of golf played nationally has declined 10-20 percent in the last three years. According to the Center for American Progress, more than 85.5 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week (not counting an hour for lunch) 38 percent of professional males are working more than 50 hours per week. Faced with this decline in the overall industry, many clubs have had to go to great lengths to bring in more buyers.
Running a successful golf course takes more time, effort and thought than ever before. There are important attributes that need to be present besides having a good quality course. Golf has rapidly become a buyer market and adding true value to a course is vital to pull ahead of the enormous amounts of competition.
Although location is a large factor for some, it is not the deciding fact when developing value in a customer's eyes. Customers look for superior customer service, affordability, promotion, atmosphere and design and difficulty. Improving in these areas will ultimately drive a course to stand out above the rest.
As with most any businesses, the customer is the most essential factor in success of a golf course while offering a service and satisfying the player is fundamentally the most important factor. There are several aspects to look at when attempting to improve your customer service. First, knowing the customer, their desires and exceeding those desires will push a course forward in developing customer loyalty and building and maintaining strong customer satisfaction. Anticipate their needs and going to great lengths to provide a course and services that meet those needs. A great example of this is seen in the city of San Diego. They strive to support locals, national and international, amateur golf, local Junior Golf, Junior World, High School, College, Men's and Women's Clubs and City Amateur tournaments and events.
Fees at many courses today bar individuals, couples and families from taking up golf, sticking with it or playing as often as they would like. Offering golfers a place to play and enjoy the game at a reasonable cost is very advantageous in bringing in players. The recent trend in design has caused many courses across the nation to have highly inflated prices, providing affordability will easily cause a course to stand out.A noticeable example of this is in South Florida, where many awfully mediocre courses command well over $200 and sometimes over $300 a round.As most of Middle America looks for more economically sound ways to have fun offering reasonable priced services has become more important than ever in bringing golfers in and keeping them coming back.
Besides keeping costs at a reasonable level courses need to maximize their promotional efforts. Promotion performs the function of informing the target customer about the services, their unique benefits, and price, as well as, providing ways to bring new customers in and develop loyalty with existing ones. Effective promotions include providing discounts, special offers, promotional gifts and teaching programs can all add value to a course and improve the customer's experience. There are many value adding promotional ideas that are inexpensive to execute, but will catch the customer's attention and draw them in. Offering promotional offers such as frequent golfer discounts, late night player discounts, junior and seniors discounts and business travels specials are just a few ideas of great promotion options that bring people to the course. Developing a strong promotion plan is a great way to generate sales and profits, and convey to customers the benefits of a course. Likewise, marketing is yet another important aspect of promotion. However, because of the added overhead, it is important to have a balance of strong, but not excessive marketing. Getting the course's name out there is crucial, but this must be balanced with maintaining the aspect of affordability.
Atmosphere and design of a course also plays a part in attracting a player. Being that most player want a place to go and relax and leave everyday problem behind them, proving a course that fosters complete relaxation and provides a natural beauty and scenic value is beneficial. Natural features that work well include hills, rivers, creeks, lakes and wetlands. A large body of water also can be used to add an element of danger on several holes. Besides the obvious location and climate conditions, golfers may be intrigued by a course's design and popularity.
Looking at all of these aspects, the future of golf courses may be bright. It would truly be wonderful if in the future there were many more of these types of golf courses. Ones which do not present the affordability hurdles faced with many of America's expensive and luxurious courses spread across the country. A larger saturation of everyday local golf courses can provide affordability, relaxation and fun for people of all ages.
Cody Summerville is currently an MBA student at Concordia University, Irvine. He has a passion for the game of golf and is currently interested in the marketing and promotion of golf courses.
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