In this episode, we’re interviewing David Mayo, the General Manager at Blue Sky Golf Club in Jacksonville, Florida. The club is managed by Hampton Golf, a company that KPI Golf is closely collaborating with on data-driven solutions to help country clubs compete.
Stuart Lindsay has been in technology and data-driven marketing research since the early ’80’s. He’s one of the golf industry’s foremost thought leaders on industry trends, localized marketing research, weather impact statistics, and fact-based decision-making for club operators.
Today, we’re digging deep into where the golf business has been and where it’s heading…and most importantly, what club owners can do about it.
So, lot’s of clubs can’t (or won’t) shell out 6-figures for a full service management contract – for good reason in many cases…
But in a lot of markets, it’s becoming harder and harder for stand-alone clubs to compete in terms of economies of scale and buying power…
So what can the “little guys” do to contain costs?
In today’s Golf Course Owner and Operator’s Forum, we’re discussing how to market your golf facility.
I’m leading a discussion on strategies that golf courses typically fail to consider. Golf is what we call a “Considered” buying process. The time it takes to usher someone along the customer lifecycle from stranger to loyal customer is often considerable – 2 to 6 months or more.
Data in the golf industry is completely fragmented. There are more than 20 major point of sale systems (think cash registers with accounting software)…and they don’t speak the same language.
There’s really no system of aggregating and using big customer data in the golf business…until now.
At the core, KPI Golf is built around the principle that golf courses serve as the epicenter of the communities in which they reside. The local living environment goes the way of your country club – jobs, recreation, real estate values, quality of life.
This is a story of how we have chosen to model our company – giving without expectation of anything in return.
We’re working with a couple different golf courses right now to deploy a test run of free golf lessons as a marketing instrument. The program is part of KPI Golf Management’s push to get golf courses reconsidering the relationship golf instructors have at their facilities.
The private club model is changing. In the past, exclusivity and privacy was highly touted. Nowadays, younger generations don’t look nearly as favorably on these kinds of policies and clubs in general – of course there are elite exceptions.
Most golf courses are working harder and harder to attract and retain membership.
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If you’re 20 or 30-something and you don’t know how to play golf, you’re making a huge career mistake. All the old dudes running companies are retiring and play more golf than any other part of the population right now. It’s not going to last forever though. Read more
KPI Golf responded to 2 requests for proposal today – one of which was a whopping 90 pages long!
So, you can probably imagine the work that went into composing a 90-page RFP. I won’t mention which golf club it was, but they spent a whole lot of time, energy and money on conducting market research, surveys, competitive analysis, and outlining much of the club’s recent history. Read more
John Brown is talking with one particular golf course owner about operating expenses on our Club Operator’s Forum. This is a 6-week program where we discuss golf industry trends, and share insights on how club owners can compete and make life better for themselves.
It’s common practice to stick with vendors for long periods of time, especially if you feel like they’re “taking care of you”.
John Brown discusses the options that struggling and underperforming golf courses have. The first big misconception is that professional advice and exploratory conversations only come with hard sales pitches for club management contracts. This isn’t the case at all.
The logic first step to take is to pick up the phone and call a consulting or golf management company. KPI Golf offers free phone consultations, investing hours in learning about the club’s challenges and assessing best fit.
John bought his first golf course at the age of 23. Ever since, he’s been involved with owning and operating golf facilities of all kinds around the country. In this podcast episode, he discusses the great things about club ownership as well as the downside that comes with it.
Either way, in his 5th decade in the business, John’s always got interesting things to say and value to bring. Read more
Country clubs bringing in outside management do so in one of two major ways:
1. They recognize they need help and expertise to help them move forward optimally.
2. A firm offers to inject some capital over time in exchange for ownership stake in the club (equity vs. non-equity). Read more
Visiting my parents in Southwest Florida this week. Their golf community lost their golf course a couple years back and it’s super sad to see.
All the residents came here for social golf, sunshine and fun…now they have to take their games on the road.
I talked with a group of them about strategies for underperforming clubs and how things could have been different. Read more
There is no solution that allows for anything other than constant oversight and management. This is because conditions, economies, market positions, competition, and consumer preferences are always changing.
The only way to compete is to evolve with the times. Golf courses are quickly finding that they are not different.
When I go to Germany every summer, the days are very long. The sun rises around 4:00 am and sets around 10:30 pm. Golf courses over there have come up with a very creative (and simple) solution for bringing in revenue during those odd hours of the day when nobody is working.
We’ve been living in a thriving economy filled with a huge wave of avid senior golfers for the past 5-10 years. That’s not going to last forever. Golf course owners need to aggressively push for winning market share in their local competitive set…or they’ll lose when things shift. We’re talking strategy and tactics for winning in the next downturn.
KPI’s John Brown and Casey Bourque discuss the advantages of golf course clustering for golfers, staff members and for operators. According to John, this was a hugely successful strategy that helped many of his managed clubs in the past. Whether it’s buying power, shared supplies, or improved opportunities for customers to play golf, clustering is a great idea.
KPI Golf’s Casey Bourque and John Brown discuss the golf marketplace and how underperforming golf clubs can compete. The truth is that golf participation is down and common sentiment is that there are still more golf courses that need to come off the market to bring supply & demand equilibrium.
KPI Golf’s Casey Bourque speaks at the Golf Academy of America campus in Orlando about the state of the golf business and why complacent golf courses are going to lose when the economy takes a turn. Radical ideas to attract Gen-Xers and Millennials are required to replace the Baby Boomers who are eventually aging out of the system. It’s a big-time land grab right now that won’t last long.
