Words by GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf

Ben Hogan once famously said: “As you walk down the fairway of life, you must take time to smell the roses, for you only get one round”.

That sentiment has arguably never had more meaning nor more relevance to golf – perhaps also to wider society.

We all know that the pressures on the natural world have never been greater. There has never been a more important time to stop and think about the value we derive from the ecosystems around us – that we gain so much from – that, in fact, we depend upon.

For hundreds of millions of players, the wonders of the natural world are literally right in front of us, around us and under our feet.

We escape into greenspaces. We immerse ourselves in grasslands, forests, wetlands and coastlines. We expose ourselves to the elements on hillsides and clifftops. We socialise. We laugh. We breathe deeply. We strengthen our bodies and replenish our minds.

The product and experience we enjoy so much is determined by the climate, the availability of natural resources, the health of the soil – often more than golfers ever know, but facts that are not lost on those that manage our courses.

Our great sport also advertises versions of nature. Hundreds of televised events are beamed out through sports media outlets to hundreds of millions of fans. Top athletes stand in front of stunning landscapes on different continents. Landscapes that have provided the backdrop to the drama, the spectacle and the revenue.

We gain so much, and we can give so much.

Golf is better with nature

Isn’t it interesting that so often we celebrate the most natural courses as amongst the best courses. They are the ones we talk about, most want to play, remember most vividly.  That narrow tee shot through the trees, the iron that flies the wetland onto the green, the par three with the sand dune and ocean backdrop?

Nature gives us the richest stage.  It can give us focus, thrill and reward.

Texture, shape, character, atmosphere – the sense of time and place – are all enhanced by each course’s unique combination of plants and habitats. These being the things that transform a bland, homogeneous landscape into a unique and vibrant place with an abundance of life. So often an oasis of biodiversity in a wider context of intensive agriculture; residential and industrial estates; and rapid tourism development.

Communities are better with nature

So as golf embraces nature, and golfers enjoy a better experience as a result, wider communities also benefit.  Clean air, clean water, carbon storage, more pollinators, more birds, urban cooling, flood alleviation. If golf is an ecosystem, then it delivers ecosystem services to everyone. If courses also allow or provide some other forms of recreational function, then the benefits are even more direct and profound. This is golf as a force for good, spreading wider benefits to local people and families.

Time to reflect, time to do more

It’s not always understood just how much of golf already embraces nature and delivers this value to players and communities. Look more closely and you will see thousands and thousands of examples of how golf is already actively protecting and restoring ecological spaces. Add to that the growing movement in direct species conservation – whether it be birds, bats, mammals, amphibians, insects and pollinators – and the contribution of the existing 34,000 golf courses on an area roughly the size of Belgium is already pretty large.

However, the world is changing, we all need to do more, and if we’re honest in golf – we don’t always get it right.

Golfer’s demands often lead to manicured landscapes, pushing nature out and building resource consumption in. Like the slow creep into a diet with too much salt and sugar, our tastes have changed over recent decades and not necessarily for the better.

Think of the landscape, think of your surroundings, think of your watersheds. Think what you can do, this time, to capitalise on nature. Let it come in and add value and interest to the wonderful experience you offer. Let it push out costly maintenance and resource use. Let it even cut to the heart of your brand, marketing and customer satisfaction.

As we all need to do as much as we can to heal our one planet, let’s proudly demonstrate how your business, course and golf club stepped up and played its part.

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Words by GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf

The pressures on the natural world have never been greater. There has never been a more important time to stop and think about the value derived from the ecosystems around us – that we gain so much from – that, in fact, we depend upon.

For golf, this sentiment runs deep and true. In fact, for the game’s ongoing growth and success it is now, more than ever, a crucial consideration requiring significant action from all parties.

So how and why is environmental sustainability important to golf, and who are some of the kay actors that can drive significant change moving forwards?

Experience

There are countless reasons why golf is such a special, unique and cherished sport. As golfers, we are fortunate enough to understand and experience these on an almost daily basis as we play and practice.

4-5 Hours of fresh air; exercise; prolonged social interaction all bring about an abundance of health benefits that continue to shine a light on the sport and demonstrate why it really is, and can be, a sport for everyone to enjoy and benefit from.

But it also brings everybody closer to nature. It strengthens that connection between us and the outdoors – the wildlife, the plants and the trees.

Inevitably however, the product and experience we enjoy so much is determined by the climate, the availability of natural resources, the health of the soil and the landscapes – from mountains, grasslands, forests, wetlands, sand dunes and coastlines. Each depend on it.

Golf is better with nature. So often the most natural courses are celebrated as amongst the best courses. They are the ones we talk about, most want to play, remember most vividly.

Nature gives us the richest stage.

Texture, shape, character, atmosphere – the sense of time and place – are all enhanced by each course’s unique combination of plants and habitats. These can transform a bland, homogenous landscape into a unique and vibrant place with an abundance of life, an oasis of biodiversity.

To drive sustainability in the sport and reduce the use of natural and harmful resource that facilities often depend upon, we will actually create a more valuable and cherished experience for everybody.

As golf embraces nature, and golfers enjoy a better experience as a result, wider communities also benefit.  Clean air, clean water, carbon storage, more pollinators, more birds, urban cooling, flood alleviation, spreading wider benefits to local people and families.

It’s not always understood just how much of golf already embraces nature and delivers this value to players and communities.  Look closely and you will see thousands of examples of how golf is already actively protecting and restoring ecological spaces. Add the growing movement in species conservation – whether it be birds, bats, mammals, amphibians, insects and pollinators – and the contribution of the existing 34,000 golf courses is significant.

PGAs and PGA Professionals

Inducing change is never easy. No matter what the challenge (or opportunity) is. It requires concerted action from a significant majority that are each pulling in the same direction.

To create a more environmentally-friendly sport, this principle doesn’t change. Golf’s workforce are the people on the ground who can make a difference. In fact, they have to be the one who make the difference. Club managers, driving range attendants, senior executives, food & beverage managers, head agronomists, directors, volunteers and golfers. They all will make the difference.

As spearheads for education in golf, national PGAs are at the forefront of developing the workforce for the game. They continue to be the organisations educating, championing and shaping the modern PGA Professional. It is those PGA Professionals, who number in their tens of thousands across the planet that we are looking to protect, that can be at the centre of inducing real and positive change.

The PGA Professional so often finds themselves at the epicentre of their facility or golf club, helping to shape the future direction of each respectively. They are golf’s key influencers – influencing golfers and colleagues. We are already seeing this with new and ambitious campaigns such as #CaringForCourses. As gatekeepers of the sport, their position is enviable yet crucial.

By informing, educating, supporting and leading, PGAs can shape a PGA Professional that continues to be considered the expert in the game and an influential figure at their facility, whilst also being more environmentally-conscious and increasingly sensitive to the impact that golf has on the ground and surrounds in which we grace.

GEO Foundation

GEO Foundation is the international not-for-profit dedicated to accelerating sustainability in and through golf. The organisation delivers programmes that help people on the ground to evaluate, improve and credibly communicate their work of fostering nature, conserving resources, strengthening communities and taking climate action.

GEO delivers practical guidance, tools and solutions through its OnCourse programmes for developments, golf clubs and facilities and tournaments all around the world, backed up with credible certification.

GEO Foundation is certainly the driving force behind change in this area. The organisation reaches millions of people and has the opportunity to be a catalyst by raising sustainability awareness and leading by example.

Concluding Remarks

Creating a sustainable sport is perhaps golf’s greatest challenge yet at the same time, its greatest opportunity. As universal attitudes and public perceptions shift towards creating and needing an environment that is better looked after, golf cannot afford to be left behind.

In fact, golf has the opportunity to shine. It has the opportunity to lead from the front. COVID-19 showed to the masses what the sport can bring to the table as a health benefactor, it should now be able to demonstrate to the masses why it is an activity leading the charge to create a sustainable future.

Like with COVID-19, the impact of creating such a positive perception and backing it up with action will create knock-on effects through increased demand and participation. People want to associate and identify with entities and activities that are doing their bit.

Throughout this vital Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, launched by the UN on World Environment Day in June, as we all need to do as much as we can to heal our one planet, let’s proudly demonstrate golf stepped up and played its part.

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VISIT GEO FOUNDATION

1. Why? Why are we doing this?
2. What? What is golf’s promise?
3. Who? Who are we?

Replicated across both cpg.golf and golfandhealth.org, the hubs aim to bring together various resources, documents, information, examples and case studies from organisations around the world that are working with their stakeholders/Members to get back to playing golf in a safe and secure way.

Resources from France, Spain, Sweden, New Zealand the United States of America, and the United Kingdom, as well as from international organisations such as the CPG and World Health Organisation [WHO] are available to view together, to provide an overview of the different actions and initiatives that golf is undertaking.

Click Here to Find Out More…

As part of its long-term education strategy and in response to the current challenging climate PGAs and their Members are facing, the Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG] have announced a new series of free online Masterclass webinars.

The ‘CPG Masterclass Series’ includes a range of online talks and presentations that cover a variety of subjects and topics, delivered by world-class, industry leading experts from their respective fields.

CPG Chief Executive, Ian Randell, commented: “Like most organisations and individuals, PGAs and PGA Members are being affected in a number of ways by the COVID-19 virus. Whilst policies and guidelines differ across our member countries, we are taking a number of steps and introducing new initiatives to emphasise Togetherness and the sharing of knowledge and information, at a time when being part of a community is more important than ever.

“The CPG Masterclass Series is just one of these steps and we will contain to work with the leaders from across our Member PGAs to roll out others over the coming weeks and months – Stay Safe, Stay Learning”.

Through this increased sharing of knowledge and thought-provoking content, the Masterclass Series embodies the CPG’s guiding principles of Togetherness, Collaboration and Development, and aims to provide both new and supplementary golf education resources for the benefit of CPG Member Country PGAs and PGA Professionals alike.

The initial schedule of speakers includes a focus on the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on golf with Dr Andrew Murray and Dr Roger Hawkes, Project Leaders for the Golf & Health initiative, communication science and its relation to golf coaching with Marie Jeffery, Marketing and student relationship for golf instructors with Jose Vicente Perez, structuring practice and lessons with Adam Young, social media for PGA Professionals with Emma Ballard, along with a variety of other content already scheduled.

Regular announcements of upcoming webinars will be released in due course, with an aim to provide frequent, accessible sessions to enable as many PGA representatives and PGA Professionals to attend.

Further details on the series including the full schedule, speaker line-up, and webinar access details can be found online at cp.golf/masterclass.

If you would like to take part and deliver a webinar then please contact tb@cpg.golf or use the form available on the Masterclass hub page.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE

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The discussion about appropriate tee lengths for both adult and junior golfers has been around for a few years now. As I’ve been researching the topic recently, here are a few discussion points, ideas, initiatives and solutions that I’ve come across.

ADULT GOLFERS

The USGA and the PGA of America have been pushing forward their “Tee it Forward” initiative. The premise is very simple – we should encourage people to match up their abilities with the golf course length by letting them tee off closer to the green than the standard tee box, so that they can hit more-lofted clubs into the greens. This, as advertised by the golf agencies including The R&A, will result in faster play, more birdies and more fun. Data seems to be backing this claim, with golf clubs and golf associations saying that incorporating the initiative has resulted in increased participation and satisfaction of golfers.

This discussion has two aspects:

1. Getting rid of labelled tee boxes
2. Shortening the courses

The first point is pretty straightforward – golf clubs should stop using terms like “men’s tees”, and either mix up the colours used for the tees, or even get rid of all the colours altogether.

I’ve seen it done at PGA Sweden National club in Bara [Sweden], where there were no colours on the tees. Each of the 6 sets of tees were labelled with the length of the whole course played from those tees instead [like “53” for the 5,300m length]. Check out their scorecard here.

Although it seems like a simple solution, maybe this course is not the best example for the discussion – it’s clearly a championship course [where the Nordea Masters is often played], and even the shortest tees are not really short [4950m].

For participation purposes, creating more gender-less tees seems like a no-brainer to me. You’ll be able to take complete beginners on the course much sooner [playing in the same way as everybody else], it will speed up play, level the field and improve scores [potentially making people more likely to play more often].

Here is a really cool article that explains the logic behind playing from appropriate distances [“every golfer should have the opportunity to hit par threes in one shot, par fours in two, and par fives in three”] and comes up with a very easy equation that allows people to quickly calculate what tee length they should be playing from [it’s player’s driver distance * 28]:

JUNIOR GOLFERS

The exact same concept applies to junior golfers. Well, in fact maybe it applies much more to juniors than to adults. There is a great blog post by Daniel Coyle that explains how playing on a mis-matched field size in any sport affects the “fun” factor for the kids, as well as how the mere design of the playing fields affect junior’s behaviour [like their attention span].

Obviously this doesn’t apply just to golf, here are a few examples [taken from said blog post and elsewhere] that demonstrate what happens if we put junior players into adult-sized pitches, courts, courses [and using adult-size equipment]. It is mind-blowing to see the exact techniques and behaviours normally associated with young performers REPLICATED by adults when placed in the same [relative] environments:

If a similar video existed for golf, we can imagine what it would look like – Tour Players playing on ridiculously long holes [1000 yards PAR 4’s], and maybe even using long and heavy clubs. It would probably look the same as 8 year olds playing from ladies’ tees.

I have encountered a few very neat solutions to this problem, listed below.

US KIDS GOLF – FAMILY COURSES

Family Courses is probably the one initiative around shortened junior tees that has received the most attention in the golfing world.

Again, the premise is very simple: juniors match their driver carry distance to an appropriate set of tees on the golf course [ball-park distances are easy to check by a simple addition to a driving range].

The golf course is set up in a way that recreates the same shots / clubs used from every tee, starting with a Blue set of tees for those who are able to carry their driver 100 yards.

What’s crucial is that creating these additional sets of tees does not require a huge investment. US Kids are using reasonably-priced, simple and un-obstructive “Tee Plates” to mark the teeing location, allowing fairway mowers to ride over the tees with no problem, reducing the barriers for golf courses to invest in them.

JOLF – JOLF TEES AND “ONE-HITTES”

JOLF [a junior golf system co-founded by Neil Plimmer, a previous guest of the Participation Coaching Podcast] recommends a slightly different approach.

First of all, JOLF Modified Golf Courses have three additional sets of tees (JOLF Red, Yellow, White). As with all the previously mentioned solutions, the appropriate tee length is based on the distance that the player is able to hit the ball with their driver / 7 iron.

Holes’ lengths are based on a simple calculation – Red JOLF Tees are 20% of the white adult tees length, Yellow – 40% and White – 60%.

Quite importantly, the JOLF creators advocate for leaving the choice of what tees to play from to the children. Up to a point where children choose their own starting positions on each hole. As explained to me by Neil Plimmer, he would take a child onto the golf course and say something along the lines of “This hole is a one-hitter [par 3]. I want you to start it from wherever you think you’re able to reach the green in one shot” – For some children this may be just 5 yards away from the green.

OPERATION 36 – DIVISIONS

Matt Reagan and Ryan Dailey, creators of the Operation 36 programme [that’s getting some serious attention in the US right now!] have created a whole structure around playing from appropriate tees and shooting low scores [the general goal behind the whole framework being – shooting 36 shots across 9 holes].

As part of their weekly programme, Operation 36 coaches organise Matches that include juniors playing in various Divisions. There are 6 Divisions, and each corresponds to a set of tees, with Division 1 starting from 25 yards away from the hole, progressing up through Division 5 [200 yards PAR 4] and Division 6 [full tees].

Each participant starts in Division 1, regardless of their age and driving distance.

The challenge is for the juniors to shoot 36 [even par] for 9 holes from their Division. Having done that, they progress to a higher Division.

I find this concept very interesting. It provides a clear structure / framework for the juniors to progress through. From a performance standpoint, it also creates the additional benefit of making juniors comfortable with shooting level scores. The programme seems to be very competitive though, and I’m not sure what effect implementing such a rigid structure could have on more recreational, less ambitious or less skilled children. Especially knowing that reaching the highest accomplishment [hitting 36 from adult tees] is statistically, a feat available to just a few.

CONCLUSION

I have been thinking about the concept of shortened and gender/age-less tees for a while now, and I honestly can’t see too many downsides to this.

I mean, really, why don’t ALL golf courses create shortened tees? What’s stopping them from doing it? It is not the cost, as shown by US Kids. Is it just the “tradition” holding us back?

Shouldn’t we all be actively lobbying for changing the tee structure at our golf clubs?

If the whole industry takes on this change [e.g. allowing to obtain/update a handicap on a shortened course, like in New Zealand; organising competitions from appropriate tees; encouraging members, visitors, recreational players etc. to use appropriate tees etc.], I wonder what would its effect be on:

• junior participation
• adult participation
• adult retention (!)
• junior performance
• pace of play issues
• the state of the golf industry

However, the keenest of the keen guests and members will still turn up over the weekends and when any opportunity arises, and the show must go on as events and competitions are still an ongoing activity for golf clubs and facilities, whatever the weather.

Perhaps less serious than the annual Club Championships or your Mixed Am-Am, but winter ‘series’ events do provide an opportunity for you to reinvent yourself, trial some new tricks and get ready for when these main competitions come back around in 2020.

In this blog, Communications Manager for the Confederation of Professional Golf [CPG], Tom Bentley, discusses some simple keys and ideas you may not have considered, and delves into how you can make your calendar season in 2020 the best yet.

HAVE AN EVENT MISSION

True in just about everything we do at work, at home and in any other task completed: have a goal to your event. So often events are delivered by a facility without a general guiding principle or goal, no matter how small it is.

Not having a goal is similar to delivering a marketing campaign without an underlying strategy – the content you produce for that campaign would then be inconsistent, contain mixed messages and ultimately means the impact you want does not materialise.

Determining a goal for your event, whilst at face value appears to be common-sense, is easier said than done. The obvious one is to make a financial return but ultimately that is a focus of pretty much 99% of golf events – without making a profit then the justification for that event diminishes and the chances of it continuing the next year become very slim.

So, what else should the event focus on? Well that is entirely up to you and you can be pretty creative or think outside the box with this. For example, during University I managed and delivered the brief for an ‘Olympic Themed Golf Event’ at a local golf club. We actually had two goals for this event:

1. Make as much money as possible for charity (Birmingham Children’s Hospital) – in other words, generate a profit or surplus to donate.
2. Create an irregular, ‘outside-the-box’ golf event experience that most importantly, entertained each and every paying guest.

What we found before the event, during and in the post-event feedback was that guests’ eyes opened at the event because it was completely different and something that they had never done before.

They also liked that the event had greater meaning behind it and was not commercially driven to simply make a profit for the facility, but in fact to deliver funds to a local cause that they genuinely cared about. As a result, we had created a huge buzz around the event that became oversubscribed quickly and in turn, delivered a successful, profitable tournament that was a resounding success.

Creating new competitive experiences for your membership (new formats, order-of-merits, team competitions, etc.), driving female numbers to your club, raising your club’s profile in the local community or celebrating a special occasion are all examples of varying goals and missions that could guide your event in the future.

Focus less on your return and more on the event and the finances should take better care of themselves.

EMPLOY SOME STARDUST TO IMPRESS

This is not a necessity to your event, but merely the icing on the cake to delivering an exceptional experience. Generally, having an event that delivers a round of golf with some form of catering before or afterwards is the blueprint to every golf event that ever existed.

So how can you add that extra spice to the day that makes it that little bit more memorable? Well, try considering some of these options:

1. Event gifts
2. Live scoring systems/ televised leaderboard
3. Photography

Event gifts do not have to be expensive and can range from a simple sleeve of golf balls from your Pro Shop to a fully-fledged handmade gift.

Our Official Suppliers, Thomas Lyte, recently provided the CPG with some branded leather notepads to present to all our attendees during our official brand launch event.

This premium gift not only struck an instant impression with every person, but it also gave something practical and useful for them to take away and remember the day with. It also promoted the organisation and its brand and offered a substantial intangible benefit that will last a very long time.

A live scoring system is another fantastic chance to really stand out. Creating an event that makes guests feel special and that they are ‘just like the pros on TV’ is a great way of making a memorable event and one that they would all return back to again and again.

Using a leaderboard system is often challenging with the associated costs, tech-savviness required, and time spent that could be used more effectively elsewhere.

The CPG uses a system called GolfBox Tournament across all our events for one main reason – it is so simple to use, without compromising on features and capabilities. Developed in Denmark and utilised by many of our Member Country PGAs for their own tournaments, GolfBox is becoming the market leading system for scoring globally (and is also ready for the World Handicap System changes as well).

Its live scoring capability is as easy as emailing links to each participant, which they open in web browsers on their phone and they are ready to go. We are able to embed and display it across various multimedia channels around the event venue and on our website, which makes the communication of the event that much easier.

The final point is the use of photography, which leads onto the final section…

CAPITALISE ON PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

This is often a side thought on the day of the event, and understandably – there are bigger priorities to focus on such as registration and scoring and the number of hands you have (only two!) are limited. However, effectively managing your time and getting a helping hand with this can pay dividends.

A simple way is having the starter on the first tee take group and individual photographs of each and every competitor as they tee off. You could also have somebody drive around the course taking photographs and videos.

Whichever way you do it, having some visual assets of the day is important, as they can be utilised in various ways:

1. Posting live updates of the event across your facility’s social media channels and website, for followers to engage with as it happens
2. Create marketing materials / collateral to be used for future event advertising
3. Help to showcase the golf course, club and all of its facilities, alongside the event itself

You could get very savvy and distribute photos to each competitor by email using their contact details provided, so that they can then post on their own social media to show how great of a day they have had at your facility and event (simple, and free, word-of-mouth promotion).

You can even include some details and prompts for them such as an event hashtag or your facility’s social media usernames etc. in this distribution.  Do not underestimate how powerful external user posting can be for your business, especially when done right!

CONCLUSION

Improving and enhancing your next golf event is never going to be an easy endeavour, but taking the time to step back and look at the day as a whole, where it can be enhanced and what you need to do to maximise its benefit will go a long way to delivering a successful event.

Following some of these simple guidelines should help put you and your team on the right path to success and ultimately, help you continue to reengage audiences in future events, whilst also helping to attract new customers that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by and entice.

Jan Henriksen, Head PGA professional, Silkeborg Golf Club.

“Here in Silkeborg GC we had the same trend as the national average, and the club decided to do something about it. Our Golf Club has been good at focusing on this particular group of members. As we all can imagine, there is a big gap between being a new player that has just finished a beginner’s program to feeling comfortable joining the men’s or lady’s section.

“In collaboration with the golf club, we as PGA Professionals, have chosen to create a community; we call it Club 37. This is a community for players between hcp. 37-54. We offer an open training session every week where the primary focus is on team spirit. The only thing the players have to do is to commit, and therefore there is a modest fee that they have to pay. The focus on team spirit has made us, the Pros, an important point of reference for this member group. Our training sessions are all about creating a social network between the players, and we ensure that by making exciting and varied drills and exercises that they can have fun and compete with players at their level. The social aspect of the training and the joy of having a fellowship together is key for this group.

“The most important thing for new members that they get a social network that reaches out beyond our weekly session. At the same time, they feel that they get the attention of the club, with is very important for new players (source: Players first survey). It has been a huge success here in Silkeborg and a few other clubs around Denmark, in fact, such a great success that the players normally joke that they don’t want to get their handicap under 37. From a PGA Professionals perspective, when players get under handicap 37, we have happier players who are used to taking lessons and know us very well. That gives us the opportunity to sell more lessons and courses to them so that they can continue their development. Over the years, Club37 has experienced better retention. And with Club 37, the golf club and we as coaches have a mutual interest that links the collaboration across the departments.”

Club 37:

• Is a community for new players between handicap 37-54, and max two years membership in the club.
• Open session once a week, with particular focus on exercises and team spirit
• Low cost

(Looking at the other hcp groups, the rate of resignations is approximately the same. However, since the majority of club members have a handicap more than 37, this group will be the most important to focus on. Source: Players First survey and GolfBox A/S.)

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A question often asked is, What value does a PGA professional have at a golf club? The answer can be quite a lot.

Does your club have a PGA Professional?  Are you looking to recruit one?  Perhaps you had one in previous years but not anymore?  Times have changed and so has the role of the PGA Professional at club level.  In the heady days of property booms and third houses a PGA Professional at your club was seen as a sign that things were good, that business was strong and having the pro there was just something that clubs did.

Fast forward a few years and clubs saw their incomes drop and many responded by letting their PGA Professional go (or perhaps not taking on a PGA Professional) as they perhaps didn’t see the value that they brought.  Nowadays though, the modern PGA Professional is an invaluable asset to a golf club and it’s great to see how diverse and integral the role has become once again, the role of the PGA Professional is back where it belongs.

Given the right circumstances and direction a PGA Professional can add significant revenues to any club.  The logo for PGA Professionals contains the phrase “The heart of golf” for a good reason.  It’s not because they’ve gone through rigorous training and feel they deserve it. It’s because they’ve gone through rigorous training, have learned about golf clubs from the inside out, have likely spent more time in golf clubs than even the most dedicated club members and they are the lifeblood of any club.  The PGA pro doesn’t only stand in the shop to answer your questions anymore, they are involved in so much more behind the scenes and here are some of the ways in which a PGA Professional can add value and revenue to your club;

1. Knowledge

A PGA Professional goes through an intensive three-year training programme covering all aspects of golf club management as well as the physical aspects of playing the game.They have a broad knowledge of everything required to run a golf club and can be a great source of knowledge on a wide range of topics from membership to marketing.

2. Revenue

This is a key area in any business but in a golf club there are so many ways to increase & control revenue. Why not engage with your current PGA Professional and ask their advice on this and see what they can come up with? Equally as important as revenue is cost control and again the training that PGA Professionals receive puts them in a unique position to advise and assist with this.

3. Customer service & interaction

The person at a golf club who has the most customer interaction is the PGA Professional (43%, with the next person being the GM at 13%). They are the face of the club.Whether it’s a members competition on a weekend or a friendly fourball playing on a Tuesday afternoon, the PGA Professional is likely to be the person who greets you, explains the club policies, encourages you to have dinner or buy a shirt from the shop and this interaction can lead to repeat business and of course the increased market perception for your club.

4. Advice

More and more PGA pro’s are being asked to join in on committee meetings to offer advice and guidance.This is wonderful to see but many more Irish clubs could benefit from the input of a PGA Professional in this area.It shouldn’t only be competition committees, the PGA pro can be a useful asset in any committee, they know your club as well if not better than you do, they know all your members, they get direct feedback from every single visitor and surely that should make them the first name on the committee sheet?Don’t forget too that your PGA Professional is also a great source of knowledge on the latest equipment, clothing and many can even advise on some nutrition and exercise regimes if you’re so inclined – this is an under-utilised but greatly effective members asset.

5. Lessons

Many people only see the PGA pro as just being someone you go to for lessons – obviously this is far from true but lessons are a big part of what a pro can bring to a golf club.If a member can get a lesson from a good PGA Professional at their home club then they will do so.Players from other clubs can come to your PGA pro for lessons too which increases the public profile of your club. Moreover the pro can give introductory lessons and programmes aimed at getting people into golf who have never played.This can result in membership increases and further revenues for the club.Did you know that if someone takes lessons they play 20% more golf, spend 65% more on F&B and spend 70% more on retail?

6. Marketing

This is an interesting one as along with the pro and the manager, marketing was one of the first things to be cut when revenues dropped in Irish clubs.Through their personal contact with golfers your PGA pro is marketing your club, through giving lessons to non-members your PGA pro is marketing your club, through their interaction with other PGA pros and through them being very good at their jobs your PGA pro is marketing your club.It doesn’t always have to come down to spending money, but if it does then your PGA pro is well positioned to advise you on where is best to spend it.They eat, sleep, live and breathe golf, if it’s happening in golf they will most likely know about it so why would you not ask their opinion?

7. Member recruitment & retention

A recent survey found that 100% of people who took coaching lessons from their PGA Professional stayed as a club member the following year. That’s a staggering statistic when you consider the membership turnover in many golf clubs.When it comes to member recruitment the PGA Professional is probably the first person that any prospective member will meet.They will come in to ask questions, get forms or to play a round and see what the course is like.The pro can have a huge impact on recruitment and an educated, friendly face who knows about the club is the ideal person to have dealing with new members.

These are just some of the benefits of having a PGA Professional at your club, there are so many more and to talk to someone at the PGA about it or if your club is looking to recruit a PGA Professional you should contact Paul Wisniewski at the PGA Irish Region on Email: paul.wisniewski@pga.org.uk or Telephone: 085 8821756.

It is difficult to talk of driving green fee revenues in a group-booking context without talking about variable pricing strategies. And you can’t talk about variable pricing strategies without talking about yield management. According to Wikipedia yield management is:

“…a variable pricing strategy, based on understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximise revenue or profits from a fixed, perishable resource”

Understanding, anticipating and influencing your customers starts with the analysis of the correct data – a statistical trawl of what’s going on within the business, especially on the golf course. The depth and level of the data we can derive and the analysis thereof drives the criteria we can use to vary our pricing points.

Month

Many clubs are operating a basic variable pricing strategy already – they charge a lower amount for winter group bookings knowing they’re a ‘harder sell’. Conversely, some coastal clubs with great drainage actually charge a premium.

Day of the Week

Again, some clubs are already doing this. At its most basic, they are charging a premium to play at the weekends. Some charge slightly more to play on a Friday as well. In most cases, Monday to Thursday is lumped in together and priced the same.

Number of Participants

This one is less practiced in the UK industry and a significant opportunity. A group booking of 120 people is extremely precious and quite rare (in most clubs) – why wouldn’t you price it accordingly? You probably wouldn’t get 120 paying visitors if the group booking didn’t exist – so you can afford to lower the price and still be significantly better off. Conversely, a group booking of 8 people isn’t as lucrative in terms of monetary value and may restrict a larger booking enquiry coming in afterwards – isn’t that something that should be charged at a premium?

An important additional point to your terms and conditions are needed here – “If any discounted or agreed price is on the basis of a minimum number, this set price will only apply if on the day the set number of participants attend”. A golf day arriving with less than the number confirmed could push the price up – that’s not something easily communicated to the organiser if they didn’t know it could happen.

Tee Times Booked

All clubs have popular and unpopular tee times. Unfortunately, many clubs only have a gut feeling as to when they are. Knowing precisely what your peak and off-peak tee times are allows you to vary the price for group bookings. If 2pm is usually very quiet, why wouldn’t you offer a discount? If 9am is usually very busy, why wouldn’t you charge a premium?

Sales Window

We’ve already spoken about our desire to increase the sales window – to encourage organisers to book early so we understand the future group booking trends earlier and can take action as required. A variable pricing strategy that encompasses this criterion can help shift the window.

Exceptions

This is a slightly different criterion but something that needs to be considered carefully – those odd days that confound our data-driven criteria. For instance, Mondays in April may be quiet – but what about Easter Monday? That has the potential to be quite popular. Fridays in September may be quite busy – but what about the week the Head Greenkeeper is doing his biannual hollow coring and top dressing? Should you be charging a premium on this Friday for a course in less than perfect condition?

No Catering

It’s probably an unfortunate consequence of a wider society change that in many clubs, group bookings are choosing to have less and less catering elements to their event. Where once the majority of bookings had a sit-down 3-course meal at the end of the day – at many clubs today they are in the minority. So, can we box a little clever here and add a silent ‘No Catering’ surcharge to the events that have little or no food? There’s nothing more frustrating than an enquiry coming in afterwards that want the full 3-course presentation dinner included but can’t get the tee times because a booking with no food at all has already confirmed.

The word “silent” in this instance means that the organiser doesn’t get to know they’ve been charged it – it simply gets added onto the green fee. Keeping it silent in this way provides a great opportunity to offer a discounted catering up-sell nearer the date of the event. It will be perceived as a discount by the organiser but won’t actually be a discount for the club – it will simply be the removal of the no-catering surcharge.

A variable pricing strategy based on just these seven criteria can have a dramatic impact on a golf clubs’ group booking revenues. In some instances many prices will be discounted – sometimes quite aggressively. In other cases, by understanding when we’re busy prices will be increased. But in both circumstances, they will be priced on a fixed criteria derived from historical fact. From a quantitative perspective, that’s something difficult to argue against.

Promote Training give away a Group Booking Pricing Tool with their “Driving Green Fee Revenues” eLearning course. Visit www.promotetraining.co.uk to learn more about this, and other strategies to grow your club’s green fee revenues.

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The first and arguably most important green fee promotion to implement are the promotions that encourage loyalty and repeat-play at your course.

There are broadly three themes to increasing any green fee revenue:

1. Attracting new golfers
2. Encouraging repeat golfers
3. Increasing average value

If you plough straight into a promotional campaign that aims to attract first-time golfers to your club, you won’t have the benefit of the incentive mechanism to encourage their repeat custom after they’ve played the course.

Let’s take a look at one great promotion that encourages repeat-play and customer loyalty – the green fee Loyalty Card.

Loyalty Card Concept

Loyalty cards are not a new concept in either the golf industry or wider retail and hospitality sectors. I’m sure many people have a loyalty card or two tucked away in their wallets or purses!

The concept is simple – buy a product or service multiple times and after x number of purchases, receive one for free.

A well implemented, on going loyalty card scheme can work extremely well for any golf course – either pay and play or semi-private.

An effective loyalty card can be the backbone of your green fee marketing strategy.

There are, however, key issues to consider very carefully prior to creating your card. These issues almost exclusively revolve around the terms and conditions.

Expiry Dates

The biggest realistic target audience for our visitor green fee product is the nomadic golfer. The make-up of this profile of golfer suggests they play on average up to 2 times per month. By offering them a loyalty card what are we trying to achieve?

• We want them to play more than twice a month
• We want them to play at our golf club more often

A loyalty card without an expiry date doesn’t encourage the customer to play at your golf course more often. It doesn’t even give a reason to play golf more often. That’s because it has no timescale attached that breaks their habit of playing twice a month.

In most cases where a loyalty card doesn’t have an expiry date, the golfer plays as many times as they ever did. They also play your course as often as they ever did. Except this time, after x number of rounds, they get a free one. 

No expiry date = no urgency to play your course = no change in their normal pattern of play

When to expire a loyalty card will depend very much on how generous the loyalty is in the first instance and what time of year it’s being offered.

Our nomadic golfer plays, on average, twice a month – but that won’t necessarily be a consistent twice a month, every month. Golf is a seasonal game and we know that the weather has a huge impact on the number of rounds on our golf course.

We could make an assumption therefore, that our target nomadic golfer may play:

• Once a month between November and March
• Twice a month in April and October
• Three times a month between May and September

A card that offers the 6th round free and starts in November with a 3-month expiry date is a little optimistic. Our golfer may only normally play once a month during the winter – so the free round would be perceived as unachievable.

On the opposite end of the scale, a loyalty card that offers the 4th round free and is released in May, with an expiry date of the 30th September, is extremely generous. It could be that it’s giving too much away.

Exclude Discounted or Free Rounds

“Stamps not issued for free rounds of golf” – this is an important condition to remember when creating your loyalty card.

“Offer excludes Twilight rates, pre-paid or free green fee vouchers” – this option is very much down to the club to decide. Clearly, a loyalty card offering stamps for discounted twilight rounds may be giving away free rounds during peak times in return.

In Conjunction with Other Offers

Ensuring the loyalty card cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers is probably a condition worth mentioning on all green fee promotions. In fact, it’s one to mention on all promotions throughout the club.

Golf Society Days

“Not to be used in conjunction with any group booking above four players”

Again, it’s down to the individual clubs to decide whether they want to allow stamps, or redemption of the free round, to golf society day participants or not. There are arguments both for and against it and these need to be considered before making a decision.

Remove Peak Tee Times

You may want to consider limiting stamps, or certainly the free round redemption, based on the tee time.

Many clubs would want to limit the number of free rounds redeemed at the weekend. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they would want to limit the number of stamps given at the weekend. A full loyalty card of stamps received for weekend play logically deserves a free midweek round as much as any other (more so in fact).

There are also peak times of the year to consider – the week between Christmas and New Year for instance. Often, this period can be quite busy for golf courses and it’s something to consider if you’re intending to run a loyalty card over the December month.

Promote Training’s “Driving Green Fee Revenues” eLearning course is packed with ideas and strategies to encourage repeat-play and also attract new visitors to your club. Visit www.promotetraining.co.uk to learn more about this innovative eLearning course.

Economic Performance

The course is your prime asset and you need to know what you are spending on its upkeep and where your money is going. The annual audit is usual practice for business. Keeping a record of income and expenditure is essential if the performance of the business is to be measured and analysed so that management can adjust practices to assure future prosperity.

The golf course can make up 70% or more of a golf facilities total expenditure and it is important that costs and revenue from course-related activity are tracked and reported on.  Club and course managers need to find a means of:

• Providing clear information to committees and boards
• Assessing where more money can be made and less spent
• Demonstrating the success of management practices
• Developing an even more efficient and effective programme

There are software programmes available to enable data recording and reporting, with the most basic being a simple spreadsheet.

On average, 60% of direct costs related to the course will be for staff. The greenstaff’s time is, therefore, precious and should not be wasted. Do you know where, on the course, the staff spend their time?

Surveys have shown that on some courses, up to 27% of staff time can be spent looking after bunkers! Are you able to prioritise time so that the areas golfers consider most important – the putting surfaces and green complexes – receive the most attention? See the real value from your staff by focusing their efforts on the areas of the course that will improve your business prospects.

Playing Performance

The performance of the golf business is directly related to the performance of the golf course.  The course is the primary asset for the business. So, why not audit the performance of the course in a similar way to that of the business?

If you can demonstrate that your management provides consistently good or improving performance of putting surfaces, then the club knows that it is investing wisely in the course and in you and your staff.  The following assessments should be undertaken on a regular basis:

• Holing Out Test. Records the final outcome of putting surface preparation – the reliability of the surface in terms of getting the ball in the hole.
• Smoothness and trueness. Available through the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) Programme.
• Firmness – a key measure when it comes to the receptiveness of surfaces, ball reaction on landing on the green and the year-round playability related to drainage.
• Trueness/smoothness – important to consider ways of reducing surface imperfections that interfere with the roll of the ball.
• Speed – useful to assess the consistency of putting surfaces, both through the year and between greens.

In addition to these playing performance criteria, there are critical agronomic measurements that, if assessed regularly, will inform turf management and ensure healthier turf and better playing performance – these are soil moisture and organic matter.

Target ranges can be set for all of the above, but these must be realistic and achievable within the confines of the site and available resources.

Environmental and Social Performance

The Course Management team need to keep a record of the inputs required to present the course to a good year-round standard, related to cost and playing performance targets.

Holding good information and reporting on water, pesticide, fertiliser and energy use and waste production are key elements for the golf course operation and also for justifying the course management programme in environmental and social impact terms. Golf facilities should be transparent in this regard to demonstrate that the game is a responsible user of land that does not pollute.

Beyond this, use of top dressing and other materials has an impact on budgets and the environment, be it directly related to the golf course or in terms of the supply chain and where these materials are sourced.

The Golf Environment Organization (GEO) OnCourse^® Programme provides an excellent means of recording and reporting on these aspects of sustainability performance.

Making Data Work For You

The R&A has produced a list of Evidence Fields, which is available from its website, randa.org. This is a list of financial, playing performance and greenkeeping practice data that needs to be collected and analysed if the performance of the golf course is to be monitored and improved.

Much of this data can be used to achieve environmental certification. The financial information can also be used to assess the benefits to the business of going through such a certification process.

Recording data is only of value if it is used for the benefit of the course and the business. Interpretation of results may require expert assistance, particularly with regard to the agronomic elements. The club management team must work together to get the best out of the golf facility and this has to reflect well on their contribution to the business.

This article appears courtesy of The R&A. For more information visit golfcoursemanagement.randa.org.

Membership referrals are simply new members who have been introduced to the club by current members.

The concept of referral marketing is nothing new – indeed, there has been plenty of research on the subject with many studies professing the virtues of referred custom as opposed to new custom from complete strangers.

So why is the concept of ‘referral’ so potentially rewarding for our club?

Benefits of Referrals

The power of recommendation

People trust the opinion of other people in their lives that they respect – family members, friends or work colleagues. For instance, we’ve all watched a television programme that we’ve heard other people talking about – that’s exactly the same referral principle. We heard it from people we know therefore we trust their opinion.

Targeted marketing

Unlike many other forms of marketing, referral is laser targeting at its most effective. Members know their friends, family and/or work colleagues pretty well. They can spread your membership message to the very audience you want to target.

Data quality

Due to the nature of referral the quality of the data is more likely to be correct, without false email addresses or such like.

A trusted sales pitch

We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of being on the receiving end of a door-to-door sales person. No doubt most of us didn’t buy anything from them based on issues of trust. How could you be sure those products they were selling are genuine? How do you know they’re going to work? How do you know they’ve not “fallen off the back of a lorry”?!

“Trust” is an important part of the buying decision for any consumer. We are far more likely to buy from someone we trust – so to encourage members to perform our ‘sales pitch’ for us will be making full use of a perceived trustworthy communication channel.

See the research below conducted in the Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising. Powerful proof indeed.

Huge volumes of people

Not just huge – the entire world! Certainly the entire world if you are to believe in the theory of six degrees of separation. This is the notion that everyone is six steps away, by way of introduction, from every other person in the world. It’s the underlying principle of social media in many ways. You know six people, who each know another six people, who each know another six people – and by the time you do that six times you have a connection with, well, absolutely everyone.

Golfers like to talk golf

It’s true in many cases that golfers like to talk about golf. It stands to reason – golf is their pastime and their leisure pursuit of choice. It also seems that the sport itself has a lot of conversational ingredients. It almost sparks debate and conversation, perhaps as golfers try to rationalize exactly why they play like they do and/or why Rory McIlroy plays like he does. In any event, if you invite a golfer to talk about their golf they usually have a fair amount to say.

It attracts the same types of people

It is often the case that people get on better with other people ‘of the same type’ as them – “birds of a feather flock together”. When you are encouraging members to refer people to the club – you are encouraging people with similar characteristics to them. They may be similar in terms of political persuasion, affluence, professional background, age range and/or in terms of social attitudes. This then helps create a membership body that mixes well with each other, encouraging a happy and harmonious group of customers.

Referred members are less likely to leave

We like to call it “stickability”. It is in the dictionary:

“A person’s ability to persevere with something; staying power”

This is the notion that someone can be more ‘attached’ to a club and therefore less likely to leave. It’s a topic that plays more of a part in our membership retention course, but it’s worth mentioning as a benefit to referred members. As soon as they join they know at least one person at the club, which gives them an instant familiarity and makes integration into the club’s day-to-day happenings a lot easier. This often means they’re a lot less likely to leave in the immediate future as they are socially tied to the club.

Placating Members with Referral Opportunities

It seems some golf club members believe that commercial common sense and financial prudence ends at the gates to the club. They want their club to remain a largely exclusive hideaway from the outside world – to be a hidden sanctuary from society. The very same members are usually the first knocking on the Managers door with incredulity at seeing external advertising of the latest membership promotion.

This is where a pro-active, highly-valued and visible referral campaign within a club can go a long way to placating such members, who rightly or wrongly feel aggrieved at any external membership promotions.

In itself, it won’t convince them of the need for the club to grow the number of members – but it may help convince them that they also have an opportunity to personally benefit from the growth if they refer new members to the club.

In fact, it’s true to say that the preferred route to growing a club’s membership base is through referral, for all the reasons already given. As such, there doesn’t appear to be any logical reason why a club wouldn’t implement a member referral initiative if it were also advertising externally for new members.

Referrals are the lowest hanging fruit – they’re the easiest to pick.

To learn how you can create a referral culture within your golf club, along with other membership lead generation tactics, visit www.promotetraining.co.uk and discover more about the “Generating Membership Leads” eLearning course by Promote Training.

A professionally managed golf course also can demonstrate environmental stewardship and provide a place to meet exercise and fitness goals. Just walking 18 holes, for example, can burn more than 2,000 calories.

As part of the celebration of “Earth Day” on April 22, here are 10 facts about golf that help promote the sport and the environment:

1. Golf courses are professionally managed landscapes where environmental stewardship is important – from using water and nutrients more efficiently to implementing improved methods of erosion control.
2. In general, the golf industry is striving to deliver firm playing surfaces that are better for everyone and improve the bottom line. More than two-thirds of golf courses report that they are keeping turfgrass drier than in the past.
3. The golf industry is continually investing in research to identify drought-tolerant grasses and improve water conservation through best management practices.
4. Golf courses continue to adopt water conservation practices, reduce irrigated acreage and use innovative technologies, such as targeted irrigation systems and ground moisture measurement tools, along with weather monitoring systems, providing the science to water only when and where it is needed.
5. Irrigated areas on golf courses have decreased by more than 14,000 acres between 2006 and 2014.

6. Use of recycled water has increased by 32.7 percent from 2006 to 2014. Recycled water now counts for 25 percent of all water used on golf courses.
7. Golf courses routinely have recycling programs to reduce and reuse.
8. More than 90 percent of a typical golf course is comprised of turfgrass, a water body or other natural areas that prevent erosion, filter runoff, and provide for cooler temperatures when compared to urban settings.
9. More than 70 percent of acreage on an 18-hole golf course is considered green space that provides benefits to the ecosystem, reduces maintenance and supports wildlife habitat, including protected species.
10. Through governmental affairs involvement, professional education and public information, the golf industry continues to promote environmental responsibility as a widespread industry practice.

Find out more about Earth Day at www.earthday.org and tweet using #EarthDay2016. For more information form the World Golf Foundation visit www.worldgolffoundation.org.