SGBGolf_Aug08_p12 24/7/08 10:45 Page 12
V i e w f r o m t h e i n d u s t r y
“The golf course business
is arrogant”
The European Golf Course Owners Association is holding its third annual Business Conference on
November in Berlin, and the event has been entitled ‘The Big Change’.
EGCOA chief executive Lodewijk Klootwijk (pictured) talks about the major challenges facing owners.
T
here are good reasons why our conference is the floating players paying double what the members
called The Big Change. The number of pay per round on average. They play fewer rounds but
people playing golf in Europe is increasing, pay twice as much, which is another reason to
but the growth is mainly with free golfers, or encourage them to play more rounds.
floating golfers, who do not want club memberships, The future is bright but it is not an easy market,
while the number of golf club members is dropping in and we need learn from the past. We have seen in
some countries. France, in the UK and also in the Unites States an
The classic golfer was the father of the family, over-supply of golf courses. In France they thought
playing golf at least once a week, but the new golfers they had a perfect solution for all those families living
enjoy a variety of leisure activities, of which golf is in Paris without enough money to maintain their
only one. They have very busy lives and they hardly chateaus in the countryside, so they thought, ‘Okay,
have time to play golf, they have careers and families let’s build a golf course and then we have an income
to look after, and so the number of golfers is growing stream and the chateau can be used as a nice
but they don’t play as often and they don’t buy clubhouse’. But they forgot one thing: they had no
memberships. They don’t see the added value of a market, and there still is no market for all these golf
membership or the added value of the golf club’s courses in the rural areas of France. Hardly anyone
social network. That is a big change. lives there, and the people who do live there don’t
Golf courses have to change because the clients play golf. From the tourists that visit, only a low
are changing. We still have a lot of the classic, member golfers but there is little growth percentage of them play a few rounds of golf.
in that area, and golf is becoming more of a casual leisure activity rather than a In England, there was a situation about 15-20 years ago when too many golf courses
dedicated sporting activity. were being built, because there was some research done about waiting lists [the R&A’s
We have to find ways to persuade the floating golfers to play more golf, and that is a infamous ‘The Demand for Golf’ report] but the expectations were much too high and
challenge to golf course owners. We need to think about retention marketing, which is people started building golf courses anywhere. They were totally wrong. Too many golf
totally normal in the fitness industry for example. It is typical in the fitness industry that courses were built in the wrong locations, and that is something we have to look out for
people stay at a club for a few months and then they quit. The fitness industry is very today. A lot of golf course investors love the game, they want the status and owning a
good at getting people to come back to their facilities. In golf we have to learn to sell course appeals to their ego, but at the end of the day the rational figures are the most
our products and to be more service-minded, and to place ourselves into the skin of this important factor. Clubs obviously need to be sustainable.
new generation of clients. That is another challenge we face: to educate investors to make rational decisions.
To be honest, the golf course business is arrogant. Somewhere in the back of our Nevertheless, the future does look good because the baby boom generation is
minds we still have the members-only feeling – and that is arrogant. Golf is a growing starting to take their pensions, with their numbers increasing in the coming years, and
sport, yes, but at the end of the day, growth in our industry is measured by the number they have a lot of free time and a lot of money to spend. Research in Sweden has
of rounds played. shown you can extend your life by five years if you play golf twice a week, so that must
We don’t have figures to show how much the floating golfers spend at golf clubs in be good news!
total, but we do know that the revenue per round for the green-fee player is much more The Big Change, the European Golf Business Conference, takes place in Berlin, on
than it is for the club member. We have statistics from some of our countries that show November 5-7, 2008 – www.egcoa.eu/conference2008
12 AUGUST 2008 - SGB GOLF
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