Let’s face it, golf courses are a business. The general business model for a golf course is to drive revenues and control expenses leaving as much profit as possible on the bottom line. On any given year, golf course owners could range from losing money to some owners making hundreds of thousands to even millions of dollars annually. Certainly, it depends on the course, location, wealth of members and amount of play. Lastly, and importantly is the effectiveness of the management team.
Golf courses are no different than any other business in that they also depend on the quality of their management team to provide a great experience and get people to want to return. Even the most low spending public golf course can produce a great golf experience with a great management team. The frustrating thing about the following mistakes is that they take no more money in the budget and really shouldn’t happen. Preventing these mistakes just takes a passion to provide guests with a great experience and mostly a small amount of employee training. Here are the mistakes that shouldn’t happen.
Bad starter at the first tee.
How many times do you get to the first tee and the starter turns the next few minutes into a transactional experience. We call this the “toll-taker” experience. This person says stop, show me your receipt and I shall let you pass. It goes like this;
Starter – Do you have a tee time or what’s your tee time?
Golfers – Smith group 10:15
Starter – I need your tickets
Players hand over tickets
Starter: okay you’re the next group off.
That’s it. Unfortunately, that happens all the time at all levels of public and private golf courses. We kind of get used to this and let it slide because we are already thinking about the big first tee shot. However, think about it. It takes zero money and just a little training from the management staff to train this person to send us off on our 18-hole journey with a warm welcome. Is it too much to ask to get a good morning. How are you all today? Have you played here before? No, watch out on your tee shot on number 7. You can only hit it about 225 yards off the tee and then it runs into a small creek you can’t see from the tee. Think about those few times you have had a great starter and compare it to what you see a lot of the time. We need that warm welcome and there’s no reason that can’t happen at any course that employs a starter or someone to manage the first the box.
Not cutting new cups often enough
You hit the green in regulation on the first hole and have a 15-footer for birdie. You go to check out the lay of the land and grab a quick read and notice the frayed, worn cup edge. Argh! It screams of neglect and poor prioritization by the maintenance team. It also tells you your groups in for a dicey day on the greens and throughout the whole course if we are honest. Changing the cups should happen as consistently as unlocking the clubhouse door each morning.
Not providing a beverage cart or at a minimum have some food and drinks in the clubhouse
Let’s face it, beverages on the golf course is natural compliment to being in the great outdoors. You’re outside with your friends and you might enjoy a cool brew. Even at a minimum, a cool water is mandatory on a hot day. General golf industry information says that the average beverage cart not only pays for itself in a month, but can generate around $1,000 daily. A road of golf for most of us should really be about having a great time. That includes eating, drinking and being merry. Please courses, get that cart out there as it adds revenues to your course and just makes for a better experience for your players. So, you don’t like the hassle of managing a beverage cart, provide some quick beverage and food options your players can grab before teeing off or at the turn.
Not trying to ensure a fair pace of play
Nothing worse than that five-plus hour round due to the oblivious foursome that has a couple open holes in front of them. Heads up, if you have a couple holes open in front of you it’s you and you need to start letting groups that are waiting behind you play through. However, really, it’s the responsibility of the golf course to keep an eye on pace of play. Just like in all these mistakes. This negatively impacts revenues as some courses just have a bad reputation about not keeping the pace of play respectable and golfers just don’t go back. There is a balance here. The good ground lies somewhere between the course Marshall that keeps looping the course hassling all the groups and an indifferent or oblivious course that could care less and has nothing in place to keep an eye on the pace of play. There are so many options here. Use the GPS on golf carts to communicate, use the starter to set expectations. Simply put, the
course needs to be using every opportunity to educate the players on pace of play expectations. Then, have a plan in place to communicate to the few that impact the many.
Not providing the fond farewell from the cart – bag drop employees
The fond farewell can come from the employees who clean the carts as the players come in from the course or work the bag drop. These employees exist at almost every single course. Certainly every course who has golf carts has this person. They can bring a nice fond finish to the round by being trained to do the basics. Meet you as you leave the course and run through the basic questions. How did it go out there today? Would you like your clubs wiped down? Would you like help getting your clubs back to the car? Wow. It doesn’t take a lot of effort. Just a little passion and certainly basic training from the golf course management team.
We love getting out to the course. Our love of the game of golf will bring us back no matter how bad we play or how bad the customer service experience. However, it doesn’t have this way. It doesn’t cost any more money. Golf course manager please have the same passion for service that we have for the game.