Return customers can be a good measure of a business. The people who run the new CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora certainly hope that’s the case.
Since opening to the general public on May 23, CommonGround has gotten a promising amount of repeat business. That includes one man who has played the course close to 85 times in five months.
“The course has been received real well,” director of golf Dave Troyer said this week. “All season long we were packed out, and even now on nice days we’re still staying busy. People love the course, the location, the condition, and what (course architect Tom) Doak did. We’ve had a lot of repeat play.”
CommonGround, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA, has had a lot of play, period. By Troyer’s estimate, the number of rounds is close to 25,000 after the first five months of operations. That includes over 6,000 rounds in some individual months.
“It’s been successful beyond expectations, and we had high expectations,” said Ed Mate, executive director of the CGA. “We were blown away by how much play we had the first three months. It’s tapered off some the last two months, but it’s been a great year so far. The course has performed beautifully and we couldn’t be happier.”
CommonGround is the only new 18-hole course that opened in Colorado in 2009. (Friend Ranch near Salida recently opened six holes, with the hope of completing 18 by the fall of 2010.) A decade ago, in 1999, a dozen new courses opened in one calendar year in Colorado, but this is a different time. Besides the golf course market being much more saturated, the recent recession has caused a dramatic pullback, not only in Colorado but in the U.S. in general.
But while the recession has taken its toll on golf like any other business, CommonGround benefited from being the lone newcomer in 2009. It also didn’t hurt that it has the backing of the CGA and CWGA, or that it was designed by Doak, who recently was recognized by Golf Magazine for designing three of the top five courses built in the world in the last 50 years (Pacific Dunes, Cape Kidnappers and Barnbougle Dunes).
“It might seem like the worst possible time to open a new business, but it turned out to be a good time,” Mate said, noting that the novelty of CommonGround definitely helped. “We saw very little effect (due to the recession). We had great response.”
CommonGround officials have set 35,000 rounds for a year as their expectation. They anticipate that while the “new” factor will eventually wear off, that will likely be offset by an improving economy in coming years.
Asked the most common feedback he’s heard about the course in the first five months, Troyer said “great condition, friendly people, interesting layout. The only constructive criticism I heard that I put much merit in is pace of play on some days when we have 270 rounds and it may take 4:40 or 4:45 to play. You try to solve the age-old problem of how to keep it at 4:30 or less when you have every tee time full.”
Troyer said CommonGround hired a pace-of-play consultant to help address that situation, but he sees the issue often coming down to many people simply not knowing how to play “ready golf.”
“If that’s the biggest problem I have, I’m happy,” he said.
While the business CommonGround has done is certainly heartening to the CGA and CWGA, it’s primarily seen as a means to an end. With the financial side being healthy, the golf associations can devote more resources to promoting the game through junior golf programs and initiatives — many centered at the nine-hole CommonGround Kids Course — as well as through turf grass research, hosting state championships, etc.
“We don’t own the course to compete with other (course operators); we own it to make the game better,” Mate said. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
As for state championships, CommonGround will step into that arena for the first time in 2010. The par-71 course, known for its very challenging greens complexes, will host both the CGA Match Play (July 5-9) and the CWGA Match Play (August 2-5).
“I’m champing at the bit to see how the course performs for tournaments of that level,” Mate said.
“I think it’s a great tournament course, especially for match play,” Troyer noted.
