The first two-thirds of the year left much to be desired for the golf business in Colorado, but a warm fall may prove to be a silver lining for 2010.
If so, it’ll be a welcome bit of good news amid prolonged economic problems.
“It’s the same speech,” CGA executive director Ed Mate said. “There are too many golf courses, the economy stinks, and there are a lot of people unemployed or underemployed.”
Under those circumstances, a recent rounds and revenue survey of Colorado public course operators confirmed what was predictable. The resulting report compares rounds played and green-fees revenue for January through August of this year to the same period in 2009. Sixty facilities provided data this year.
The findings show that almost all public courses took a hit in the first eight months of 2010. Overall, rounds at the 60 facilities were down 11.7 percent compared to the same time frame in 2009, while green-fees revenue dipped 10.2 percent.
Out of the respondees, only two that were in operation the first eight months of both years reported an increase in rounds from 2009 to 2010, and just three saw an uptick in money collected through green fees.
The course with the most positive data showed an increase of 12.8 percent in rounds and 13.2 percent in green-fees revenue. On the flip side, rounds at one course dropped 19.6 percent from 2009 to 2010, and another facility saw green-fees revenue dip a whopping 24.7 percent.
Courses that participated in the survey did so on the condition that specific facilities not be publicly named when using their information.
While the general poor state of the economy is obviously taking its toll, Mate said an autumn with near-ideal golf weather so far should ease the pain from the figures for the first two-thirds of the year.
“We’re making up a lot of ground,” Mate said. “We’ve had some very busy weekends on golf courses, and the final numbers for 2010 may be very interesting. They could be a lot better (than the report for the first eight months of the year). The spring wasn’t great, but the fall has been exceptional. We’ve just added inventory, so it’s getting better every day.”
Public course operators won’t report their overall 2010 numbers until wintertime, but the weather certainly has been good for business in the first half of fall. From Oct. 1 through the first week of November, the average temperature in the Denver metro area was eight or 10 degrees warmer this year than in 2009, and the precipitation was less than half of what we experienced in that stretch last year.
The result has been days like Monday (Nov. 8), when Colorado PGA executive director Eddie Ainsworth pointed out that 91 rounds were played at the Golf Club at Bear Dance in Larkspur, where the Section is headquartered.
“To have 91 rounds on a Monday in November, that definitely helps,” Ainsworth said.
In other words, the weather has been very cooperative for course operators, even if the economy hasn’t.
“When you budget, you figure on a lot of rounds through September, then you taper off in October,” said Mate, who is very familiar with the process, with the CGA and CWGA owning and operating CommonGround Golf Course, and Mira Vista on the same site before that. “For November, you budget almost none, so we’ve been incredibly fortunate, especially on weekends.”
Mate and Ainsworth are confident the numbers will rebound as the economy improves, but they fully understand that underlying problems will remain major issues. Even when times were better earlier in the 2000s, the number of rounds played were basically flat year-to-year, and there isn’t enough business to keep the bottom line healthy for the existing number of golf courses.
There are also demographic issues that present big challenges for people in the golf industry.
There aren’t any simple answers, but the CGA, CWGA, Colorado PGA and the other allied golf associations are taking some proactive steps.
“Everybody is aware of the challenge, so it’s important that everybody pull together,” Mate said. “There has to be creative marketing, outreach programming in schools, clinics for women. And when you pool all those things — and the economy is right — I think it will pay dividends.”
The process has already started, and one of the key steps the allied golf associations are taking is to work to expand golf-in-school programs, most notably the Colorado PGA’s “Golf In Schools” initiative.
The idea is to make golf a regular part of physical education classes, usually with golf professionals teaming up with P.E. teachers to lead the effort. Initially, this takes the form of providing equipment — clubs and Birdie Balls — where students can be exposed to the game and the life skills that golf espouses. Then the kids can take the next step by actually going to golf courses as part of their P.E. classes.
Ainsworth estimates that Colorado PGA professionals have already worked with more than 30 schools as part of “Golf In Schools.” But the Section, with financial and other support from its partners in the allied golf associations, would like to make the program more uniform and take it to 20 new schools in 2011, assuming all the parties involved agree.
“We want to step it up a notch,” Ainsworth said. “The goal is to get kids excited about playing golf and make the game as fun as possible. And you know that wherever kids go, mom and dad do too.”
Another idea that Ainsworth mentions as a possibility is something comparable to the Passport Program, which allows fifth-graders to ski at selected Colorado resorts free of charge, with certain restrictions.
“It’s not a matter of thinking outside the box,”Ainsworth said. “There is no box.”
Golf courses can also be integrated into school curriculums by having students study plant and animal life on site as part of science classes.
Overall, the idea is to introduce golf to many youngsters who would otherwise not be exposed to it.
Similar to the Colorado PGA, the CGA and CWGA already have implemented some of these plans, specifically with students at Aurora Academy, which is located across the street from CommonGround Golf Course.
“If we consistently apply pressure over 10 years, we think we can get measurably more golfers,” Mate said of the allied golf associations’ joint effort.
