Governance in private clubs can too often resemble what is seen on the evening news: factions, resentment, distrust, skepticism, cynicism. In troubled times, sound governance is essential.
In our continuing Whitepaper Series, Senior Partner Henry DeLozier highlights the three keys to effective governance and proactive steps leaders can take to address and improve it at their club.
The 2021 CMAA World Conference & Club Business Expo offers five days of stellar educational programming and the opportunity for those in club management to refresh their skills and industry knowledge, connect with fellow professionals, and explore the latest innovations and best practices.
Each year, we at GGA Partners look forward to syncing up with club managers to celebrate their successes, learn more about the challenges they are facing, and help them develop and implement a game plan for success.
As a long-standing CMAA Business Partner, we jump on every opportunity to facilitate education sessions which bring club managers together for knowledge-sharing and thought-leadership. In the hope that our paths will cross, you are invited to register for any or all of GGA’s education sessions, engagements, and activities.
Otherwise, swing by our virtual exhibitor booth, help yourself to some of our latest insights and resources, and be sure to get in touch with us by saying hello in the chat, scheduling a meeting, or dropping us a line. Let’s have a conversation about what you and your club are working on in 2021, we are always willing to assist club managers.
1:30pm-2:00pm EST
Join Trevor Coughlan from Jonas Software and Michael Gregory of GGA Partners to ask questions and discuss club feedback systems for members and customers.
11:00am-2:00pm EST
*Requires separate registration
Strategic planning is on everyone’s mind these days. One of the most frequent questions about strategy seems to be “Given the current environment, how do we actually set strategy for long-term success and sustainability?” and followed closely by “How do we implement a strategic plan in our club?”
This three-hour session is a hands-on approach using real-life case studies, allowing managers to interact and learn from each other, with the GGA team providing ideas and solutions. The session will leverage GGA’s processes, research, and experience and provide engaging opportunities for delegates to contribute.
During the first half of the session, participants will have the opportunity to learn from the GGA team and subject matter experts in strategic planning, governance, communications, member feedback, market research, financial planning, and analysis.
During the second half of the session, participants will be separated into smaller virtual breakout rooms with fellow club managers. In these virtual rooms, participants will have the opportunity to share their initial thoughts about the case and discuss solutions with their peers. The breakout rooms will subsequently rejoin to form one large group, at which point participants will be asked to respond to questions about the case using real-time polling software. Responses to the poll are individual and anonymous. This dynamic session will allow participants to see how their responses compare to their peers and hear from GGA how their answers may differ from industry best practices.
The session will conclude with the case solutions being shared with participants. By the end of the session, participants will achieve a better understanding of the importance of strategic planning for private clubs, proven processes for setting long-term successful and sustainable strategies, how strategic plans are implemented and become advocates for strategic planning at their respective clubs.
Join the GGA team: Henry DeLozier (Partner), Stephen Johnston (Partner), Derek Johnston (Partner), Michael Gregory (Partner), Craig Johnston (Partner), Fred Laughlin (Director), Eric Brey (Director), Linda Dillenbeck (Director), Bennett DeLozier (Manager), and Ben Hopkinson (Manager).
12:30pm-1:30pm EST
Swing by the GGA Partners virtual exhibitor booth, help yourself to some of our latest insights and resources, and be sure to get in touch with us by saying hello in the chat, scheduling a meeting, or dropping us a line.
10:30am-11:30am EST
Research findings highlight how clubs can adapt and develop their offerings to meet the needs of the next generation of members and customers. Hear from four managers whose clubs are quite different, and whose perspectives represent the next generation of club managers. The panel discussion will provide valuable insights about Millennials, the challenges they face, and the opportunities for clubs to be more relevant to the next generation of club members in their membership structure and pricing, offerings, and experiences provided.
Join Michael Gregory (Partner, GGA Partners), Jay Johnson (GM/COO, Prairie Dunes Country Club), Daniel Moreno (The Briar Club), Kristen LaCount (GM, The Country Club), and Passion Graham (Clubhouse Manager, Desert Mountain Club).
1:30pm-2:00pm EST
Join Bennett DeLozier from GGA Partners, and Amilcar Davy from CMAA, to discuss early results from the CMAA Trends Survey entitled A Club Leader’s Perspective: Emerging Trends & Challenges.
3:30pm-4:30pm EST
Swing by the GGA Partners virtual exhibitor booth, help yourself to some of our latest insights and resources, and be sure to get in touch with us by saying hello in the chat, scheduling a meeting, or dropping us a line.
12:30pm-1:30pm EST
Join Linda Dillenbeck (Director, GGA Partners) and Bennett DeLozier (Manager, GGA Partners) for insights into the steps club managers can take to ensure their communications are clear, concise, and effective. In this session, we’ll discuss how clubs can forge stronger bonds with members, and successfully engage prospective members in the wake of these fundamental shifts in perceived value.
About GGA Partners
GGA Partners™ is an international consulting firm and trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful golf courses, private clubs, resorts, and residential communities. We are dedicated to helping owners, asset managers, club and community leaders, investors and real estate developers tackle challenges, achieve objectives, and maximize asset performance.
Established in 1992 as the KPMG Golf Industry Practice, our global team of experienced professionals leverage in-depth business intelligence and proprietary global data to deliver impactful strategic solutions and lasting success. For more information, please visit ggapartners.com.
At GGA Partners, we have watched the pandemic create innovative opportunities and innovation in clubs unlike what we have seen in many years.
In our continuing Whitepaper Series, Senior Partner Henry DeLozier reminds managers and club leaders how critically important innovation is, especially during these pandemic times.
This month, Game Plan – Henry DeLozier‘s monthly column in Golf Course Industry Magazine – kicks off a three-part series on staffing for success. First in the series is a look at how the pandemic has changed staffing needs and why superintendents and managers should consider reorganizing their teams and redefining job descriptions. Parts two and three will look at finding, hiring and retaining the right team members and creating the culture that inspires and motivates top performers.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste” is a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill in the days following World War II. Scholars question whether Churchill ever spoke those exact words, but as we make tentative steps to emerge from a pandemic-induced crisis of our own time, the lesson it implies — finding opportunity amidst great difficulty and challenge — rings as timely and as relevant as it would have in Churchill’s day.
In the still-churning wake of the global health pandemic of 2020, maybe the first place we should look for opportunity is with our own staffs. As COVID-19 raced through communities across America, thousands of golf clubs and facilities found themselves on either side of a dilemma. For those places where golf was booming, stretching tee sheets, golf car fleets and maintenance staffs to their limits and beyond, the question was whether to staff up to handle the surge or stay with current staff levels, figuring the wave would eventually crest and return to some semblance of normal. For places the boom never reached, the questions were: How long can we manage to keep our current team intact before payroll takes too much of a bite from dwindling revenues? And among those eventually let go, who will we bring back and who no longer has a place on our team?
By now, many of those calculations and decisions have been made and the ramifications felt. But the lessons they taught should not only endure, but also inform future staffing plans. In the heat of crisis, owners and managers learned who on their teams could take on more responsibility, who had leadership potential and who had reached their ceiling. They learned where they needed additional resources and where resources might be redeployed for better coverage and results. Now it’s time to put those lessons to work with redesigned organization charts and job descriptions.
One thing is for sure: a dynamic job market has changed even more in the last 12 months with continued disruption on the horizon. “The fallout will fundamentally change recruiting and hiring practices long after the pandemic has passed,” recruiting strategist Jack Whatley recently told Forbes.com.
Another certainty is that the war for talent will continue to escalate. Top performers will be in even greater demand because as businesses reshape themselves into leaner, more efficient operations, those top performers are the best value money can buy.
“Twenty years ago, all interns had mechanical skills and no computer knowledge. Now it is just the opposite. They all know how to operate computers, but they can’t change a spark plug,” says Rick Tegtmeier, the long-tenured and highly respected golf course superintendent at Des Moines Golf & Country Club. “It sure doesn’t hurt someone to work at a lesser-budget golf course operation and learn more of the skills that help you become a more rounded superintendent.”
There will never be a better time to take all the names off your org chart and rethink the needs of the club and course, the time and talent required of each of those needs, and the right names to place in those roles. As you go through that exercise, be aware that the pandemic and its economic reverberations have also changed employees’ perspectives.
Workers have had a lot of time recently to reevaluate their careers and question their next moves. Am I in the right job in the right industry? Where could I find more happiness and greater security for me and my family? Is this a stable environment and can I count on a stable paycheck? Where will I be exposed if (or when) another crisis emerges?
“Safety and job stability are at the top of mind for the job seeker now — and that changes what they want in a job,” Whatley says. “Businesses will have to become employee-centric as well as customer-centric.”
Hopefully, you and your facility have weathered this crisis without too much damage. Now’s the time to take advantage of an opportunity it has afforded.
This article was authored by Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry magazine.
TORONTO, Ontario – GGA Partners, a global consulting firm, has released In Pursuit of Innovation, the fourth in its series of thought leadership whitepapers. This authoritative guide explores how surviving in today’s competitive landscape depends on the ability of clubs and organizations to unlock their creative potential and offers up several guidelines to allow freedom of thought and imagination.
In Pursuit of Innovation highlights the way companies must continuously transform in order to survive and how a constant pursuit of innovation will guard against failure, whether gradual or sudden. The paper clarifies exactly what constitutes innovation, where it comes from, and how club leaders can practice innovative thinking to unlock a culture of creativity.
“Our experience with thousands of private clubs over nearly three decades shows us that without innovation clubs become stale, membership falls until it eventually flatlines, competitive advantages diminish, members become dissatisfied, and talented staff look elsewhere,” explained GGA Partner Henry DeLozier, one of several authors of the piece. “Innovation can come from anywhere inside an organization, and we think it should be encouraged from all corners, from the folks raking bunkers to the person answering phones to the accountant balancing the books.”
Innovation happens at the intersection of problems, opportunities, and fervent minds but must be deliberately sought, practiced, and encouraged at all levels. “It’s normal in any business to want to maintain the status quo. It’s comfortable, it’s safe, and it’s easier than making changes,” said DeLozier. “In reality, the status quo only works for so long. If you’re going to grow, you must innovate.”
In Pursuit of Innovation illuminates four common roadblocks to an innovative culture and identifies the steps necessary to unlock a culture of creativity.
In addition to innovation, GGA Partners has published new whitepapers on strategic planning, branding, and governance which are accessible via the firm’s website.
About GGA Partners
GGA Partners™ is an international consulting firm and trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful golf courses, private clubs, resorts, and residential communities. We are dedicated to helping owners, asset managers, club and community leaders, investors and real estate developers tackle challenges, achieve objectives, and maximize asset performance.
Established in 1992 as the KPMG Golf Industry Practice, our global team of experienced professionals leverage in-depth business intelligence and proprietary global data to deliver impactful strategic solutions and lasting success. For more information, please visit ggapartners.com.
Media Contact:
Bennett DeLozier
GGA Partners
602-614-2100
bennett.delozier@ggapartners.com
TORONTO, Ontario – GGA Partners has expanded its portfolio of services for private clubs, public golf courses, residential communities, resorts, municipalities and hospitality clients with the addition of an experienced research mind and acting hospitality educator.
Dr. Eric Brey, PhD, a researcher and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, School of Hospitality Leadership, has joined GGA Partners as its newest director to expand the firm’s research efforts.
Dr. Brey’s research expertise will strengthen GGA’s capabilities in customer feedback and market research, both of which are core services for GGA. One of the many expanded offerings the addition of Dr. Brey supports is 3-Factor Theory Analysis designed to provide a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the touchpoints that have the greatest potential to impact customer and member satisfaction.
Recently, Medinah Country Club engaged Dr. Brey to conduct 3-Factor Theory Analysis using the raw survey data collected by GGA. “Identifying the touchpoints important to our members provided tremendous insight across our entire operation” stated Medinah Country Club General Manager Robert Sereci. “Clubs will benefit greatly by using this methodology to pinpoint opportunities on which to focus enhancement efforts to achieve the highest level of enjoyment for their members.”
In addition to enhanced customer satisfaction analysis, Dr. Brey’s vast experience in consumer research will provide expanded opportunities for survey interpretation, managed customer feedback, third party performance monitoring and analysis of existing client data to support GGA’s strategic planning and business intelligence services.
“The synergies created by combining GGA’s expertise in research and strategic planning with the knowledge and experience I bring to consumer research are exponential,” commented Dr. Brey. “Together we will be able to assist golf, club, resort and municipal operators with more detailed and comprehensive data analysis that will enhance their ability to make strategic decisions and improve their operational efficiency and customer experience.”
“Research is a cornerstone of our firm and consumer satisfaction is just one component of GGA’s capabilities in this space. Dr. Brey will play a key role in elevating GGA’s industry leading research, and will apply research best practices and new methods to develop even stronger insights for our clients,” commented GGA Partner Michel Gregory. “As a firm we are working to develop an all-encompassing approach to measuring real time, periodic, and long-term consumer feedback that will benefit a wide range of clients in the private club, resort and hospitality industries as well as municipalities who own golf and leisure assets”.
About GGA Partners
GGA Partners™ is an international consulting firm and trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful golf courses, private clubs, resorts, and residential communities. We are dedicated to helping owners, asset managers, club and community leaders, investors and real estate developers tackle challenges, achieve objectives, and maximize asset performance.
Established in 1992 as the KPMG Golf Industry Practice, our global team of experienced professionals leverage in-depth business intelligence and proprietary global data to deliver impactful strategic solutions and lasting success. For more information, please visit ggapartners.com.
About Dr. Eric Brey, PhD
Dr. Brey earned his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Stout School of Hospitality Leadership. In 2006, he earned his PhD from Purdue University School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Dr. Brey spent six years at the University of Memphis, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality Management before joining the University of Wisconsin-Stout, School of Hospitality Leadership in 2012. In his current role, he serves as professor and chair of the school, teaching marketing, strategy and customer analytics courses, and conducting research on consumer-centric strategy.
Dr. Brey has published numerous peer and refereed journal papers, written industry white papers and book chapters, received many recognitions and honors and has conducted applied research for the United States Golf Association. Recently, Dr. Brey completed a research study for the USGA identifying more than 1,000 touchpoints golfers can have throughout their experience that impact satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The results of the research will provide insights to help operators gain a firm understanding of what customers need and how to meet and exceed those expectations.
Media Contacts:
Michael Gregory, Partner
GGA Partners
416-524-0083
michael.gregory@ggapartners.com
One of the most important responsibilities for managers is developing the next generation of leaders and preparing them for the professional challenges they will face. The most obvious way to develop leadership qualities is simply to pay your knowledge forward by identifying the most important lessons you’ve learned — often the hard way — and passing them on to your team.
That responsibility starts with acknowledging that agronomic knowledge is simply table stakes. Knowing how to grow turf and keep it healthy is expected of anyone in the superintendent role, and most up-and-coming turf managers come to the job well prepared. GCSAA educational programs and the generous teaching of consulting specialists and suppliers go a long way in helping to lay this foundation. Certainly, the college of hard knocks provides its lessons as well.
But what lessons will you teach your assistants and crew members? And how can you help prepare them for their next opportunity to move into more responsible positions? In addition to making yourself available as a mentor, you can also broaden your own knowledge by paying attention to what your most respected peers consider their priorities. Here are suggestions from two of the best in the business.
Bill Cygan is the exceptional young superintendent at Silver Spring Country Club in Ridgefield, Connecticut. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Bill spent six years as an assistant at Innis Arden Golf Club in Greenwich and another six years caring for the West Course at Winged Foot.
“This is not easy and doesn’t happen overnight, but the stronger your relationships are at the club, the smoother the ride will be, especially during times of adversity,” Bill says. “Relationship building should include department managers — especially the golf pro, controller and general manager — as well as certain key members of the club, including the green chairman and treasurer, who can be important allies.”
In addition to the administrative leaders with whom a successful superintendent works, Bill adds, “Be sure to build a strong team responsible for the daily golf course maintenance operations.” The strength of the team is your strength.
Carlos Arraya, the assistant general manager at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, began his career as a golf course superintendent and over two decades has grown into a key leadership position at one of America’s finest clubs, having hosted the 100th PGA Championship in 2019. Carlos teaches several key points of focus:
“Understand your leadership style and voice,” he says, adding that managers who favorably influence the next generation of leaders practice mindfulness, leaving their ego at the shop door, putting the interests and needs of their crew ahead of their own and recognizing a job well done. Further, he recommends continue evolving as a leader to best handle the needs of a changing workforce.
Some managers are overly focused on the next job, but Carlos counsels: “Focus on being great in your current role.” One can never know too much; by the same token, one can never know everything, so don’t pretend that you do.
Superintendents and managers of all descriptions work in the proverbial glass house. The key to being effective at each level is understanding that one is setting an example for others up and down the organizational chart. “Know the difference between an excuse and a reason,” he says. “And don’t fall into the trap of professional jealousy.”
“(Superintendents) are trained in the scientific method. But sometimes we overreact and are too quick to make a decision,” he says. Club and course managers can pressure superintendents, especially when times are tough, to have immediate answers. “Be deliberate, rely on the science.”
Developing young people into experienced and highly effective crew members, ones who will one day lead their own operations, is one of the most important jobs of any superintendent. And only when you lose some of your best people, when they move on to the top job at another club or course, you will know that you’ve been successful.
This article was authored by Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry magazine.
In the wake of COVID-19 business must go on, so too must budgets be developed and approved to give clubs and their managers a roadmap for next year’s operations. Here are five important steps to consider when preparing your 2021 budget. This article was authored by Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry magazine.
Budget preparation, even with its strict adherence to unvarnished numbers, is always an inexact and fluid exercise. It’s an amalgam of recent and projected performance in the context of long-range and short-term goals and objectives, all of which could be influenced by internal factions guided by self-interest. And that’s in the best and most predictable of times. Not exactly what budget preparers at clubs are currently facing.
In the wake of COVID-19, if you ask managers, directors and owners to forecast how their club will perform next year, you’re likely to get a range of answers, including what may be the most honest: “I haven’t the foggiest idea.” But as business must go on, so must budgets be developed and approved to give clubs and their managers a roadmap for next year’s operations.
How do you plan for the unknown? Here are five important steps to consider when preparing your 2021 budget:
Savvy superintendents use their agronomic plans as a pilot uses a flight plan. The agronomic plan includes the superintendent’s clearly stated outcomes or objectives (destination) along with clearly defined processes, systems and procedures (altitude, speed and course).
The contents of a thorough agronomic plan include goals and objectives, a staffing plan and organization of management, fertility, arboreal and irrigation plans, and line-item budget analysis and descriptions of the financial components of the plan.
Describe the results you intend to achieve. Your plan paints a vivid picture of what you believe is possible and what results will be contingent on factors beyond your control.
Making sure your accounting manager fully understands the agronomic plan and gaining his or her support for your plans and how you intend to achieve them is essential to a successful budget any year. But current circumstances that may limit resources, disrupt supply chains and affect how your team operates on a day-to-day basis make this understanding and support even more critical.
Mix in members’ expectations for course conditions and there is every reason to think your 2021 budget will require more specific collaboration than most golf course maintenance budgets normally receive. Your accounting department allies are critical to a successful agronomic plan and its approval.
When faced with challenging problems in an environment where the unknown competes with the known, many managers rely on a process known as a decision tree to map the various risks and potential outcomes and ultimately predict their chances for success. Because of the uncertain times, superintendents need to show stakeholders what is needed and intended within the 2021 budget.
A note of guidance: a GGA Partners global study of members’ expectations amid the pandemic found that members are unsupportive of diminished or deteriorating standards of care and upkeep for their clubs’ facilities. Members and golfers will continue to pay dues provided that established standards of excellence are maintained.
Sound budgeting normally relies on a zero-based approach. However, multiple uncertainties require that superintendents use established norms for budget assumptions. From these historic patterns, one is wise to contemplate — and budget — line-by-line variances from established norms. Among the wild-card projections for 2021 costs will be labor, fuel, chemicals and pesticides.
Labor costs will remain uncertain as access to workers who want to work and whose medical conditions allow them to will influence the labor pool and one’s access to it. Chemicals and pesticides will likely show volatile swings subject to supply-chain influences and may require superintendents to rely less on just-in-time deliveries and maintain larger than normal on-site inventories.
Quarterly budget updates that identify aspects of the budget in need of a mid-course correction are recommended. Proactively gather and inform decisionmakers where changes are occurring and where adjustments are needed. Keep ahead of rapidly changing — and changeable — circumstances. All involved will appreciate your ahead-of-the-curve approach and make better decisions as a result.
TORONTO, Ontario – International consulting firm GGA Partners has released Leveraging Differences in the Boardroom, the third in its new series of thought leadership whitepapers. This authoritative guide explores the benefits of clubs with diverse boards and suggests several steps to take when recruiting with diversity in mind.
Leveraging Differences in the Boardroom evaluates the consequences of unintentionally insular board composition and challenges the idea of “sameness” in the boardroom, which limits the ability of a board to effectively perform its duties and threatens a club’s health and longevity. The paper illustrates how multiple perspectives contribute to greater success in governance and argues for adjusting the profile of a club’s leadership to better serve members and prospects.
“We often see board members with similar professional, cultural, and ideological backgrounds and perspectives,” explained GGA Partner Henry DeLozier, one of several authors of the piece. “Boards that are neither representative of the membership nor reflective of their surrounding community risk losing the opportunity both to serve their current members and to attract new members.”
In addition, the whitepaper encourages that clubs intent on increasing diversity among their board take a holistic, multi-dimensional approach to its creation. “Forward-thinking boards understand that it is the breadth of perspective, not the mere inclusion of various diverse traits, that benefits the organization,” said DeLozier. “In addition to social diversity, professional and experiential diversity are also important in increasing the range of perspectives represented on the board.”
Board diversification is likely to be met with resistance from the status quo, which the paper aims to help club leaders overcome by providing tactics for building a diverse board, developing new board member criteria, and making a commitment to diversity.
In addition to governance, GGA Partners recently published new whitepapers on strategic planning and branding. The firm has announced that another in the series focused on innovation will be published through the third quarter of 2020.
About GGA Partners
GGA Partners™ is an international consulting firm and trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful golf courses, private clubs, resorts, and residential communities. We are dedicated to helping owners, asset managers, club and community leaders, investors and real estate developers tackle challenges, achieve objectives, and maximize asset performance.
Established in 1992 as the KPMG Golf Industry Practice, our global team of experienced professionals leverage in-depth business intelligence and proprietary global data to deliver impactful strategic solutions and lasting success. For more information, please visit ggapartners.com.
Media Contact:
Bennett DeLozier
GGA Partners
602-614-2100
bennett.delozier@ggapartners.com
If you’re thinking about adding or enhancing a practice area at your course, here are some things to keep in mind. This article was authored by Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry magazine.
Searching for a silver lining to a pandemic is mostly a fool’s errand. But many golf courses fortunate enough to stay open during the last five months have found something for which to be thankful: Thousands of golfers and would-be golfers are discovering (and rediscovering) a love for the game.
In many places, their affection is being stoked by short-game practice areas that are introducing new players to golf and giving more experienced players a place to hone their games, all the while boosting incremental revenues.
Bradley Klein, a veteran golf travel, history and architecture journalist and Golf Course Industry columnist, observes that the role of short-game practice areas is evolving. “Time constraints were the initial impetus, but that’s changed of late.” He says the trend is toward “more fun, family-friendly” areas that also provide practice opportunities for serious golfers. “They also constitute efficient use of land.”
What’s more, in this era of social distancing, short game areas are a safe space for youngsters to learn the game while socializing and exercising, according to Jan Bel Jan, president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. She believes the trend will continue to gain momentum. “Short game improvement areas provide benefits to seasoned golfers, promote a welcoming introduction to golf for adult beginners and help courses remain competitive with other area facilities,” she says.
Pinehurst Resort injected new credibility for areas dedicated to the short game and demonstrated its revenue potential when it opened The Cradle — nine holes, all par threes, measuring 789 yards and covering 10 acres — in September 2017. In the last three years, The Cradle has hosted more than 100,000 rounds while becoming one of Pinehurst’s most popular courses.
If you’re thinking about adding or enhancing a practice area at your course, here are some things to keep in mind.
Know your customer.
New practice, training and game-improvement facilities require planning, which starts with understanding the type of player you want to attract. What skill levels will you prioritize? What will be the hours of operation? How will you price access? Member surveys and information exchange sessions with golfers will help you better understand your target audience’s needs and expectations.
Don’t get sloppy.
“Serious design, with interesting greens contours and variety of tee shots” are keys to effective planning, Klein says. “It has to be run like a real golf course and not like a sloppy afterthought.”
Make it fun.
Jim Wyffels, director of operations at Spirit Hollow Golf Club in Burlington, Iowa, is an innovative thinker when it comes to making golf fun. Spirit Hollow’s Shankopotamus Golf Academy, which features TopTracer technologies, was designed with two goals in mind, Wyffels says. “The first was to create an additional amenity for our stay-and-play guests in the evening and during inclement weather. The second was to create a new revenue stream in the evening and during winter months that would target our local market. Our plan was to create a fun, game-like family atmosphere where all age groups and skill levels, including non-golfers, could be entertained.”
Keep your superintendent in the loop.
How will the golf course superintendent maintain the short-game area? Engage the superintendent to ensure design characteristics that can be efficiently and cost-effectively maintained. Concerns such as adequate turning radii, slopes that can be consistently cut and safely navigated by staff, and shapes that match existing terrain on the adjacent golf course are planning priorities. Bel Jan advises planners to be mindful of optimizing drainage, building putting surfaces to established standards and minimizing shade impacts to enable turf recovery.
COVID-19 really has no upside; it has wreaked havoc in unprecedented ways. But if a crisis of its proportions has encouraged more people to take to the course, and prompted golf managers and leaders to think more innovatively about amenities like short courses and practice areas, then it has left something of value in its wake.
