Tag: membership

2019 Millennial Golf Industry Survey Findings – Part 3

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In ongoing research collaboration with Millennial golfer organization Nextgengolf, GGA recently updated its study of the habits, attitudes, and preferences of Millennial golfers.  The 2019 study brings forward survey findings from over 1,400 Millennial golfers and builds upon research conducted in 2017 and 2018.

This is the second installment of a multi-part series of infographics to feature the latest Millennial golfer feedback.  Part 1 focused on the demographics of respondents and their exposure to the game.  Part 2 summarized the reasons why Millennials play golf and explored what will trigger them to join a private club. Part 3, below, considers barriers deterring Millennials from joining private clubs and looks at their tolerance to pay annual dues and joining fees.

Keep an eye out for new installments to be released in the coming weeks.

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Research Overview

In many clubs today, the long-held expectations and perceptions of existing, ageing members are at odds with the entirely different needs and expectations of a new wave of younger, more casual members.  The challenge for clubs?  To create an environment which not only appeals to the new wave, but where members of all types can coexist.

Research findings highlight how golf clubs can adapt and develop their offerings to meet the needs of the next generation of members and customers.  The goal is to provide valuable insights about Millennial golfers, the challenges they face, and the opportunities for clubs to help support the long-term sustainability of the game and the industry as a whole.

Background

As the leading entity for team-based golf in the United States, Nextgengolf connects Millennials to golf and supports the success of their game while GGA specializes in solution engineering and problem solving for golf-related businesses.  A fusion of GGA’s 27-year history of private club research and Nextgengolf’s connection to young golfers afforded the unique opportunity to study a highly valuable Millennial audience.

The survey sample focused exclusively on a sample audience of active, avid Millennial golfers with prior golf interest and experience in tournaments or golf events.  To date, more than 3,600 survey responses have been analyzed during the three-year research study.

Thank you to the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) for the support that makes this research possible.

2019 Millennial Golf Industry Survey Findings – Part 2

Date:

In ongoing research collaboration with Millennial golfer organization Nextgengolf, GGA recently updated its study of the habits, attitudes, and preferences of Millennial golfers.  The 2019 study brings forward survey findings from over 1,400 Millennial golfers and builds upon research conducted in 2017 and 2018.

This is the second installment of a multi-part series of infographics to feature the latest Millennial golfer feedback.  Part 1 focused on the demographics of respondents and their exposure to the game while Part 2, below, summarizes the reasons why Millennials play golf and explores what will trigger them to join a private club.

Keep an eye out for new installments to be released in the coming weeks.

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Research Overview

In many clubs today, the long-held expectations and perceptions of existing, ageing members are at odds with the entirely different needs and expectations of a new wave of younger, more casual members.  The challenge for clubs?  To create an environment which not only appeals to the new wave, but where members of all types can coexist.

Research findings highlight how golf clubs can adapt and develop their offerings to meet the needs of the next generation of members and customers.  The goal is to provide valuable insights about Millennial golfers, the challenges they face, and the opportunities for clubs to help support the long-term sustainability of the game and the industry as a whole.

Background

As the leading entity for team-based golf in the United States, Nextgengolf connects Millennials to golf and supports the success of their game while GGA specializes in solution engineering and problem solving for golf-related businesses.  A fusion of GGA’s 27-year history of private club research and Nextgengolf’s connection to young golfers afforded the unique opportunity to study a highly valuable Millennial audience.

The survey sample focused exclusively on a sample audience of active, avid Millennial golfers with prior golf interest and experience in tournaments or golf events.  To date, more than 3,600 survey responses have been analyzed during the three-year research study.

Thank you to the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) for the support that makes this research possible.

2019 Millennial Golf Industry Survey Findings – Part 1

Date:

In ongoing research collaboration with Millennial golfer organization Nextgengolf, GGA recently updated its study of the habits, attitudes, and preferences of Millennial golfers.  The 2019 study brings forward survey findings from over 1,400 Millennial golfers and builds upon research conducted in 2017 and 2018.

Illustrated below is the first installment of a multi-part series of infographics to feature the latest Millennial golfer feedback.  To establish a baseline for discussion, Part 1 focuses on the demographics of respondents and their exposure to the game.

Over the next few weeks, keep an eye out for new installments featuring the Millennial outlook on public courses, golf skill, club fees/costs/dues, private clubs, membership recruitment, barriers to golf, and much more.

Research Overview

In many clubs today, the long-held expectations and perceptions of existing, ageing members are at odds with the entirely different needs and expectations of a new wave of younger, more casual members.  The challenge for clubs?  To create an environment which not only appeals to the new wave, but where members of all types can coexist.

Research findings highlight how golf clubs can adapt and develop their offerings to meet the needs of the next generation of members and customers.  The goal is to provide valuable insights about Millennial golfers, the challenges they face, and the opportunities for clubs to help support the long-term sustainability of the game and the industry as a whole.

Background

As the leading entity for team-based golf in the United States, Nextgengolf connects Millennials to golf and supports the success of their game while GGA specializes in solution engineering and problem solving for golf-related businesses.  A fusion of GGA’s 27-year history of private club research and Nextgengolf’s connection to young golfers afforded the unique opportunity to study a highly valuable Millennial audience.

The survey sample focused exclusively on a sample audience of active, avid Millennial golfers with prior golf interest and experience in tournaments or golf events.  To date, more than 3,600 survey responses have been analyzed during the three-year research study.

Thank you to the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) for the support that makes this research possible.

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What’s Important to Know About Recruiting Millennials to Join the Club?

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Occam’s Razor is the work of a Franciscan friar and theologian, William of Ockham, who reasoned that itis better to keep things simple when attempting to understand complicated ideas.  This is good advice for club directors and managers when trying to plan ahead.

The confusion begins in answering, “What do they want?” As club leaders’ eyes have turned from generation X to the millennial generation, a good source for answers can be found from Kris Hart, the co-founder and CEO of Nextgen Golf, whose motto is “Live Life.  Play Golf.”

Hart emphasizes two basic needs that clubs meet for millennials: flexibility and community.

“Millennials are often on the move and need flexibility for when they can play.  More importantly, having flexible membership costs and initiation fees are an important factor for millennials when joining a club,” says Hart.  “Some may not stay in one city for a long time, paying up-front costs are less attractive.”

According to Hart, millennials need to be part of something.  “Clubs that have younger members and a good community around the club are attractive.  Millennials rely heavily on recommendations from family and friends and want to hang out with people like them.”

Now the largest market segment in America, the millennial generation has high expectations, in general.  “Millennials expect to be treated the same as a full adult member and do not want to be restricted or looked down upon as a young adult member.” Hart advises.

And first impressions are important! According to Hart, “Technology expectations are continuing to increase.  The club’s digital presence and online reputation has become much more meaningful given millennials can go right to google and research everything about a club in a matter of seconds.”

Health and wellness are imperative for this generation.  Clubs that have gyms, fitness classes and embrace the health and wellness movement will be better prepared for this generation.

Millennials are getting married and having kids later in life than previous generations.  As Millennials continue to age, family-focused clubs are increasingly more important, Hart stresses.

Keep it simple if your club wants to attract millennial members.

This piece was authored by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier for the National Club Association’s Club Director quarterly magazine.  

Will Millennials Save Golf?

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A few years ago, Time magazine published an exhaustive look at millennials titled “The Me, Me, Me Generation.”  The story took some shots at a generation characterized as “lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents,” but concluded that the world’s 80 million 18- to 34-year-olds will “save us all.”

Global Golf Advisors has done extensive research into what makes millennials tick – especially from a golf perspective – aimed at answering this question: “Will they also save golf?”

Their numbers portend their potential.  Millennials are responsible for the majority of purchases of everything from groceries to automobiles.  They’re also beginning to settle down, with careers, homes and kids of their own.  As they do, their global spending power is estimated in excess of $600 billion a year.

There are about 6.4 million millennial golfers, according to the National Golf Foundation.  That’s more than any golf cohort, other than 6.8 million Gen Xers, whose birth years are generally considered 1965 to 1984.  By contrast, there are 5.4 million baby boomers, once thought to be golf’s saviors, but now on the back nine of their golfing careers.  Here’s what else we know about millennials:

  • They are the first generation of tech natives. They practically teethed on their PCs, tablets and smartphones.  They love their phones, but hate talking on them.
  • They crave new experiences, even more than material goods.
  • They need to feel like what they’re doing is important.
  • They aren’t as willing as former generations to sacrifice their personal life to advance their careers.
  • They’re heavily influenced by product reviews, Q&A’s and photos posted by other consumers.

But what will it take to turn their potential into our reality?  Global Golf Advisors teamed up with Nextgengolf to survey millennial golfers across the U.S. Here’s what we learned:

The No. 1 reason millennials play golf is to hang out with friends.  That’s closely followed by enjoying being outdoors and athletic competition.  Interesting, business-related reasons, such as growing their network, were last on their list.  They just want to have fun.

The millennials in the survey who play at daily fee courses are frugal.  Slightly more than 80 percent want to spend $50 or less on a round of golf.  Sixty percent typically spend between $25 and $50.

Three-quarters of millennials will consider joining a private club in the future.  Twelve percent are already a private club member.  Nearly half of participating millennials plan on joining a private club within the next three to 10 years.

Factors influencing their decision to join a club also show the importance of the social side of the club experience.  The most important factor that influences a membership decision is a recommendation.  Eighty-three percent of survey respondents said encouragement from a friend, colleague or family member might cause them to join a club.  These are folks who are accustomed to reading reviews and acting on the recommendation of others.  The second most influential factor was a positive experience while attending a tournament or special event at the club.

For most, though, golf is not enough of a draw to join a club.  You must remember: millennials are social animals.  Many are involved in as many as 10 recreational activities.  That’s why a workout center, for example, is a valuable investment for clubs and golf facilities that want to increase their appeal to millennials.

Millennials like options and flexibility, and that characteristic was borne out in the portion of the survey focusing on entrance fees and dues.  Forty-one percent of millennials would prefer to pay more annually than pay an entrance fee to join a private club.  Approximately half said they would prefer an annual fee of $3,000 or less to belong to a club.

The challenge for clubs?  To create an environment that not only appeals to the new wave, but also one where members of all generations can co-exist.

This piece was authored by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry Magazine.

Selling Experiences

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Does your club tap into the value of members’ experiences?  Engaging with the experience economy is the fastest-growing method of marketing services, and it will shape the futures of many clubs.

American Express now promotes hard-to-get tickets for special shows and performances. Red Bull promotes a super-terrestrial “Stratos Jump” to call attention to a life lived “on the edge”. Lean Cuisine promotes its “#WeighThis” campaign by asking potential customers to describe what they really wanted to weigh – as in, what really matters to you?

In the modern world, experiences are proving to be more engaging and inspiring than the long-standing product-features-and-benefits approach to marketing.

In their 1999 book, The Experience Economy, B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore offered an early glimpse of a then-current trend emerging… the swelling value of “experiences” over commoditized goods and services. Pine and Gilmore argued that people will place higher value on an experience than a simple transactional relationship.

Now, two decades hence, the experience economy is in full bloom, pushing top-performing clubs to create memorable “experiences” for their members. The memory itself becomes the product, and in private clubs today, members relish an unforgettable experience far more than a bargain.

What is the difference between an “experience” and a normal day at the club?

The term “Experience Economy” was first used in a 1998 article by Pine and Gilmore, describing it as the next economy following the agrarian economy, the industrial economy, and most recently, the service economy. The Experience Economy, as Pine and Gilmore described it, builds on concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

For affluent and accomplished people able to join a private club of almost any description, it is memorable experiences that deliver value to their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

“Experiences” in this context are pre-planned activities and events that are packed full of emotional, memorable, shareable impressions that are difficult for the uninitiated to duplicate. In their earliest uses in private clubs, these events were typically staged around dining and drinking entertainment events. Now, the sky is literally the limit in some clubs.

Experiential value is greater than fair-market value.

Pine gave the example of a birthday cake made faithfully each year by his mother who took her hard-earned cash to the grocery store for the eggs, sugar, flour and other cake ingredients. “Happy Birthday Joey” the cake declared, at an all-in cost of less than $2. However, when Joe’s mother eventually began to work outside of the home, she purchased cakes each year from the bakery for as much as $10.

Pine then fast-forwarded to another example from his own generation of parenting, during which he took his daughter and several of her friends to the American Girl store to buy dolls for each of the girls with all of the American Girl accoutrements – books, extra outfits, and a pre-packaged birthday party – all for roughly $300 per child. This experience prompted Pine’s question, “Do you want to be in the grocery business or the American Girl business?”

Club leaders face the same choice of selling either the parts of a happy event or the sum of the parts at a substantially higher amount.

What are examples of successful “experiences” in private clubs?

Clubs within clubs are often the basis for experiential opportunities in private clubs. The golfers schedule golf trips to Scotland, Ireland, and beyond. The wine club organizes travel to Napa, Sonoma, or the Finger Lakes region. Artistic members enjoy road-trips to Broadway, Hollywood and the touring shows across the country. Spirits and cigars are another point of interest for many club members.

Most clubs and club managers have introduced such programs already and wonder “what is next?” The next generation of interesting club experiences will come at the edges – both generationally and by interest segment. Following are three experiences to add new enthusiasm for your club:

Out of the mouths of babes – Most clubs offer decorating parties for children of the club by providing the necessary ingredients, like the gingerbread house and candies to adorn it. Using a simple handheld iPhone, clubs can record each child describing his or her gingerbread house and explaining why grandmothers and grandfathers will like certain parts of their festive creation.

Think bigger! Most clubs host parties and activities punctuated by music and a live band. Few clubs book cover bands “featuring” the Beatles, Rolling Stones, or the Beach Boys. Normally the bands are more expensive and – in most cases – worth it. Make the events at the club memorable.

The key is to book music that originated in the college-age years of the club’s members. So, if the average age of the club members is 60 deduct 20 years (to account for their average college age) and book music from 40 years ago. That means late ‘70s and early ‘80s is the music that will bring smiles to your members. Music makes most people happy and their happy music even more so.

Lifelong Learning – The value of new and interesting experiences is substantial among affluent and accomplished people who, generally speaking, make up most club members. Such people have the time and opportunity to learn throughout their lives, and private clubs can become a source of such learning experiences.

As aging Baby Boomers across the globe confront the trials of mental health, there is growing emphasis placed upon keeping one’s mind active, fit, and fresh. Private clubs are ideal settings to provide new opportunities for learning new lessons – whether a new language, a musical instrument, or the cultural history of a foreign land.

Pine and Gilmore were correct that the total value of an experience is far greater than its parts. The value of the experience economy is immense in private clubs, and so is the opportunity for those who have not yet engaged with it. There are plenty of options and alternatives that have already been proven in other clubs. The greatest success, however, will be found in innovative new ideas and unforgettable experiences.

This article was penned by GGA Principal and Partner Henry DeLozier. 

Becoming a Destination

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For 80%* of members and visitors, the golf course is the aspect of a club they hold most dear. It is pivotal to the club’s reputation.

However, when we imagine a ‘golf destination’, don’t we think of something more than just a club with a great golf course?

The word destination intimates something that goes beyond the golf course. It could be a desirable location, a known identity, a famed history, a longstanding tradition, exceptional service or just an overarching experience of quality.

If a club wishes to elevate its status, to be recognized as a destination, then there are three key areas that club leaders need to develop:

1. Developing the Customer Experience

The customer experience itself is typically comprised of three parts: the complete customer journey, a customer’s interaction with brand touchpoints, and the environments a customer experiences – including digital.

By developing an intimate understanding of each of these areas, and thoughtfully mapping them to the satisfaction of members and guests, you can make significant strides in the customer experience at your club.

A ‘complete customer journey’ is different for each and every individual, but starts before you think it might. Earlier this year I spoke of the advent and importance of online reviews – which are just one way customers research your club. Add in social media, web presence and press coverage and you’ll quickly realize that, actually, the customer journey and experience can often start well before they enter the front gates.

To learn about this in greater detail, member and customer surveys provide an excellent opportunity to seek intelligence and data. Reviewing these insights in the context of your club’s mission statement will then reveal improvements you can make.

Next, how do customers experience, navigate and interact with your club once they are through the gates? What is the first thing they see when entering? Who is the first person they will meet? What improvements can you make to improve or enhance that welcome or first interaction?

Remember: Customer’s expectations are often informed by their experiences elsewhere and can be unfair, misaligned, or even unreasonable in the context of your club. Expectations relating to food and beverage provision can be informed by the Michelin Star restaurant in a major metropolitan area, or expectations of service may be informed by their recent stay at a five-star hotel.

For this reason, any changes that you make should be in the context of fulfilling – or reviewing – your club’s mission statement: this brings an authenticity, integrity and brand-oriented focus to the experience improvements you make.

2. Developing Surrounding Facilities

Destination clubs typically focus new development or capital enhancement efforts in one of two areas: facilities that complement their core service offering OR facilities which offer them a competitive advantage over their local market and immediate competitors.

The trend in recent years has been to focus capital improvements on facilities appealing to families, children and, more generally, health and wellbeing. Clubs putting in place such additional amenities look to do so with the support of a long-term strategic plan, underpinned by strategic intelligence. In other words, they are taking the necessary steps to secure the long-term sustainability of their club.

Clubs looking to capitalize on trends and gain a competitive advantage have often done so with smaller, yet impactful additions. Take casual dining for example, where we have come across café/lounge-style areas conducive to working and individual club utilization, or straightforward, family-friendly dining experiences like fire pits, pizza ovens, ice cream bars and food trucks.

Developing facilities and expanding the amenity package can help to position the club as ‘the only place with _______’, and support the need and ambition to offer a genuine competitive point of difference in a challenging marketplace.

3. Appealing to a Wider Audience

Aside from offering an exceptional customer experience, true destination clubs cast a wide net by appealing to a broad spectrum of audiences. Membership privileges often include such things as extended family access; customized, unique, and well-attended social events; reciprocal and travel programs with other destinations; as well as tournaments, competitions, and special events that support the continued expansion of the club’s brand footprint and reach.

The key to enhancing the club’s appeal to a wider audience is not simply an exercise in volume or offering a litany of activities, but it is rather to position the club as a network extender. The club should be perceived as a way to enjoy shared, common experiences – known to be highly connected to achieving a sense of happiness and fulfillment. The club isn’t just for the ‘primary member’ anymore, it should be for everyone relevant to that members’ life.

This is not to say full privileges for all. The suggestion is that drawing connections between the club and customers’ social lives increases relevance, which is essential in support of member and customer retention and overall club satisfaction.

In the eyes of members and customers, for a club to be truly recognized as a destination, it must become a conduit for their lifestyle. The club is a platform to more effectively enable them to live the life they want to lead.

To facilitate that, embrace an unerring commitment to cultivating a superior customer experience, developing surrounding facilities, and appealing to a wider audience. By delivering on these key criteria a club can embark on the journey to changing customer’s perceptions and be known for being much more than just a place to play golf.

*Syngenta, Growing Golf in the UK, 2014

This article was authored by GGA Manager and Member Satisfaction expert Bennett DeLozier.

Strategic Intelligence Overview: Part 3 of 3

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Top performing clubs around the world are finding newer, faster and more efficient ways to leverage business intelligence and create competitive advantages for their clubs. The first two articles in this three-part series included what business intelligence is and why it is important (see “Strategic Intelligence Part One,” September 2018) and how to use and implement business intelligence (see “Strategic Intelligence Part Two,” October 2018). The final article will identify desirable outcomes and key results for clubs that have leveraged data.

While the initial infrastructure set up does require an investment of time and money, business intelligence should be viewed as a tool to aid and support club leadership with sound decision making and strategy, not another chore to be completed. Informed decisions require a combination of competitor, market and operational data along with member feedback data. Many clubs use this information anecdotally and it hinders everyone from staying on the same page.

One of the most important benefits of utilizing a strategic intelligence process is the time and effort saved during board, committee and staff meetings due to reduced deliberation and off topic discussion. “It’s hard to argue with the facts,” stated Derek Johnston of Global Golf Advisors. “But those facts still need to be secured, analyzed and regularly prepared, which can be time consuming.”

Johnston shares that a Global Golf Advisors client recently had a breakthrough because of the information brought to light through its strategic intelligence process. “Club X had always raised annual dues by 2.5 percent each year but its bottom line was struggling due to labor and other cost increases. A historical trend analysis of key competitor clubs revealed that Club X’s competitors had been raising dues annually by an average of four percent for the past three years. In addition, member survey feedback identified high satisfaction in the Value for Money category. Armed with this data, Club X raised annual dues by five percent without backlash and is planning similar increases in the future as long as subsequent data supports it.”

Another client, Club Y, had recently completed a major renovation that included the addition of a fitness and racquet sports facility. The club was achieving member satisfaction ratings above comparable clubs but was struggling to recruit an ample amount of new members each year. According to Johnston, Club Y’s lead generation relied heavily on member referrals with minimal marketing effort beyond the current membership.

Using mapping, demographics and real estate trends to enhance marketing effectiveness, Club Y implemented a tracking process to identify the source of the prospective member lead along with the lead’s home address. This process exposed a significant disconnect. Leads that came from new members had a conversion rate of 17 percent over the past five years. Leads from tenured members were less than four percent. This data lead to healthy discussion and ultimately a new strategy for lead generation and membership sales.

When asked the question, “What does strategic intelligence success look like?” Johnston answers with “Readily available data in every board and management meeting that is analyzed and presented in a manner that improves the efficiency of the meetings, enables more focused discussions and results in a higher quality output. Ultimately strategic intelligence leads to a superior strategy and increased support for the decisions that club leaders make.”

This article was authored by GGA Partner Derek Johnston for the Private Club Advisor.

The ‘Tiger Effect’

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The ‘Tiger Effect’ and How to Leverage the Influence of Tiger Woods on Millennial Golf Interest

On the eve of this year’s Masters Tournament CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz said, “This might be the most anticipated Masters any of us has seen in our lifetime.” And for good reason: the hype surrounding the return of modern golf’s greatest icon to battle it out against a plethora of ‘new age’ stars. Ironically, many of these rising stars say they found their passion and motivation for the game as a direct result of idolizing Tiger’s dominance in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Fast forward to the 2018 Tour Championship, which concluded in storybook fashion with Tiger claiming his 80th career victory and his first in over five years. NBC announced the PGA Tour’s season finale drew a 5.21 overnight rating, the highest of any non-major championship this year. That number is also up a whopping 206 percent over last year’s event, all the while competing for ratings against NFL Sunday.

Tiger’s impact on the growth of the game has been well documented over the years. Tour earnings increased at 10x the rate of inflation when comparing 1985 to 2010. No one has ever moved the needle in his or her sport more than Tiger Woods. His presence in only a handful of events this year has brought measurable spikes in TV Ratings and tournament attendance. More importantly, for club managers, another byproduct of the ‘Tiger Effect’ is an increase in golf participation levels (defined by the NGF as people age 6+ who played golf on a golf course).

Let’s examine the trend in US golf participation since Tiger burst onto the scene in 1996 with his first victory and began capturing the attention of the golfing world. Since that time, there seems to be an unavoidable lagging correlation between Tiger’s ‘presence’ (number of starts and number of wins) and the golf participation trend. As an example, the two-year time period between 1999 and 2000: it is widely regarded as the height of Tiger’s dominance and included 17 wins and 4 major championships. The lagging effect on golf participation was an increase from 26 million to 31 million golfers in the US over the next three years. Jump ahead to 2008, when Tiger’s first major injury-riddled season limited him to 6 starts and golf participation began a declining trend that was then amplified with the economic downturn and Tiger’s hiatus for ‘off-the-course’ indiscretions. As the economy has recovered in recent years, we find ourselves returning to the level of participation in the mid-90s, the pre-Tiger era.

What that may infer is the jump from 25 million to 30 million has a lot to do with the ‘Tiger Effect’. While we likely won’t experience the same participation rise as we experienced at the height of his dominance, past history suggests that the more we see the red shirt on Sunday afternoons, the more latent golfers will flock to the links. According to the NGF, non-golfers interested in playing golf was 12.8 million in 2017, up from 11.9 million in 2016 and double what it was five years ago. The estimated number who say they are at least ‘somewhat interested’ in taking up golf was 40.6 million, and well over a third of that number (15.2 million) were Millennials (18- to 34-year-olds), which made up the largest single age group of non-golfers who expressed interest in playing golf.

As a Millennial, I can vouch for the declining interest I witnessed in my peer group post-2008. Ten years have passed, and as Tiger tapped in for victory to win the 2018 Tour Championship, my social media feed was flooded with excitement from friends and colleagues who have been on hiatus from the game but are still fans and players at heart. I can’t help but believe that Tiger’s return to the top of golf will provide a ‘kick’ that many latent Millennials need to get the golfing itch back, and with it the decision to become club members again.

To all club managers out there watching your membership continue to increase in age while the club struggles to attract new Millennial members to join, I urge you to promote aggressively this winter and take advantage of the current momentum and excitement among the Millennial audience. It may just be the best opportunity in a decade to attract an audience that is crucial to regenerating the membership pipeline at your Club.

Tactics to consider:

  • Organize a ‘golf pool’ for each major championship in 2019 and extend the invitation via social media channels. Encourage members to invite their friends to participate and to visit the Club on the ‘Major Sunday’ for a viewing party social event.
  • Consider adding team events/competitions for younger members, specifically in the spring. Again, scheduling these events surrounding major championships can spike interest in latent Millennials who become most engaged during these weekends.
  • Be sure the pro shop has Nike/Tiger apparel in the pro shop or club-branded ‘red shirts’ of its own. Perhaps consider a discount sale on all ‘Tiger’ related merchandise in advance of the Masters Tournament next spring.
  • Golf simulators resonate strongly with the Millennial audience, reminding them of their days playing the iconic ‘Tiger Woods EA Sports’ video game as a child. If your club has simulators available for use in the winter, allow guests of members to pay-for-use and accumulate credits towards their entrance fee if they decide to join in the Spring.

This article was authored by Ben Hopkinson, GGA Senior Associate and research-and-insights specialist. 

Finding New Members

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The need to grow membership keeps me up at night. Where should clubs focus their attention to find new members?

A bleary-eyed Keith Richards awoke with music in his head. He switched on the recorder and laid down the riff that everyone now knows to be the lead-in for “(Ain’t Got No) Satisfaction.” And, then, promptly fell back asleep. “When I woke up in the morning, the tape had run out,” Richards recalled. “I put it back on, and there’s this, maybe, 30 seconds of ‘Satisfaction’ . . . and then suddenly the guitar goes ‘CLANG,’ and then there’s like 45 minutes of snoring”.

It’s the need for better and more actionable market knowledge costing many club managers sleep. In fact, recent research from Global Golf Advisors (GGA) finds that [only] 6.5 percent of 4,400 private clubs in North America are full with a waiting list of members hoping to join. Or, nine-in-ten clubs are searching for members. But, where? And how?

Michael Gregory at GGA offers important points of focus:

  1. Win the Kids – Understand where the best school districts are if you want members for a family-oriented club. Clubs are especially important to families during their child-rearing years.
  2. Win the Moms – Offering a wide assortment of programs and activities engages women who cast the veto-vote in most to-buy-or-not-to-buy membership decisions. Moms search for clubs that meet most of the family’s needs.
  3. Do Your Homework – Market information concerning housing, demographic and psychographic trends is readily available in most markets, so do the research to understand the push and pull factors that matter most locally

The market factors that are key to generating more members are surging consumer confidence, favourable employment statistics, increasing household income and advanced educational attainment. Private club members tend to be found on the positive side of these indicators.

Sometimes inspiration appears in the middle of the night. For most club managers the results that keep your club at the top of the charts requires consistent pursuit of market knowledge and future member insights.

GGA’s Henry DeLozier penned this article for Club Director Magazine, Published by the National Club Association.

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