The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Tee to Green
The importance of golf clubs adapting
“People are less inclined to tie themselves to one course and one club.”
THERE COULD be an element of self-congratulation in the otherwise sad news that Torphin Hill Golf Club in Edinburgh faces being only the third in Scotland to close in the recent economic downturn.
The Whitemoss course in Perthshire, returned to farmland a few years ago and Lothianburn in Edinburgh are the other two. Some like Inchmarlo, in A berdeenshire, and Letham Grange, nearA rbroath, are in financial limbo but operating. It’s not a huge casualty list given the severity of financial demands recently.
Yet at the Scottish Golf Union, they’re not smug at all. Chief executive Hamish Grey said last week that further closures were “a matter of time” and the surprise was there were just those three so far.
A nd the economy is only one reason – and maybe not even the most significant – clubs will fail.
“The real issue is that consumer behaviour is changing and that’s not unique to golf, it’s happening in lots of things,” said Grey. “There is more choice than ever, not just what you do but how you do it.
“For golf, the good news is that there’s still the same numbers playing, just half a per cent here and there, but it is how they are playing that is different. We now have more nomadic golfers.”
People are less inclined to tie themselves to one course and one club and, added to the economy and the terrible weather of recent summers — blissfully relieved this year — it’s made things difficult for many but not all.
“A bout a third of clubs every year increase their membership— this against an overall level of decline — because they recognise what they are and what they have to do to keep people,” said Grey.
“In Scotland we have a course for every 9,800 people, England has 28,000 per course, France is 112,000, Germany is 114,000,” he continued.
“That’s a fantastic thing for variety and access. We’re more accessible than anywhere in Europe, from a more basic municipal course to the best clubs in the world.
“Maintaining that variety is important and there might be some consolidation; we need to keep a good geographical spread for the future and the next generation.”
This is why so much of the SGU’s investment – considerably more spent than on elite performance, despite the perception – goes into their club support and advisory programme, even though they’re still learning what is best practice and that it can be different for each club.
“Clubs need to be going to the market now, when previously it came to them,” added Grey. “They also need to understand what they are about — one might be a community club, another may be a top-end club. A good business plan is fundamental.
“If we continue to offer what we would all recognise as traditional memberships, then more and more golfers are going to say no to that. They want options, flexibility just like everything else.”
It’s not a terminal situation, and Scotland should continue to be the best resourced of all golf nations but we’ve got to adapt.
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If golf in Scotland is to continue to thrive, you’d expect the clubgolf scheme for children to be a key element.
Despite the enthusiasm of the embrace and investment of the Scottish Government, despite the personal endorsements given from distinguished figures like Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and the PGA of America chairman Ted Bishop, some have been a bit sceptical about the programme designed to put a club — an oversized plastic one, but still a club of sorts — into the hands of every nine-year-old in Scotland.
Why not introduce them to cut-down clubs instead of the plastic toys and let them get a real feel for the game immediately?
In the meantime, 10 years in, we’ve yet to see a player come into the international age group teams directly as a result of clubgolf while the age-old problem of hanging on to children at clubs once they develop the usual outside interests in their later teens has remained, it seems.
Junior membership is still falling but, according to Hamish Grey, the figures would be far worse but for the effect of clubgolf.
He points out that “50% of boys and 61% of girls now members of clubs started through clubgolf.
“The drop in overall numbers is in large part down to a 12% drop in five to 15-year-olds from the previous decade.
“The reality is that I think we’d be in a much worse position without clubgolf. Those clubs that are delivering clubgolf have a significantly higher number of junior golfers than those that don’t.”
To me, the main benefit of clubgolf has been the army of volunteers in clubs who have been required to run it, become coaches and perhaps engage in the game more than they would have otherwise.
If clubgolf does work in the long-term — and measuring it is difficult — it seems to me that the enthusiasm and commitment of these people will have been chiefly responsible.