LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Readers sound off on discount tee-time services
It sounds simple enough. Golf courses have unsold tee times available, so discount agencies sell them to consumers at a bargain price. Everybody wins, right? After reading our companion pieces by contributing writer Shane Sharp and TravelGolf.com president Robert Lewis, readers were quick to add their opinions.
With the recent barrage of discount tee-time services available, golfers are finding it easier than ever to secure inexpensive green fees. But as Sharp reports, many course owners claim the services are training the consumer to devalue the product. And in his editorial, Lewis follows by reminding course owners that heavy reliance on discount services could have potentially harmful long-term effects. Feel free to add to the discussion, and we'll post selected emails below.
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If I owned a golf course...
I totally agree with you on the pricing structure. I tried running a golf tour and almost every course wanted me to give a big deposit and pay more than their rack rate to hold an event there. This industry is not willing to work with anyone. If I owned a course my permanent tee times would get the biggest discount because they are there every week for 20+ weeks. Then for $5 more I would charge groups of 12 or more. Lastly I would charge the last minute golfer $5 or $10 more for calling less than 1 week in advance.
I would want to know how many customers to plan for so that I could have the appropriate number of people scheduled to handle demand. This will help there bottom line more than anything else.
Glen Flanagan, Waukegan, Ill.
The customer is king
I think courses need to be more creative in attracting golfers. When I design a website for a golf course I tell them it is a tool they should use to bring in golfers. They should establish incentive plans and programs to establish customer loyalty. One of the best things I get them to do is establish an online members database where they can send out a last minute email to their online members announcing last minute deals on green fees, dinner and golf specials, or proshop discounts. Make ALL your customers feel like members and they will play more often.
Dale Stranaghan, BCGolf.com Inc.
From the Valley of the Sun
I support that your comments that discounting conditions our customers to want discounts all the time. And since most courses in Scottsdale that are high-end have to get a minimum of double the rounds necessary to try and accomplish their goal, but it's actually three times as many rounds to make there dollar per round.
Most high-end courses don't need to discount based on getting play. They just need to provide the equal amount of great experience that people pay for where they play. Most affluent travelers and golfers will pay the rate if the experience, customer service and amenities are the very best. SO come up with ways to add value instead of discounting. Discounting hurts us all in the valley of the sun. Our destination is not Myrtle Beach. Scottsdale has the best collection of high-end daily fee courses in the world, so let's not devalue our product. Provide value and service to meet your standard rate.
Russ Norris, TPC of Scottsdale
Time for a dose of reality
I think the main problem is that the golf course industry is way, way overbuilt, having been sucked in by the boom decade of the 90s, and fees are completely out of reach of the average middle class golfer like me, particularly in a recession that may well get worse when many ordinary people are losing their jobs.
There are plenty of gorgeous high-end daily fee courses here, like PB Dye, Whiskey Creek, Bulle Rock, and Raspberry Falls, with fees between $75 and $145. But who the hell has that kind of money to blow on a round of golf, at least on a regular basis? I might play one of them just once, to see what it was like, but I can't afford them on a regular basis, and I don't know many people who can, at least not when they are paying out of their own pocket.
For me, a course like the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission course at Needwood, with greens fees of $33 for 18 walking on weekends, is as high as I can go. Yet I am a dedicated and serious golfer who has played for 40 years, all over the world, in Nigeria, Kenya, India, Venezuela, and I try hard to play once a week. I will only play where I can walk (carts are not golf). But even at the walking rate at Needwood, that's going to be $135 a month. That can be a pretty unfair drain on a modest middle income household, and if only one person is enjoying the benefit, it's also pretty unfair.
So, while I sympathize with the business model principles that the author emphasizes, I wonder if they're realistic. The only way that keeping rates up and high will work is if the industry takes a conscious decision to shrink its market to the high income segment only. And doing that will mean a lot of courses will have to close because there just won't be enough people around with the income level needed.
I don't know what the answer is, and I'd certainly love to play on some of those great courses, but it seems to me that it's more likely there will be a big shake-out over the next few years. Maybe the best strategy, instead of pushing fees back up, would be for everyone to bring their fees down to more realistic levels all the time 7/24. While this might shave profits to zero, at least it would keep courses alive and open during the recession, and save lots of jobs in the industry.
Kris Atchley, Rockville, MD
The cost of doing business
In this article the author writes that course rate integrity is in jeopardy by discount tee time offerings and last-minute brokerages of spots. I think that he is seriously putting the cart before the horse in this situation. Course owners plan very strongly to figure out what rates they should charge to customers; they're not simply drawn out of a hat.
However, some of those rates, especially in the destinations mentioned in the article (Las Vegas, Scottsdale) are probably pretty high, relatively speaking, and they deserve to be. Maintaining lush fairways and green greens in those climates is very difficult... and water costs a fortune!
I find no difference between airlines offering last-minute fill-up-the-plane fares in order to make some money back on their seats that would otherwise have gone empty, and yet nobody has claimed that these last-minute fares are ruining that industry. The bottom line is the bottom line... Instead of letting the course go unoccupied with no income at least the courses are making SOMETHING, and that could keep them in business. Some money is better than no money at all.
I've booked full green fees in advance going on vacation to both Las Vegas and Scottsdale, and I got the time and days I wanted exactly, without hassle, and I'm treated by the course better. Discount fares on airlines get you the cheap seats, discounted internet-booked hotels get you a room by the ice machine, and discounted golf tee times get you 12:30pm tee times.
Arbon Reimer, Golden, Colo.
Inside business
I found this article interesting. Yet it left me wishing there had been more effort put forth in presenting a more in-depth analysis on the part of the author in terms of quantifying whether or not discounting green fees erodes rate integrity. The article suggests golf is a costly product due to design, building and maintenance factors. It would be interesting to understand a golf course's business model in terms of how they scale their operations when deciding on a price structure to make a 'fair' profit.
The article left me thinking I should fell pity towards some of the golf industry that wants to regulate prices. Perhaps the industry should dig deeper in assessing their balance sheet and look for ways to scale operations. In doing so, I would like to think that we end up with a win/win - reduce costs and increase revenues for golf courses while satisfying excess inventory (unused tee times) by bringing more players to this great game via cheaper green fees thus growing the sport.
Mark Schobinger, Austin, TX
Talk to the hand
Of course, I realize that this publication is a promotional mouth-piece for the golf industry. I found it quite humorous! The complaints of golf course administrators sounds eerily like the airline industry. Perhaps you should go to Congress and ask for a bailout, too? Let's Face It: overhead is too high, ridiculous prices are charged at some courses, demand is down.....the industry is going to have to live with it. Some courses are going to fail, financially-speaking. Goodness knows there are enough finance guys out on the courses-talk to them! They'll tell you the same thing!
Steven Deeley, South Pasadena, Calif.
Supply and demand
Article makes good sense in general, however, it fails to note the extraordinary inflation in daily green fees. In my judgment, $150 + daily fees are one of the main reasons courses go empty. Unless you rely on just the high end tourist, (probably plays each course in the area just once), or you are on a company paid outing, the average local player is just going to cut the number of times he plays if the rates remain too high. The demand in not elastic and there is a top end value for money for most players. If course owners apply the articles logic, then they would do well do well to rethink how much being a member for the day is really worth. At the end of the day, how many rounds played at what average price over what period would probably evolve a better rate base. Keep up the good work. TravelGolf.com is a welcome newsletter.
Michael Gurley, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Time for a sliding scale
Why don't the golf courses themselves just offer different rates for different times so that those who want to pay the full rate can play at the premium times? To my mind, even though we're getting more and more golf courses across North America, we're actually getting fewer courses that the "ordinary Joe and Jane" can golf at. Why is it necessary to get a small loan just to play 18 holes of golf at a nice course? Owners have to remember that the players are just renting the time on the course, not buying the property! Maybe a few less luxuries are in order so that golf can remain a pastime for all people and not just the well-to-do.
The same goes for all of the golf equipment and supplies that are amazingly overpriced. Who really needs to have a $500 driver and a $200 putter to get a score around 100 or even 70? In order to even "look" like a golfer these days, the new patron of this "sport" has to take out a loan to get all the equipment and clothes necessary to play. If the golf industry expects to make golf a national game for the general population, they better make some changes soon or they will lose the mass audience.
Norm Walls, Ontario, Canada
A time and a place for everything
As a "greens supervisor" and a greenskeeper for 10 years in British Columbia, I have seen a good golf course lay empty two to three days a week because the management wants to keep their prices high, thereby financially restricting the "clientele" the course and its owners have to "put up with". When I travel (frequently to the Southwest United States), the only courses my partner and I can afford to play are those who participate in discount programs.
We are grateful for the opportunity to play some of the nicest courses in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada, at a time in our lives when we could never afford the incredibly high green fees for regular play at these courses. There is a place for "discounted tee times" and I would encourage Golf Course Managers and the public as well to support the "USE" of courses instead of having them sitting empty at certain times.
Dennis Collet, British Columbia
A call for better service
Are you kidding me? With a glut of golf courses nationwide, a slowdown in the number of rounds played, and a static number of golfers, you bet courses better discount! It is just like airtime on a radio station..unsold time, stays unsold, or unused rooms or no passengers on airlines. Better to get something rather than nothing.
As to "training" golf consumers to devalue the product. BUNK! Provide better service in the shops, quit treating us like cattle, and lower the price of your $5 hotdogs while you are at it. The problem of too many courses, and too few golfers is going to around for AT LEAST 5 more years, so get used it. $80 rounds for muni courses are a thing of the past. Shops better find was to bring added value to the golf experience, and not worry about getting the highest per round possible. Golf is golf, whether played at Pebble Beach for $375, (you can walk on Pebble these days, no advance tee time necessary, or your local muni....18 holes, plenty of fun, and maybe a chance for a decent score.
If the industry tries to OVERVALUE what a round of golf is to Joe Blow, they will kill the golden goose, even worse than the moronic manufacturers who think we still will pay $500 for a new driver when the knockoff comes from the same factory.
CB Maxwell, Monterey, Calif.
Drop the attitude
After reading your article I can now see why we get second-class treatment when we get discounts. We recently played Dragon Ridge and were treated by the pro shop as if we had the plague. Four of us have played together for over 20 years, and we enjoy going to new courses and not paying what we feel is somtimes overpriced courses. Attitude drives more golfers away from courses.
Keith Stell, Redlands, Calif.
Think before you set that price
I continually drive by the private and semi-private clubs here in Ottawa and see lots of open fairways. We wouldn't need worry about this problem if the golf courses/professionals think about their green fee prices. Do you think it might be too expensive? A brand new course just opened here to $100 +/-. This may come as a shock to some but the average joe cannot afford this. I would love to be challenged by superior courses and I shoot in the low 80's. Three cheers for discount tee times.
Gary Dougherty, Ontario Provincial Police
Courses get what they deserve
I don't feel sorry one bit for these golf courses. Here in Arizona, especially in the summer months, these golf courses LIE to you, and tell you that their in excellent shape, only to find out the greens and fairways are all full of burnt out, or full of fungas. And then they've got the balls to charge you $35 bucks or more for 18 holes.
Keith Peterson, via email
The customer is always right
Vendors must remember that the buyer ultimately sets the price!
Art Schwartz, via email
What comes around...
Prices go up and down and any harm either way is part of the cycle. Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Of course the course owners feel it harms the product, the consumers don't feel any pain though. When the prices go up it sure does hurt the consumer and do the owners reduce prices to ease our pain? Hell no!
Ken Otsubo, via email
The politics of greed
As a new resident to Arizona, I find the article about discount golf borders on the greed of the course owners. After living in North Carolina and playing golf there and in Myrtle Beach, S.C., I find the green fees in the Phoenix area high for the value.
The condition of the so-called top courses leave a lot to be desired in the summer and paying top dollar at 100+ degrees on a poorly conditioned course leaves much to be desired. While some courses are good, they are not all $100+ values. Let the discounts continue.
Warren Laing, via email
