Comment: The Olympics, flexible memberships and female golfers

Olympic golf: is it good for clubs?

I’m afraid I can see no benefit for our clubs in golf becoming an Olympic sport. This is not to criticise The R&A (together with the USGA) for pushing very hard to this end, for their objective is to increase golfing activity worldwide. They tell me that this is the surest way to attract governments in Third World regions into funding golf development in their countries – and this makes sense. Companies that contribute to establishing golf courses and resorts – architects, constructors and their suppliers, hoteliers – stand to benefit: but golf clubs in Europe? I don’t think so. Perhaps the overseas demand for golf club managers, pros and greenkeepers may rise, but I doubt this will be significant.

One of the principal attractions of the Olympics is that it is a truly global event, where all the very best compete one-to-one. For most sports, this only occurs in world championships or world cups – and in the Olympics: however, the best golfers compete against each other at least four times every year in the majors. For me, this diminishes the prestige of an Olympic champion considerably – and in so doing reduces the importance of the event for both competitor and spectator. (Look at tennis for proof!)

How will tour pros – the top few who get a chance to represent their country, anyway – rate it? They tend to follow the prize money, so they may not even take up the opportunity to play! (Murmurings from some American players suggest the greedy ones with no sense of history are already considering refusing to play in the Ryder Cup – so are they going to be enthusiastic to play for free in the Olympics?)

Do you know, incidentally, who the reigning Olympic champion for golf is? It’s George S Lyon, a Canadian, who beat Chandler Egan, an American champion, in 1904.

What, I wonder, will be the effect on government funding here? Certainly golf has recently received enormous sums of lottery money; but this has been targeted at increasing the percentage of the population that plays the game (regardless of whether or not they join a golf club). As TV spectators, we golfers may take an interest in the Olympic Golf Championship – but will it surpass the appeal of The Open or the Ryder Cup? I don’t think so.

Problems common across the world

The other day, I was shown a survey of golf club membership carried out by the New Zealand Golf Association – and I was struck by how similar their problems are to ours here. New Zealand is, of course, much  smaller than Great Britain; the population is only four million, but it has some 400 golf clubs. What I found particularly interesting was the answers given by ‘nomads’ (or ‘casual golfers’ in their terminology) – a group of 370,000 people who play on average eight times per year and yet who have no identity as a community – and hence are notoriously hard to survey. We desperately need comparable, reliable data on nomads in the UK, for they are all ‘potential members’. This is what they found.

Number of golfers: Club members: 130,000 (75 per cent male);

Nomads: 370,000 (90 per cent male).

Age: between 25 & 44:

club members – 15 per cent;

nomads – 53 per cent.

over 55:

club members – 60 per cent;

nomads – 12 per cent.

Most important reason why members join a club            social life (voted ‘top benefit’ by 31 per cent).

Reasons nomads do not join a club

• playing takes too long – 42 per cent

• membership costs too much – 26 per cent

• wish to play different courses (13 per cent had played more than seven courses in one year)

• would join if access to other courses was available – 86 per cent

• more likely to join if a friend joined – 65 per cent

• more likely to join if a family member joined – 39 per cent

• had tried membership and given it up – 20 per cent.

Although we have no comparable figures from nomads in Great Britain and Ireland, I’d take a bet that most of the answers would be similar. The only difference would, I suspect, be the average age of club members (which here is probably 50 to 55), and the County Card scheme, which encourages members to play other courses.

Flexible membership now spreading to private members’ clubs

I have championed flexible membership for several years, and have seen it grow to dominate the commercial sector; but it has been viewed with caution – even with suspicion – by private members’ clubs. This is beginning to change, and the latest club offering it that I know of is Prudhoe Golf Club in Northumberland. The club is obviously under some pressure: the members approved a seven per cent reduction in a recent subscription, a sliding subs scale for members between 18 and 30, and a flexible membership scheme. This latter  offers membership at £150 per year, plus a green fee of £7 per round (£10 at weekends); during the last quarter of 2009, this drew in some 30 outsiders.

The club has also identified the wish of non-members to play a variety of courses, and has collaborated with five local clubs to form the ‘Tyne Valley Alliance’, which allows members to play one free round on any of the alliance clubs, and further games at £10 per round.

I’m unhappy, though, at their decision not to replace their secretary Ian Pauw (a GCMA member from 2004 until this year), but to pass the work on to their club pro, John Crawford. This is no criticism of Mr Crawford, but is based on my opinion that no-one can do both jobs properly at the same time – especially when the business is at risk. Besides this, the two posts require very different skills and background: coaching and retail competence for the pro – management ability for the secretary / manager.

How do you get more girls to play golf?

Did you know that last year the English Women’s Golf Association invested over £50,000 in efforts to persuade girls to play more golf? Did you notice an increase in applications from girls? I hope you did. But even if you didn’t, it doesn’t mean the money was wasted, because the objective was to get them to ‘have a go’ at golf. Getting them to join is up to the clubs themselves. (‘You can take a horse to water, but…’ comes to mind!)

In 2009 the EWGA allocated £750 to each county association / union, and added an extra £5 for every girl already on the county’s books. It is impossible to judge accurately the effect of this investment because, although some 3,000 girls attended the organised events (taster sessions, beginners coaching, competitions and so on), how many were newcomers to golf and how many were already members is not known.

The 2009 funding was matched in 2010, but the target is now females of ALL ages – a far larger audience, but one that is more valuable to clubs in the short term. (One full subscription is worth four or five times the junior sub – and when money is short, this matters!) Instead of going to the county union, the 2010 money will be sent to the County Golf Partnerships, and put to use by the County Golf development officers.

As I’ve said before: half the population is female, so why aren’t half the golfers female? Club managers please note!