Golf clubs need to have professional managers
3rd February, 2012 by Alistair Dunsmuir
Last month’s Harrogate Week might be geared more to greenkeepers than to golf club managers, but, as anyone who attended the GCMA’s half-day educational session there – which particularly looked at how to recruit and retain members – will testify, it is still a useful learning experience.
While at the show I got chatting to a head greenkeeper of a prestigious English golf club and was disappointed to learn that his club, in an attempt to cut costs, had made the manager of the club redundant and appointed him as joint greenkeeper / club manager (and I know of two other clubs where this has also happened).
I asked him what training in club management he had had and what his employer was going to give him, and the reply stated that so far it had all been about golf course management, but he had been given promises for club management training a few months down the line. I then asked him what his plans for the club were and, unsurprisingly, they all involved maintaining the high standards of the course.
While I accept the course is the golf club’s most important asset, and I’m sure he will achieve his objectives, this doesn’t seem to me to be a sustainable way to manage a golf club.
If a golf club is struggling in the current economic climate, then surely the best thing to do is empower the manager to develop a business plan that involves researching the club’s customers and competitors, developing a marketing strategy based on that and implementing changes as a result of members’ and potential members’ feedback.
Golf Club Management has in recent months looked at clubs that have revamped all their membership categories, embraced online technology and marketing, taken part in reciprocal deals with other clubs, worked with tourists boards to promote themselves and so on, all spearheaded by the manager and in all cases this has led to an improvement in the financial fortunes of the club.
There is no reason why a switched-on greenkeeper could not do this, but he or she would need support and training from the club, and this could be to the detriment of his or her course management duties. More importantly, why would a club even consider that as an option when it should already have a professional manager in place to carry out these requirements?