Re: 2024 - Club Memberships & Season Passes
Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2024 9:09 am
Matt, I don't understand how this can possibly be profitable. How does any golf course worth playing survive with a $400 two-season pass fee? Our morning foursome rate on a weekend is nearly $500 for one single foursome, for one single round!
I am intimately familiar with the costs to run a high-end golf course efficiently, and they are not cheap. I review the P&L reports at ours regularly. In our manager's meetings we go over them line by line to see where we may be able to save a few more bucks. It seems like a part of every meeting. Granted, we are considered a top-tiered facility and want to continue to bolster that image. However, even if we cut out all the things that got us to that level and simply ran a decently-conditioned, customer-friendly course, I don't see where we could save enough to be profitable at all. I can't comprehend how any place can make a profit with those types of membership offerings. Is the $400 membership deal only limited to just a few pass holders? And by a few, I mean like 10 or 15. How large is the staff? What does it cost to play a round there on a weekend morning with a cart?
I'd guess we employ somewhere between 40 and 50 people in-season, about 9 or 10 of which are full-time, salaried positions. Our cart guys, starters and rangers, etc. work for minimum wage, $15 an hour. In-season, we are typically paying a various number of people from 5am, until dark or later, by the time all carts are cleaned and put away. Pro Shop is open until all golfers are off the course and an hour before the first tee time. Greenskeeping/maintenance crew guys are there daily from very early until 4 or 5. All very similar to most courses, top-tiered, or just okay. I won't include dog tracks and cow pastures, because I don't believe your home course is at that level based on what you have described.
Payroll alone at our course is over a million and a half dollars/yr, not including payroll taxes. And none of that includes the restaurant bar or waitstaff. Chemicals, fertilizers, sod, seed, etc. can cost upwards of 1/2 million a year. Capital expenses, property taxes, insurance, utilities, cart fleet, blah blah blah, it adds up to so much more. Yes, we are profitable, but at the end of the day, are not making millions of dollars in profit for the private owner of our course.
No matter what, as already stated by BK, you have a great deal. Yet, some things aren't adding up. There's a part to this story I feel, is missing. I'd love to see the P&L for this course to see how they can pull this off. And, even if they double the price next year, jump on it if you get the chance. Hell, even if they quintuple it!
I am intimately familiar with the costs to run a high-end golf course efficiently, and they are not cheap. I review the P&L reports at ours regularly. In our manager's meetings we go over them line by line to see where we may be able to save a few more bucks. It seems like a part of every meeting. Granted, we are considered a top-tiered facility and want to continue to bolster that image. However, even if we cut out all the things that got us to that level and simply ran a decently-conditioned, customer-friendly course, I don't see where we could save enough to be profitable at all. I can't comprehend how any place can make a profit with those types of membership offerings. Is the $400 membership deal only limited to just a few pass holders? And by a few, I mean like 10 or 15. How large is the staff? What does it cost to play a round there on a weekend morning with a cart?
I'd guess we employ somewhere between 40 and 50 people in-season, about 9 or 10 of which are full-time, salaried positions. Our cart guys, starters and rangers, etc. work for minimum wage, $15 an hour. In-season, we are typically paying a various number of people from 5am, until dark or later, by the time all carts are cleaned and put away. Pro Shop is open until all golfers are off the course and an hour before the first tee time. Greenskeeping/maintenance crew guys are there daily from very early until 4 or 5. All very similar to most courses, top-tiered, or just okay. I won't include dog tracks and cow pastures, because I don't believe your home course is at that level based on what you have described.
Payroll alone at our course is over a million and a half dollars/yr, not including payroll taxes. And none of that includes the restaurant bar or waitstaff. Chemicals, fertilizers, sod, seed, etc. can cost upwards of 1/2 million a year. Capital expenses, property taxes, insurance, utilities, cart fleet, blah blah blah, it adds up to so much more. Yes, we are profitable, but at the end of the day, are not making millions of dollars in profit for the private owner of our course.
No matter what, as already stated by BK, you have a great deal. Yet, some things aren't adding up. There's a part to this story I feel, is missing. I'd love to see the P&L for this course to see how they can pull this off. And, even if they double the price next year, jump on it if you get the chance. Hell, even if they quintuple it!