Will COVID recovery for golf be more painful than the disease?

The past two years have seen bumper performances at most UK golf courses, with yields and participation showing significant growth on pre-pandemic levels. There have been lockdown periods, but these have typically been in the off season with any negative impact outweighed by generous government support in the form of furlough, local authority grants, VAT reductions, rates holidays and where required covid loans. Added to this, each time golf has been one of the early activities to re-open, so has been the beneficiary of pent-up demand for leisure activities.

Some proclaimed this as the second coming for golf, with lots of back slapping from governing bodies as all their strategies were suddenly coming good. Press articles were hailing clubs who had doubled their membership (albeit the sceptics might have been forgiven for wondering why they had such capacity in the first place?). Our sport suddenly gained a revitalised relevance and interest that truthfully had been on the wain for over a decade. Forget about pre covid, they shouted, everything in golf club land is now fixed. Memberships are full, tee-sheets are packed and in many markets the discounters have been marginalised.

And for some that was indeed the case, but we need to ask ourselves what’s really changed. Have the fundamentals of the game of golf or the management of golf clubs shifted? In most cases my experience and observation of the industry would suggest otherwise. So what will stop us going back to the future, the 2019 future, only with the additional challenge of accelerating inflation, and a terrible war in Europe threatening the world economy. Remember this is 2022. The furlough stabilisers have been removed from the bike, along with the local authority grants. Everyone is going back to work (including all those new working from home golf members) and the demand on the consumer pound will be sharper than ever.

While the fundamentals of the sport and golf club management may not have changed, what the pandemic has provided is the greatest marketing opportunity for generations. Imagine how you might have reacted if in 2019 you were offered the opportunity to be largely the only organised leisure activity venue in your area for the next 24 months. Where you had people beating a path to your door, because it was the only thing they could do with their friends, or indeed find new social outlets. How much would you have paid for that amazing opportunity and what would you have invested to make it a success. I doubt any sensible golf operator would have turned down such an opportunity, let alone not worked their socks off to find a way to engage these new prospects, make them fans of the club and passionate for the sport. But is this what really happened in 2020 and 2021? Perhaps some invested in their facilities? A good start, but how many invested in integrating these new members into the club.

Long before the pandemic, I spent many years in my previous role working out why golfers remained as club members and why others left. We did all the usual things, conducting regular consumer feedback, from both existing and ex members. We used the anonymous and in person surveys covering all aspects of the membership experience and gained some insights into why people left, but from the bulk of feedback received it proved difficult to produce meaningful empirical analysis. Ultimately the vast majority of those who remained members typically wanted more money spent on the facilities, fewer visitors and prices to be lower, whilst the majority who left said they lacked the time to play. Yes, there were outliers and crossover, but this represented the bulk of feedback received over a sustained period of time.

No business can avoid the need to provide value to its customers and subjective feedback has a part to play in understanding golfer expectation and needs, however, it was not until we actually began to analyse and report upon members’ club activity (not just the golf activity) of those who stayed and those who left, that we actually identified the true underlying reasons for people leaving or remaining in membership and their propensity to remain based on that activity.

From the data gathered of sticky members, we were able to identify five key areas of behaviour that were largely consistent with what we termed integrated members. Those that met the threshold in the five areas were integrated and did not leave, other than for health or relocation. Those meeting four out of five were similarly unlikely to leave, however, this reduced exponentially as the behaviour thresholds were not met.

Having identified what we believed to be the five points of integration, we then set about restructuring golf operations so that it was focussed on supporting member integration in the five identified areas. The golf professionals’ contracts were redrawn to become in Apple parlance the Golf Genius. They were incentivised on delivering activity that supported the five points of integration. Each pro had a member critical care list, reviewed weekly by the club manager. This list focussed on the member five point integration list and not the rather blunt and ineffective low user report, that many look to.

Club activities and events were changed and added to, so as to support the member integration, with golf professionals’ performance measures and rewards linked to event success.

So what happened? in year one member attrition reduced by 50% across the group with even those low single digit attrition clubs showing improvement and this positive trend has continued every year since. As a result we were able to increase pricing and eliminate historic discounted rates, increasing membership yield significantly. Aligning their economic engine with the club has meant the golf professionals became better rewarded and more engaged with the clubs’ success rather than their own.

I hope you and your club can take full advantage of the free opportunity you’ve been given. If you would like to talk about setting up a retention system that works for you, your golf professional and the club, then please contact me today. CLICK HERE