Golf subs for 2014

[jimbob.someroo]

So is it possible that it's not really a major issue ?

Yup, under 20-30's are by far and a way the minority membership at every club. Still, people like to have a good old whinge about something which doesn't necessarily effect them a great deal. At the end of the day, these memberships were brought in to try and entice young adults to keep playing the game after being a junior, or maybe get into the game. They were put in at reduced rates to give this demographic of people a chance to play, as manywouldn't be paying or playing at all otherwise. There obviously has to be a cut off, at some clubs its 21 or 24 or 28 or even higher, but it has to go up on a scale or it would defeat the whole objective.

At the end of the day, 65% of clubs in 2012 (re: the report I posted earlier) now offer these sorts of memberships. Surely, people can take the 'i hate people paying less than me' blinkers off for a minute to realise that there must be a reason for this. Such a large proportion of clubs wouldn't bring this in, knowing the backlash from full members, if it wasn't worth their while.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Or, as some are saying, that clubs are targeting the wrong audience? If you target the older age brackets you are likely to get a better uptake and longer memberships.

So who pays full whack for memberships then ?

Reduces the rates for the bigger portions of club members ?

We would all love to have smaller membership fees but I can't see it working or being sustainable.

Again I can only use my old club as I know more about the membership but they used various methods to target members but it was never age focused - it was focused on making it more accessible in terms of joining fee and making the course as attractive as possible.

Beds have a good number of private clubs and most of the iniatives to improve membership revolve around joining fees.

Woburn are lucky they can just charge what they need because the demand is there but joining fees are what stops people joining clubs ( that's taken from market research when helping during a recruitment drive ) as opposed to lack of reduced fees at certain age groups. Any AGM I have been too and I can't remember a problem from members about intermediate fees or reduced fees.

You biggest portion of members all pay the same fee in my experience and the biggest portion is the 40-60

 

[HawkeyeMS]

So who pays full whack for memberships then ?

Reduces the rates for the bigger portions of club members ?

We would all love to have smaller membership fees but I can't see it working or being sustainable.

Again I can only use my old club as I know more about the membership but they used various methods to target members but it was never age focused - it was focused on making it more accessible in terms of joining fee and making the course as attractive as possible.

Beds have a good number of private clubs and most of the iniatives to improve membership revolve around joining fees.

Woburn are lucky they can just charge what they need because the demand is there but joining fees are what stops people joining clubs ( that's taken from market research when helping during a recruitment drive ) as opposed to lack of reduced fees at certain age groups. Any AGM I have been too and I can't remember a problem from members about intermediate fees or reduced fees.

You biggest portion of members all pay the same fee in my experience and the biggest portion is the 40-60

I'm not saying reduce rates for all members, I'm saying offer incentives to get people to join, that is after all apparently what the reductions for young members are there for. The argument appears to have been that reductions for the under 30s gets them all signed up and they become long term members which is good for the clubs. Now we seem to be saying that no young members are joining anyway so lets try to target those who will join and are likely to stay.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

I'm not saying reduce rates for all members, I'm saying offer incentives to get people to join, that is after all apparently what the reductions for young members are there for. The argument appears to have been that reductions for the under 30s gets them all signed up and they become long term members which is good for the clubs. Now we seem to be saying that no young members are joining anyway so lets try to target those who will join and are likely to stay.

And as I was saying - the main reduction to get people to join is down to joining fees. They are what puts people off joining clubs as opposed to paying an extra £50 to £100 quid a year on subs.

People don't go to Woburn because of the 6 grand joining fee not because of the subs

 

[Hacker Khan]

Yup, under 20-30's are by far and a way the minority membership at every club. Still, people like to have a good old whinge about something which doesn't necessarily effect them a great deal. At the end of the day, these memberships were brought in to try and entice young adults to keep playing the game after being a junior, or maybe get into the game. They were put in at reduced rates to give this demographic of people a chance to play, as manywouldn't be paying or playing at all otherwise. There obviously has to be a cut off, at some clubs its 21 or 24 or 28 or even higher, but it has to go up on a scale or it would defeat the whole objective.

At the end of the day, 65% of clubs in 2012 (re: the report I posted earlier) now offer these sorts of memberships. Surely, people can take the 'i hate people paying less than me' blinkers off for a minute to realise that there must be a reason for this. Such a large proportion of clubs wouldn't bring this in, knowing the backlash from full members, if it wasn't worth their while.

Fine post... Especially the part about giving young people the chance to play as they will bring in additional revenue and it will be healthy for the game in general. You'd have thought that this would be a no brainer and essential for the long term development of the game, but obviously not .

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

This I agree with, as I said earlier, you are likely to get more longevity from the 35 to 40 age group than the 25-30. If clubs are trying to attract long term members, this is where they should be looking IMHO.

Interesting as I thought I'd be shot down

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

No one obviosly reads any of my posts!

I made the point 5 pages ago that this whole thing about under 30's getting targeted and being the life blood and saviours of clubs, is a red herring.

I doubt clubs ever had lots of this age group as its just not drawn to playing golf at this time.

we let in about 30 odd under 30 members, we already have a student and junior rate. My clubs thinking was we needed guys to play in the medals and comps to bolster the numbers, i don't think hardly any have and are just using the place as cheap memberships and when they are out of the under 30 deal will just go for the next cheap offer local to them.

I'm all for supporting the youngsters who come up though the club and and normally stick with it, but its only a handfull.

And I also agree :thup:

 

[Hacker Khan]

This I agree with, as I said earlier, you are likely to get more longevity from the 35 to 40 age group than the 25-30. If clubs are trying to attract long term members, this is where they should be looking IMHO.

But the average age of the first time buyer is now 35 and the average age that people are having kids is 30. So you will be targeting people just starting to pay a mortgage with young children.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Or, as some are saying, that clubs are targeting the wrong audience? If you target the older age brackets you are likely to get a better uptake and longer memberships.

Agree - there is a big difference between having a new member strategy aimed at getting younger folk into golf and one aimed at growing the membership to meet the needs of the club. Encourage juniors into the club as best you can - absolutely - but are they the life-blood of a club? Nope - they are not.

However - introduce attractively priced family or parent and child membership packages - where the parent element of the package is a much reduced subscription - and I think you have an opportunity.

My situation was a classic of wanting to join and only just being able to afford it - and only was able to join on basis of my son joining also as that is what my wife wanted. He's no longer a member and I'm 10yrs. In early days when son was a member (3 yrs) I didn't play much 'normal' member golf as I tended to play when my son could - and that meant that I didn't really get that much out of my first 3 yrs membership bar occasional comps and a few medals each year - and a couple of years having to put in supplementary cards. In fact when I say I've been a member 10 yrs most members can't believe it's been that long - and that's simply because I was invisible to most members for my first three yrs. I'm not invisible any more

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Fine post... Especially the part about giving young people the chance to play as they will bring in additional revenue and it will be healthy for the game in general. You'd have thought that this would be a no brainer and essential for the long term development of the game, but obviously not .

Are younger players not getting the chance to play then ?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I'm not saying reduce rates for all members, I'm saying offer incentives to get people to join, that is after all apparently what the reductions for young members are there for. The argument appears to have been that reductions for the under 30s gets them all signed up and they become long term members which is good for the clubs. Now we seem to be saying that no young members are joining anyway so lets try to target those who will join and are likely to stay.

Absolutely. Forget trying to entice in new 20-30s - but make it easier for more affordable for existing members under 30 to continue (as many if not most do)

 

[andrew_mac]

Interesting as I thought I'd be shot down

In the past possibly but I think the game is benefiting from its association with younger, fitter professional players on the tour who have a much greater media profile than players did 10/15 years ago.

Walk into any golf store and look at the fashion to see how the gold retailers are developing fashion products that will have more credibility on the street with younger people.

Golf clubs that tap into this, attracting more members in their 20s building a broader membership base for the future will be much more financially robust and all members should reep the benefits in reduced subs over the longer term

 

[Doon frae Troon]

My brothers club only have reduced membership fees for members who have 30 years full membership.
He was paying £400 a year for 3 courses [2 championship] when he was 56.
Seems to make more sense than someone paying reduced fees at 65 when they joined aged 63.

Good thread.

 

[Hacker Khan]

Encourage juniors into the club as best you can - absolutely - but are they the life-blood of a club? Nope - they are not.

Depends which time frame you are using, the lifetime of the average member or the lifetime of the club.

 

[talksalot81]

Yeesh, I feel very hard up - my house member fees are almost as high as many of the full membership fees being quoted!!

With regards to age, I agree that this is a tough topic. My club was costing nearly £1500 when social fees and all were included and this is a massive lump, especially for a 20-something who might be having to think about buying houses, getting married or having kids. In practice, that is why I am a house member - I was playing very infrequently and not a prayer of affording that amount. On the flip side, we have the senior members of the club who are the ones most often floating around in mercedes and who are there almost every day of the week - paying dramatically less. It just doesn't quite make sense.

 

[DCB]

This is a bit like trying to solve Fermats Last Theorem. If someone finds the right answer please let us know.

Whilst we're sitting here squabbling over who's right and who's wrong and what age deserves what membership rate spare a thought for those who's clubs will not be there for the start of next season. One gone already in my area and another is hanging by a fast unravelling thread as I write this.

The good old days have gone, clubs are now struggling to recruit members and if the answer isn't found, there will be a lot of nice new housing estates springing up over the next few years in prime locations.

 

[CheltenhamHacker]

This is a bit like trying to solve Fermats Last Theorem. If someone finds the right answer please let us know.

Whilst we're sitting here squabbling over who's right and who's wrong and what age deserves what membership rate spare a thought for those who's clubs will not be there for the start of next season. One gone already in my area and another is hanging by a fast unravelling thread as I write this.

The good old days have gone, clubs are now struggling to recruit members and if the answer isn't found, there will be a lot of nice new housing estates springing up over the next few years in prime locations.

At the risk of sounding callous, and I feel very sorry for those members who are losing their club, but this is bound to happen from everything I've heard? I've seen a lot of mention of a load of course being built around the early 1990's, to try and capture the booming golf market. It's normal that not all of these will survive, and the ones that appeal best to their market will do.

 

[DCB]

At the risk of sounding callous, and I feel very sorry for those members who are losing their club, but this is bound to happen from everything I've heard? I've seen a lot of mention of a load of course being built around the early 1990's, to try and capture the booming golf market. It's normal that not all of these will survive, and the ones that appeal best to their market will do.

Nothing to do with the glut of poor proprietary courses that were built around that time. We're not too badly afflicted with these sort of places, fortunately. These two were established in 1892 &1895, so even the well established clubs can be hit hard.

 

[jimbob.someroo]

Really really frustratingly, our club has just sent out it's pretty radical membership change proposals for next year, including data and analysis to support exactly what a few have been saying throughout the thread. However, I don't feel I can publish this here as there is info specific to the club and don't want to get in any trouble.

However, after doing a LOT of research both nationally and in the local area there are some proposals which I think are really good steps forward. At this time, they're only proposals, so please don't approach my club and ask for this sort of stuff yet, but some of the 'headlines' include;



Only around 20% of male members are under 45 with those up to the age of 28 receiving incremental membership (I won't publish the exact numbers) but there are far more 18-28's than 30-45 in all likelihood due to a combination of the incremental membership and families/houses taking over in the late 30's.

Over 40% of members are over 60 paying full price, although this has dropped off as many move to 5-day as they can play during the week and play a lot more than full members who majoritively only play weekends.

The club loses 'most' young adults in their late 20's (as they get close to full price)



The proposal is to offer incremental membership up to the age of 34 to keep those 20 somethings that leave, and because there's not too many in this bracket, and they hope to gain a few new members, this won't negatively effect income. There is also a 'lifestyle' membership being considered which would allow conditional golf of x number of rounds and entry to x number of comps to try and retain those who want to be a member but can't justify full price (possibly those in their late 30's / early 40's). Pricewise this sits in between a late 20's person and a 5-day member.

The proposals would be partly helped out by an increase in one of the areas of membership which is currently far too low and indeed much lower than equivalent membership at other courses in the area, despite our full price being higher.

There's lots of other great proposals too which I think are an amazing step forward for a club not wanting to get left behind as membership patterns change. It is being modeled on another local club who have done similar things and there is a projected six-figure increase in membership income over the next few years. As far as I'm concerned even if income from membership goes up £1 they've made progress so such large figures are really exciting to see.

If the proposals pass, I will post the full details when they are published.

 

[Hacker Khan]

This is a bit like trying to solve Fermats Last Theorem. If someone finds the right answer please let us know.

Whilst we're sitting here squabbling over who's right and who's wrong and what age deserves what membership rate spare a thought for those who's clubs will not be there for the start of next season. One gone already in my area and another is hanging by a fast unravelling thread as I write this.

The good old days have gone, clubs are now struggling to recruit members and if the answer isn't found, there will be a lot of nice new housing estates springing up over the next few years in prime locations.

Perhaps the clubs nearby that are struggling could do worse that find out what business plan and structure the club that went under had. Try and learn from the what went wrong as well as from other good practice.

From visiting clubs I see some that seem to be thriving (and yes I know I am only getting a snap shot so appearances may be deceiving) and some that seem as dead as a dodo. With the quality of the actual courses themselves being very similar.

So some are getting it right, but as you say it is pretty inevitable that some will go under due to a combination of factors.