Impact of the weather on UK golfers and golf clubs...

[bladeplayer]

We are looking at doing a feature assessing the impact of the prolonged spell of terrible weather on UK golfers and golf clubs, ).

We were grand Jezz , Ta ...

Just kidding , we were very lucky as course was never closed . few temps during frost but that cant be helped .. I was lucky enough to play every weekend..
we have intrest in people from other clubs joining as they feel they are not getting value for money in their own course ..

The big take off over here is the clubs that are offering full membership for between €150-€200, you pay €10 anytime you want to play , you cant play in captains or presidents or vote at the AGM .. people are taking this and playing in opens around then .. no major outlay of membership , so no complaints if course is not open 52 weeks a year..
People are definatly taking the closure times of courses in relation to membership costs into consideration now ..

 

[Tommo21]

No issues at Dunbar, never played on a temp green there yet and I've been there 3 years now. Horses for courses and I understand Dunbar has picked up a few new members due to it's good playing links. My other club Royal Musselburgh, parkland, got hammered last year with the rain. Some cancelations and rescheduling of comps, but the course is much better now and the club is on the up.

 

[Sweep]

In was privileged to serve on Committee at my club last year and whilst we actually increased our membership through good marketing, because of the weather we certainly suffered losses over previous years on visiting parties. Of course, lack of visiting parties impacts heavily on food and bar sales and in the pro shop as does the lack of members spending time at the club when the course is closed. All this at a time when many clubs were already suffering in the current economic climate.
I remember one conversation with a pro who told me how his sales of small incidental items - tees, balls, pencils etc were well down and that for the first time in 25 years he had not needed to order any new scorecards in an entire year. It reminded me of just how many people rely on golf to keep them in a job.
Needless to say, if this kind of weather continues it could be disasterous for the golf industry. Many members of clubs don't take their membership for granted any more. Many calculate the cost per week against how many rounds they play. If they can't play for an extended period, they are bound to consider their position.

 

[GB72]

I have been lucky at Belton Park. I think we had one weekend on temp greens and we lost a couple of weekends with snow on the ground but the club has put in a great deal of effort to stay open and now the weather is improving it looks great. The club tried to make sure that at least 9 holes were open (even making a composite 9 out of all the holes available during the worst of the weather) and sometimes even held events in the club house on a weekend to keep people coming up when it was shut. The big difference for me was the communication. At my old club we would have been left to phone in and see what was going on and that was frustrating. Plenty of emails with updates, what the club were doing to get the course open etc really helped. As a weekend only golfer I have, in general, not been hit too bad but I suspect that those who play more golf on several days of the week will have noticed the weather more than I have.

 

[mcbroon]

Our greenkeepers monitor annual rainfall and the statistics from the last three years are:

2010 - 662mm
2011 - 1046mm
2012 - 1480mm

As a result of the rainfall last year, we suffered many postponements and cancellations of competitions, most notable of which was the club championships. Qualifying was cut from 36 holes to 18, as the course was closed on the Saturday, and the matchplay finals took place in September rather than July. I think I managed 11 competitive rounds in the whole of last year, with maybe 25 or 30friendlies on top of that. We've lost further days through the winter and early spring to snow - the course was closed for a few weeks through January and again in March.

I don't know for sure how it has affected membership numbers but the waiting list for lockers disappeared at a stroke, so I assume we've lost a few. How much that has to do with weather and how much with economics, I don't know.