Online Tee Booking Sites. - Good for clubs or not?

[Oddsocks]

This debate could be a somewhat tricky subject, but I can see it causing problems at out club so no doubt its going to do the same at others.

Our club is a P&P course that has a separate swindle group set up within side that club. We are charged £60.00 per year to have reserved tee times Sunday (9:00-930), have around 32 comps a season including inter club comps on behalf of our pay & play course. A member’s area as such and with a loyalty card we get discounted green fee’s. The fees are not heavily discounted , I think its from £26.00 each to £22.00/£23,00

As far as I see it, our club reserves half hours worth of peak Sunday tee slots, which could be sold at £26.00 per person with no financial commitment or demand to our group. If we only want 3 of the possible 6 slots, we only use 3, so the club could effectively lose 3 lots of £104.00 (£316.00). They normally just bump all the other tee times up the order making 3 slots available through the day.

Now some members have been going onto the online tee times sites and booking times for as little as £16.00 per player, with the closest tee time being 9.35am, the next available slot after our pre booked slots. Then asking the pro shop to take this as payment against their booking for our swindle. This is my eyes is taking a minimum of £10 profit from out club per player, if we take into account any commission paid to the booking sites it no doubt works out more like £12.00 per play profit down the swanny for a club already struggling.

My opinion is that the club is well within its rights to either A) cancel our swindle group and/or B) void any tee times booked with these sites.

I sort of suggested to some of the members I played with that the cost cutting by booking with these sites instead of direct with the club could effectively end our group, and frankly none of them could see my views.

Was I wrong?

 

[HRC99]

I think you are right if it is handled badly. But I think the course owners/management have precipitated this situation.

Obviously, many of the swindle think that they are not getting a good enough deal out of the club. With discounted rates of £16 instead of £22 that adds up to over £300 per year saved which is no little sum of money just to play once a week.

The financial well-being of your (commercial) course cannot be your primary concern. It is down to the course owners to create a financially stable business.

It is they who have caused this issue by offering such discounted fees and undermined your swindle group not you or your fellow members.

I would be tempted to approach the course owners to renegotiate the green fees.

 

[Oddsocks]

i agree on the negotiating the green fee's but its been like this for years so doubt it will change.

A prime example is on the way to the course i stopped for fuel and the BP garage was doing a Sausage roll& coffee for £2.60. Now as cheap as that is, my course does it for £3.50. i chose to pay the extra 90p as id rather that money go to my course and not someone that ripps me weekly on fuel prices, that and the fact our barmaid is a hottie!

Our course isnt in the best condition, and if 24 memembers all saved £10 per round, thats £240 every sunday, or £12800 as year. I would rather this money go on the wages for a green keeper to to rake bunkers and whip greens on a sunday morning.

 

[HRC99]

If only it was that simple and the £12,800 would go on the wages for a greenkeeper but it never would.

I think it'd be well worth trying to renegotiate. Your 24 members with £60 membership and £26 per week have quite a bit of spending power, that the course would probably not like to lose.

No doubt a bit of brinksmanship would be required to get a deal but, if some people are going to book online anyway, you might as well stand united rather than it all start to fall apart when the club starts banning people from booking online or threatening to scrap your swindle.

There could be all sorts of compromises from reducing the £60, reducing the green fee, reducing the green fee in winter.

It is the same age-old problem that companies want new business and offer the best deals to new customers relying on inertia to retain their existing customers.

 

[Oddsocks]

i definately get where your coming from HRC. The impression i have been given is the new course manager isnt overly keen on the swindle anyway, and he would rather see it gone, but as its been there for so long its not quite as simple.

I think the £60 fee doesnt go to the club, its stays within the swindle for admin costs, trophies and such like. the club only see the money from the green fee, effectively the £26.00.

 

[HRC99]

My mistake.

It still is a nice income for the club and could they replace it? Probably not very easily.

Your swindle is probably worth around £30,000 a year. Not a small amount at all. That's excluding anything purchased in the bar, restaurant or pro shop.

The new course manager may not like it but it's going to make his life a lot tougher if you clear off somewhere else or just play ad-hoc social games.

 

[Oddsocks]

fair point. Maybe im just showing to much respect to the club. I know its on the list of clubs forsale by crown because it isnt turning big profits.

 

[HRC99]

If it's for sale, they DEFINITELY don't want to lose a regular £30,000 in income!

 

[Oddsocks]

just makes me wonder if other people are taking money away from there club without considering the possible effect it may have, just so they can fill tee slots.

Me personally, if rather out club increase the green fee to £30 and book half as many tee times - meaning half as much wear on the course, instead of booking doubt the tee times at the reduced rates meaning twice as much wear on the course.

Whats funny is im noticing the amount of unreplaced divots and unrepaired pitch marks has doubled since out club joined this "discount booking" system. now im not saying the members are not guilty here, but if its not a visitors home course, their respect for the place is somewhat relaxed. litter on the course had increased marginally too.

 

[HRC99]

It just doesn't work like that. If you increased your green fees to £30, you'd probably lose 3/4 of your bookings.

It is a very difficult balances for clubs to achieve. If it is too cheap, then you get lots of visitors and the members complain.

If it is too expensive, then you get less visitors and then the members complain because their subs go up!

I'm always sceptical about "types of people" who don't repair pitch marks. I've seen all sorts of people not repair them, including committee members and all sorts of other who should know better.

Your course may well be cutting back a bit on hours to maximise the profitability to increase the sale price.