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Radical proposal

Foxholer said:
Any relatively historic Club would be aware of the desire of other Golfers to play their course. It's a question of managing demand, and cost is one of the tools. And many Scottish such clubs have a vastly different rate for Guests (token, in the expectation that the hospitality will be returned) as opposed to Visitors (where a Market Rate is applied)!
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I understand - just think green fees for visitors seem relatively a lot more than they used to be. So for instance I played Cruden Bay (fantastic, historic links track) many (20?) years ago - it felt affordable even though I earned a lot less than I do now. But at £95 for a weekday round today - nope - I can't just can't justify that.

Surely clubs can manage visitor numbers (if that's an issue) - by just limiting the numbers - they don't need to set green fees at a level that deters - as that works by excluding those that can't afford it or can't justify it.

I'm simply sad that that is how it seems today.
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
I understand - just think green fees for visitors seem relatively a lot more than they used to be. So for instance I played Cruden Bay (fantastic, historic links track) many (20?) years ago - it felt affordable even though I earned a lot less than I do now. But at £95 for a weekday round today - nope - I can't just can't justify that.

Surely clubs can manage visitor numbers (if that's an issue) - by just limiting the numbers - they don't need to set green fees at a level that deters - as that works by excluding those that can't afford it or can't justify it.

I'm simply sad that that is how it seems today.
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Most of the historic clubs in Scotland the greens frees are geared towards overseas visitors, most of ours are and i would say so are most of Dornochs. Thats the going rate. i suppose for many of these visitors £100 is cheap to what they pay at home. i once played with a guy who worked for the Irish toursit board and he explained how a few years ago when all the Irish top courses were really cheap, Americans were not visiting in the numbers they are now, untill they stuck the price up.

There are pleanty of deals to be had by SGU club members, i got to play Muirfield for £75 last year.
 
patricks148 said:
You can play a Twighlight round at Nairn for around half that and thats after 1PM in the middle of Summer. Royal Dornoch's is after 5 i think and unless you play on the longest day you would struggle to get round.
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how late can you reasonably play golf in Nairn in the summer? after 10pm? I really notice the longer summer nights when in Scotland but never been as far north as Nairn.

presumably its the earlier afternoon starters that hold the twilighters up? I would have anticipated that without hold up you could easily start at 5 and get a round in, and then an extra 9, and a meal and then a few putts on the practice green?
 
patricks148 said:
I'm not sure a high green fee keeps the non serious golfer away. we charge over £100 for a visitor green fee and i can recount plenty of occasions when many of those playing have no clue on etiquette or slow play, but thats also true of a few of our members;)

We get a reasonable amount of green fees, but not enough to subsidise the membership. How ever Take Royal Dornoch for instance. I think they have around 10-15,000 greens fee's wich does and allows them to still only have a £500 membership. to counter this the members have the tee booked everyday up untill mid morning and thats a 3 hour round most of the time then visitors go out after that and then you tend to get long rounds.
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Is that 10-15k in £'s or golfers. At 10k golfers that's averaging 27 a day 365 days a year and I would be surprised if that's possible for the location. 10-15K in £'s wouldn't be enough.
 
patricks148 said:
There are pleanty of deals to be had by SGU club members, i got to play Muirfield for £75 last year.
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Hmmm - £75 for Muirfield I'd pay.

Maybe I should find a club local to home in Glasgow and join as a country member - and on the back of that get my SGU membership - and reduced green fees for likes of Muirfield.

My Surrey County card is brilliant as most clubs in Surrey accept it and you pay a much reduced green fee and often the members guest rate. And (as I have only just found out) it is accepted at many clubs throughout rest of England (but not it seems Scotland :()
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Hmmm - £75 for Muirfield I'd pay.

Maybe I should find a club local to home in Glasgow and join as a country member - and on the back of that get my SGU membership - and reduced green fees for likes of Muirfield.

My Surrey County card is brilliant as most clubs in Surrey accept it and you pay a much reduced green fee and often the members guest rate. And (as I have only just found out) it is accepted at many clubs throughout rest of England (but not it seems Scotland :()
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That's because the England golf and the SGU are two separate organisations. Same if you played in a qualifier in Scotland you have to get the sec to e mail your home club and they manually put it on as an away score.
 
BoadieBroadus said:
how late can you reasonably play golf in Nairn in the summer? after 10pm? I really notice the longer summer nights when in Scotland but never been as far north as Nairn.

presumably its the earlier afternoon starters that hold the twilighters up? I would have anticipated that without hold up you could easily start at 5 and get a round in, and then an extra 9, and a meal and then a few putts on the practice green?
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easy around Nairn, a mate and i reg play a 6pm on a Tues or wed night for most of the summer. for at least 4 months its light untill 10pmif not later. Nairn is membership is mostly retired guys who all play AM and then its visitors untill 3-4ish then the course is pretty empty but for the odd Junior night ot Ladies comp.

Dornoch a whole diff story vistitors right up till late and the twighlingt rate they have does not start untill its not poss to get round before dark most of the time with the amount of visitors they have and the time it takes some of these to get round, usually 4-5 hours.
 
patricks148 said:
Dornoch a whole diff story vistitors right up till late and the twighlingt rate they have does not start untill its not poss to get round before dark most of the time with the amount of visitors they have and the time it takes some of these to get round, usually 4-5 hours.
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...and we know who to blame for that "Taaaam - are you listening boy" :)
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
So for instance I played Cruden Bay (fantastic, historic links track) many (20?) years ago - it felt affordable even though I earned a lot less than I do now. But at £95 for a weekday round today - nope - I can't just can't justify that.
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Ta for reminding me - must get my entry form filled in today for Cruden at £15 this summer :whoo:
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Hmmm - £75 for Muirfield I'd pay.

Maybe I should find a club local to home in Glasgow and join as a country member - and on the back of that get my SGU membership - and reduced green fees for likes of Muirfield.
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I kept my membership (was already 'Country') for a year or so after returning 'darn sarf' and got several cracking deals for visits - Kingsbarnes (40), Dundonald (39) and Gleneagles (50) from memory!
 
Foxholer said:
I kept my membership (was already 'Country') for a year or so after returning 'darn sarf' and got several cracking deals for visits - Kingsbarnes (40), Dundonald (39) and Gleneagles (50) from memory!
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Loch Lomond for £40 is probably best deal I've ever had outside an open - but only really because it was pretty much impossible to play it then - eight people on the whole course - the other group were four holes ahead of us and the staff asked us to slow down as we'd caught up half a hole by the turn
 
Our clubs pretty healthy, 2 year waiting list, We welcome visitors and societys, we have to keep the money coming in, no problem for me.
 
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