Should Your Club Be More Like Your Local?

[GB72]

I can appreciate that this could cause some debate but should your club try to be more like your local pub. They are, after all, competing for the same money. They want to be somewhere to watch the sport, to have a few drinks, to play pool/snooker, to have a bite to eat and even somewhere to take the family so should clubs me more accomodating to try and attract more custom.

I am not necessarily advocating change or the abandonment of standards or traditions but when comparing the two it all seems a bit one sided. If your local pub stopped you nipping in for a pint in a pair of jeans, would you go there? If you had to wear trousers and a shirt to nip and watch the football on a Sunday would you bother? If you had to turn your phone off every time you went in for a pint, would you bother? If my local pub was run like that then it would be closed within a year.

So, does it work for golf clubs or should it. At a time when clubs are fighting for every pound they can get and are willing to move mountains to attract new members, is it time that they looked at the competition that they are facing for a family's entertainment money and look how they stand in comparison to a local pub. After all, you do not need as many new members if you can get a bigger spend out of your existing ones.

I am not saying that this is the right way to go, that dress codes are bad or that all rules should be chucked out the window. What I am saying is that in the face of financial realities, my club (and maybe others) is competing with my local pub for my weekend beer money and I ask whether it may be an idea to look at what is being offered by the average local pub in terms of access, facilities and atmosphere if it is looking to get a bigger share of my weekend spend.

 

[Philm]

thats exactly how our clubhouse is run.

and we still struggle to get members/visitors in to watch the football or whatever.

Phil

 

[Dreamer2]

i see my golf club as a drink before and after a round of golf,,i suppose it depend on how involved you are with the club

 

[StrangelyBrown]

I live too far away from my club for it to be a viable for me to pop in for a pint unless i'm there playing golf anyway.

 

[Dodger]

I hope not....my local pubs are dying a slow death!

Well run local pubs? Yes,without a doubt but many clubs cannot try to do this due to restrictions of room,location,facilities etc.

 

[Crawfy]

I am having an interview to join my local club in next couple of weeks. I'd love it to be like a local pub as its walking distance from the house (and staggerrring distance home)
Sadly its not (shirt tie in evening etc etc)
Would be great to have a clubhouse where I could pop in for a casualy pint, catch CL football during the week, then have the missus and wee one come down and join me after a Sunday round for our Sunday roast

( Then they go home and I stay and have a sesh with the lads....haha)

 

[MetalMickie]

But does your local have an 18 hole golf-course, a practice ground with the option of covered bays, a putting green & a short game practice area?
No I didn't think so.
Golf clubs will only survive by making the most of what they are and not by trying to compete with what they are not (i.e. pubs & social clubs)

 

[GB72]

But clubs spend a fortune on club houses, snooker rooms, sky, dining facilities etc and in the current economic climate they need to extract every penny they can from existing members. So, by making the bar a social hub like the local pub, they could look to dramatically increase their takings and perhaps cushion the losses from reduced memberships. My club has more room and better facilities than my local but is relatively empty, seems like a wasted revenue stream to me.

 

[moogie]

My Current Club, and my Previous Club, have both changed dress code rules in the last 2 years, along with some others in my area.
Jeans are allowed in the Clubhouse and Bar
They opened up their eyes and realised , they are competing with local pubs.
So now on a sunday, instead of guys playing golf and leaving without using the bar/or having one, to then go to a nearby pub and watch the Football, where they can wear more casual clothes.
This same crowd, now stay and SUP in the clubhouse bar.

Golf has to move with the times, as Ive stated in a different post, there arent many clubs in my area doing very well financially, so you have to try whatever it takes to get your head above water

 

[BROOKIE]

They dont even try at the club wich I use,last summer you could'nt even get a drink after 2pm,due to no staff,which is just silly,yet, at the weekend its chocker block,I live just half a mile from the club and usually play twice a week there,but I would'nt join the club cos the people who run it are knobs.

 

[Mungoscorner]

My club is run exactly like this.Dress codes and etiquette on the course are as strict as any other club,but the clubhouse is far more laid back.No dress codes and children are always made welcome.At my last club children in or around the clubhouse were frowned upon by the older members,and dress codes were in place,even though members of the public using the club at lunchtime were not required to do so.
I'm all in favour of history,tradition and standards on the course but cannot abide the outdated nonsense of having to turn my phone off,and wear a jacket and tie if i want to eat after 7pm.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

My local is only a ten minute stagger away (when I use to drink) and the club is a car journey or about £15 in a cab so from that perspective its not viable. There are people in my local that are great guys but I wouldn't want within a Stevie drive of my club and there are guys at the club that would get up the locals noses. For me its horses for courses. My clubhouse is more like an old fashioned social club, bit posher than a boozer but not an old school jacket and tie 19th and it probably has the right balance for the members that use it, the events it holds (Sunday carvery, bridge nights) where non-members wouldn't want to be subjected to the effing and blinding you might associate with a pub

 

[anotherdouble]

Do not your clubs have spike bars where you can pop in for a pint after work or to watch sport with a more relaxed code than say the lounge or resturant. If clubs are spending between 4-5k on sky sports then surely it is in more than one bar.