The demise of a golf club

[Marshy77]

Won't name names but played a course last week and was shocked/saddened to see the state of the golf club. Played it loads over the years but not for around 12 months and the difference was terrible.

The club shop looked like a municiples that's main focus was purely to take green fee's and offer little more than a few 3 packs of balls, few chocolate bars and a half empty drinks fridge. The shop previously was really well stocked and had some decent gear in that you could be tempted by. The guys in the shop didn't know the code for the changing rooms and also didn't know how to use the coffee machine - pretty simple things to get right.

The course was a mess, greens were horrendous - as bad as I've ever played on. It's always been a decent playable course, not a top 100 course but a course that was always looked after and felt like it was carried for. Saw a couple of greenkeepers first thing but not once after that.

It was sad to see. The members are raging, spoke to a few who were embarressed by it and considering not renewing due to it being so bad. Unfortunately it seems the clubhouse is making it's money from functions and isn't putting money back into the course or facilities. Felt deflated walking of the 18th by the state of it, went over to the air compressor to clean our shoes for it to not be working. Kind of summed up the golf course/club.

 

[Trapdraw]

Oulton hall ?

 

[Marshy77]

Oulton hall ?

No, not played there for a few years.

 

[jim8flog]

Seen that happen before with the pro shop. The pro was close to being bankrupt. Everybody bought their kit at the nearby American Golf shop, the pro too ended up sending the assistant down there to buy the balls for the 2s pot when he had collected the money.

 

[Grant85]

That sounds like some drop off in a very short period of time. Must have been some serious lack of investment and cant be arsedness from the staff that are there.

As for the shop';
I'm not sure all that many clubs or Pros make a lot of money from their shop. In reality, most wouldn't even bother if it wasn't for the practice of converting a lot of competition prizes into Pro Shop vouchers.

No doubt online sales have absolutely scuppered the finances for a lot of Pro shops, and while you can bemoan it you have to accept it and either operate on the margin or be more creative in terms of what a voucher gets you.

Bump up the value of a voucher for things like lessons, food and drink, free guest vouchers etc.

 

[Marshy77]

That sounds like some drop off in a very short period of time. Must have been some serious lack of investment and cant be arsedness from the staff that are there.

As for the shop';
I'm not sure all that many clubs or Pros make a lot of money from their shop. In reality, most wouldn't even bother if it wasn't for the practice of converting a lot of competition prizes into Pro Shop vouchers.

No doubt online sales have absolutely scuppered the finances for a lot of Pro shops, and while you can bemoan it you have to accept it and either operate on the margin or be more creative in terms of what a voucher gets you.

Bump up the value of a voucher for things like lessons, food and drink, free guest vouchers etc.

Yes totally get that. The shop was a shocker as like I say it's always been pretty good. I'm guessing the guys in the shop were covering for the pro maybe, I don't know.