Your Pro - What is his value to The Club? - Is his all round package value for the Club?

[3offTheTee]

We have an excellent pro. At times he has acted as M/C for fundraising events, sportsman’s dinners and offers a prize of a free lesson for charity events

Salary is not that great but takes a % of green fees Us running weekly Comp. Open Comp prizes go through the shop plus lessons. Very friendly and helpful guy and a big asset to the Club.

Anybody any idea what the normal profit margin is for goods sold in A golf shop before price match?

How does your pro stack up and what value is he to your Club?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I'd say that our pros (one head pro/golf manager and three assistants) are critical to the running and success of the club. They run the shop (which is owned by the members as is all of the stock) and manage entry to all competitions. They provide excellent coaching in our studio and on the practice grounds - and must importantly have been key to driving the success of our junior and ladies academies - both of which provide a steady stream of juniors and ladies into the club as members; they send out regular newsletters about competitions and news on members success away from the club as well as offers and deals in the shop; they run sweeps on the majors for members; and they take part in club evenings and contribute lessons to raffles and auctions that members may be involved in. Our pros are an integral and very valued part of the golf club.

 

[Grant85]

We have a strange set up with a Pro who runs the shop and a teaching Pro.

The Pro doesn't do any teaching at all and also runs a shop at another course.

I'm not sure about the economics of it and had good dealings with both - especially the teaching pro. However seems a bit of a strange arrangement for the Pro to only do retail and basically no golf related stuff.

My impression is that we'd probably struggle to replace the teaching pro on that kind of arrangement if he were to move on somewhere where he had a bit more scope to do some retail as well as coaching.

 

[IanM]

Our is great... great shop, coaching, runs comps, listens to all the members' crap etc. with good humour.....

Worth more than he's paid I am sure

 

[User20204]

Anybody any idea what the normal profit margin is for goods sold in A golf shop before price match?

More than they make out.

Our pro is an asset to the club I believe, however on the goods selling I think they are making more of a margin than they would have you believe, for example, ours always quotes what the online price is and will match it, fair enough, he may even better it, but go on the many facebook selling pages and you'll find how much cheaper you can buy a brand new club, i.e. £20 cheaper, and that includes delivery, and that's only on a £150 new putter.

 

[Britishshooting]

Last pro, amazing. He’s moved on to bigger and better clubs and he deserves it. Drummed up a lot of business, had some clout and would often be the voice of members as he actually played the course. Stocked up the pro shop well and would be more than happy to order you stuff in promptly at a competive price.

Often played in pro ams with members and was a great laugh, great teacher and gave a lot of his time to the junior academy.

New pro, not even worth my breath. Everything’s too much effort, crap gear and does nothing but turns up, complete opposite and obviously lost all passion and love for the game.

Other course great pro, he also tours a lot and leaves one of two assistants in charge. One is great the other is a young lad with dreadful attitude.

Quite a mixed bag really. I still keep in touch with the pro who taught me when I was a junior. He’s in his 60’s but still has the passion and love for the game as he always has done. One of the few people I have all the time in the world for and could happily talk or play many hours away with.

 

[Capella]

We have three pros at our club, two who are teaching pros and one who runs the pro shop and does club fittings. Of the two teaching pros, one is directly employed by the club and the other works on a freelance basis and pays a fee for being allowed to use the premises (at least that's what the setup was a few years back, when I first joined. Things might have changed around). The guy who runs the shop is not a certified PGA pro, but is pretty competent. He is a bit of a self taught jack-of-all-trades, who also runs our website and social media. He also gives lessons, but not at our club, because he does not want to interfere with the two teaching pros who have been there a lot longer than he is. We also have one assistent pro now, who is the son of the pro shop guy. He helps coach the juniors and gives occasional lessons on the side.

The two teaching pros have very different teaching styles. One is more of the "you can swing it however you want as long as it works" variety, while the other is very technical and tends to confuse people by throwing too much information at them. Both have their fans among the members. The employed one coaches the club teams, the other coaches the juniors.

It is a pretty good setup. The two teaching pros have been with the club for ages now, the employed one for over 30 years, the other one for at least 20. Some members think it would be good to bring some fresh blood in, but I think, the majority is quite happy with the situation.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

We have a pro, an assistant (teaching pro) and an assistant starting the PGA. He isn't helped by a limited amount of shop space and storage and has been in post two years after the previous guy was in post 20+. The previous guy did me some great deals but didn't really ever put himself out and enjoyed a simple life not offering much or doing much. The new guy has come in with some new ideas and while on a personal level I can't warm to him I admire what he's trying to do with the business and is being far more proactive in things like away a few days in Portugal offering coaching sessions and has some different stock in place. He still runs a ball sweep and twos comp as the previous pro did and I think he gets a cut of the comp entry fee to cover the pro shop vouchers on offer to top three per division. The new(ish) assistant that has come in seems to have gotten a good teaching reputation quickly within the membership and is doing good stuff with the junior academy.

 

[Crazyface]

I'm still waiting for our pro to get in touch regarding my free 30 minute lesson. 3 months and waiting. Oh and yes I've already asked the staff to remind him to get in touch, which he is supposed to do.

So I'm gonna say.....not much value from what I've experienced so far.

 

[Coffey]

More than they make out.

Our pro is an asset to the club I believe, however on the goods selling I think they are making more of a margin than they would have you believe, for example, ours always quotes what the online price is and will match it, fair enough, he may even better it, but go on the many facebook selling pages and you'll find how much cheaper you can buy a brand new club, i.e. £20 cheaper, and that includes delivery, and that's only on a £150 new putter.

I don't know the ins and outs of cost price of each item.

But I know for sure that Vokey SM7's were bought into our shop at £90 a wedge. I just bought 3 at £100 a wedge. £10 mark up is not a lot (Although they have been there a while and new ones are out soon so he is clearing the stock.) I believe originally they were about £130 a wedge in our shop.

I know that a pair of Pro SL shoes cost approx £98 to buy in and are for sale for £130.

Box of ProV1's cost around £35 a box (which is why the pro is happy enough to split the box at £12 per 3 as you can buy boxes in most places for £40ish, which is only £5 profit for the pro)

The markup is not a lot on most of the items. Some prices I see on the FB selling groups are insane, no idea how they make money at all. I would imagine they have quite a big account with each OEM which they need to clear.

 

[Slab]

Three pros at the local place. Don’t know for certain but outside of coaching it seems like they divide the other parts of the club up; one covers the pro-shop area, another the range & practice area and the third with player services area. Seems to work well & they all have their teams for all the business as usual stuff. The marketing/events manager would do most of the corporate stuff & the golf director does the overall running of the place

They're all friendly and approachable from the lads that get the bags out the car through to the director. I assume the pro-shop mark-up is healthy but don’t really know, I don’t consider the prices cheap but no doubt the tourists make a fair bit of the turnover

And of the 3, the pro I see doing most lessons is a women, only mention it because from all the he/him/his comments it seems most are blokes. Does anyone else have a women pro?

 

[patricks148]

Don't get me started on our Saga with my club

 

[3offTheTee]

Don't get me started on our Saga with my club

You cannot keep us all in suspense Paddy - go on you know you want to especially as you play at such a class Club

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

On costs of gear from our shop - and profit margins etc. As our shop and stock are owned by the members the profit the shop makes goes back into the club (the pros may get a cut of profit - I don't know). Prices in the shop are competitive and I try and use it for pretty much all of my golf purchases - though I don't buy that much - and very little in the way of golf-clothes.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

The greatest source of frustration at my club with the clothing they sell is that 95% seems to have the club logo on it. I don't mind a few bits with it on but not everything and this has now extended to things like water proofs (US Ryder cup suits springs to mind)

 

[Robin Hood]

I believe a traditional pro makes most of their income from lessons and retainer. (Different for an employed pro)
Stock sales don't make too much profit, and the capital investment can be very high. Most pros are not good shop keepers. Having a shop is usually a condition of contract.
A reasonable income can be generated from % of green fees and buggy hire.
Long, and often unsociable, hours make it a labour of love.
Would you do it ?

 

[jim8flog]

Where I play
The shop building is owned by the club.

The main pro is paid a small retainer by the club

He is paid to run the driving range and do some of the administration of competitions and Supplementary Score Cards, take visitor green fees .

All shop stock is his, two comps are his and nearly all regular competition winnings are credited to your proshop account.

His staff take all income from lessons, use of the simulator and club repairs.

I have no idea of all their incomes but there are something like 8 -10 proshop staff (the shop is open 7 days a week for about 12 hours a day)