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As you may have seen in today’s news, the purchase of EZLinks by NBC Sports Group merges the two largest online tee time agencies (OTTAs) into one entity. This puts into one set of hands the lion’s share (some estimate now over 90%) of the golf industry’s aggregated, online tee time inventory. Many details of how this will evolve are unknown, including if software platforms will be combined, if TeeOff.com and GOLFNOW will remain as separate brands in the marketplace, etc. I’m sure executives at both companies will be providing more details soon. It is generally understood that the American economy is built upon healthy competition between and among ...
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Reclaiming the Game

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Every town in America has dead retail space. You know what I’m talking about. The place that used to be a Walgreens. It’s been sitting empty for months – or years – with the “For Sale or Lease” sign in overgrown landscaping in the parking lot. Every time I see these vacant spaces, I think of golf. I think of the burgeoning “golf entertainment” business. I think of places like Beyond Golf Bar + Kitchen in La Vista, Nebraska. Or Venue on Main in Columbia, South Carolina. Places where the general public comes to play, eat and drink, or where the serious golfer can practice or play some amazing virtual golf on high-end simulators. Beyond Golf, by the way, has ...
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With all due respect to Ferris Bueller, “The credit card processing world is changing pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” As operators of golf courses, you know merchant processing used to be a pretty predictable situation. Customers swiped their cards in that electronic brick on your counter. You reconciled the charges with your POS system. Your bank account received the funds in a few days. Monthly statements came in the mail that showed what you paid in fees. Rinse and repeat. Reading those monthly merchant processing statements has always required a decoder, and it only got more challenging when ...
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“I don’t believe most golf courses need the OTTAs’ marketing services to meet the natural demand for golf in our marketplace, nor do I think they stimulate incremental demand for golf.” Wow. Now that I read that a month after the print dried on the last issue of Golf Business, it sounds rather harsh. I think it’s because I’ve become friendly with a couple individuals trying to make a go of it in the Online Tee Time Agency world, despite my skepticism, and I don’t feel good about using my bully pulpit in ways that could damper anyone’s success in golf. It’s not the “golf way” to be so public with criticism like this. Nevertheless, let me see if I ...
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While there are promising indicators and progressive things happening in golf that cause me to be quite bullish about the long term prospects of our industry, the business of running golf courses in America – by and large – has been a slog for the past 15 years. The supply and demand curve has been moving in the wrong direction since before the Great Recession. Most experts agree the number of course closures will continue to far outpace course openings for the next decade. If you compare the average price of a round of golf ($38 according to We Are Golf) to the change in Consumer Price Index, golf is arguably cheaper than it has ever been. Pellucid Corp reports ...
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A Year in View

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I love a good metaphor. As someone who gets to tell the story of our industry to the media and other audiences, I love a well-placed, well-delivered metaphor. Each January in this column, I like to pause and share what the recent 12 months have been like for NGCOA, and allude to what’s coming. Metaphorically speaking, what’s in our rear view mirror, and what do we see in our windshield? And I love that clever piece of optimism about why the rear view mirror is small and the windshield so big. I feel the same about NGCOA and the golf industry in general. Good stuff in the rear view, but so much more in the view ahead of us. But just because we have ...
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Think Transformation

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The 2018 Golf Business TechCon recently wrapped up, and naturally my mind is on the future of the industry. At the event, we had an evening of fun at Las Vegas Topgolf. It was a typical Thursday night, and the place was jam-packed. NGCOA member Debbie Jeffries, owner of RiverRidge Golf Complex in Eugene, Oregon, shared an interesting observation with me about the patrons at Topgolf. She noticed all the “golfers” playing in the bays were deeply engaged in the metrics and data being captured, such as swing speed, ball flight, distance to the targets, etc.; while the “non-golfers” couldn’t care less about that info, and were just having fun swinging hard at an inanimate ...
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The Charleston Post & Courier recently ran an article about issues in the golf industry, and the role NGCOA plays in telling the story of golf, especially to our friends in Washington. Shortly after the article appeared online, someone Tweeted a reply that golf should do a better job telling our story. I couldn’t disagree. But then again, who is “golf” in this context? When speaking to the press or those outside of golf about the issues we face in the industry and the opportunities we have to grow the sport, I often use this same comparison. When describing the range of experiences we have in golf, I like to say how golf is like dining out at restaurants. ...
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Pinehurst Gives Permission

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For the second year in a row, I survived the “buddies golf trip” to the Pinehurst area of North Carolina with 11 other guys looking to have fun and spend money. What could go wrong? I’m happy to report that nothing did. We had a wonderful time, and I am compelled to share two things from my experience. The 12 of us played three traditional rounds of golf at some of the wonderful public courses in the area. Then we squeezed in some late afternoon play at the new short course at Pinehurst Resort called “The Cradle.” Hopefully you’ve read about this new project at Pinehurst. The day we played, the Wall Street Journal had an extensive piece on how the short-course ...
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Pride of Ownership

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Last month, I made my annual pilgrimage to a member’s property to spend a full day shadowing an owner and witnessing the daily challenges of course operations. My objective is to gain greater understanding and sympathy for our rank-and-file member, and in turn, bring those insights back to the NGCOA office. Upon my early-morning arrival at Pine Ridge Golf Course in Paris, Texas, I had a seriously scary feeling. I knew Cathy Harbin, owner and operator, had a morning outing scheduled, and the sky was looking ominous. It was a visceral reminder that if it rains, her business makes no money that day. It reminded me of the risks our members take as a ...
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In last month’s column, I opined that one of golf’s “distance problems” is that many golfers are playing from tee boxes that are too difficult for them. Or maybe restated, if they played tees that offered, say, a 6,000-yard experience instead of a 6,600-yard experience, they might find it more enjoyable and the round a little speedier. And golf writer John Gaughan recently penned a wonderful piece about aging and moving up a set of tees, and the joys of discovering the golf course in a new way and the challenges it brings. Source: Par Aide I think there are two factors that cause golfers to pause at the idea of (gasp) moving from one set of colored ...
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The Distance Question

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The recently released USGA and R&A report on driving distance sure drew a lot of attention from all corners of the golf universe. The conversation seems to immediately go to the question — should we dial back the ball as a “fix” to hitting the ball too far? In my opinion, that is the wrong question to be asking when it comes to most of the nation’s golf course operators who open their doors and turn on the lights every morning. For sure, the best golfers in the world hitting the ball incrementally longer as time goes by poses a challenge for the fields of play where hitting a 320-yard drive is an issue. But 99.9 percent of golfers are mere mortals. ...
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It’s amazing to me that 227 years after the final ratification of the American Bill of Rights, we still wholly rely upon them as we navigate the trials and tribulations of living together in society. There is something evergreen about the specific rights that James Madison codified as the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were written in part to address rights that were either overlooked in the Constitution or that needed to be clarified due to the ongoing debate about federal and state authorities. While our issues in golf aren’t as “heavy” as the fundamental rights of man and woman, we are hoping the new “Golf Course Operator’s ...
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One of our members recently sent me a copy of an article written by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board (“ Google-Hotel Travelopoly ”) about Google and hotels not playing fairly with online travel agencies (OTAs), such as Expedia, Travelocity, etc. Here is the gist from the WSJ perspective ( my comments in parentheses ), and please stick with this until the end. There is a message for the golf industry. Hotels are complaining that OTAs, which make about 20% commission on each room booked, have begun squeezing profits from hotels, due in part to the rise of competition like AirBnB. ( Wait…what? Seems the editorial board needs a history lesson. Considering ...
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Roman Gods and NGCOA

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I was a huge fan of Greek and Roman mythology when I was a kid. Clash of the Titans was my favorite movie, and I loved translating the Aeneid in high school Latin class. I know, I should’ve gotten out more. But I was on the golf team, so there’s that! Each year at this time, I remember the lesson of the Roman god, Janus, who was the god of beginnings and transitions and had two faces: One looking to the past, one to the future. As we ring in the New Year, it’s a chance for all of us to reflect on how our year went—personally and professionally—and make commitments and resolutions for the next year. Writing this column allows me to reflect on 2017, and share with ...
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Data. The word tends to elicit one of two responses out of small business owners. One is: “Give me more! Can’t get enough of it!” The other: “Who’s got time for that?” On most days in the golf industry, it feels like the latter faction has the majority. And I get it—owners and operators are busy people, taking care of customers, tending to employees, watching the cash flow closely, and trying to make sure the product is as good as it can be. It’s hard to imagine time in the day to look at data on rounds, revenue, capacity, RevPATT and how your numbers may compare to a competitive set or your market. But here’s the thing—we need to. The primary comparison ...
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Building Value

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When Danny Medina, director of golf at 128-room Omni Tucson National Resort, decided in early 2016 to remove the property’s two courses from third-party booking websites, he knew there would be a trade-off. On one hand, “we didn’t want to be associated with rate cutting, and didn’t want golfers comparing us to other area courses based on price alone,” he says. But on the other hand, Medina now had to get more creative in building the value proposition for off-peak rounds. His solution was to change the amenities offered in the price of off-peak rounds on a weekly basis. So the playing rate will include a hat one week, then a sleeve of balls the next, followed ...
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Killing Dissatisfaction

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When I was CEO of Select Registry, a portfolio of more than 300 upscale inns, we administered a secret-shopper, 200-point inspection of the guest stay. We knew a thing or two about the customer experience and what guests liked, loved, tolerated and hated. One thing I learned was the power of “dissatisfaction triggers,” which are arguably more impactful to the experience than those things people loved and wanted to experience. Examples might be finding a hair in the bathtub or being treated rudely by staff. We had a lot of first-timers stay at inns and B&Bs, which meant thousands of customers going through our doors looking both for reasons they should ...
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I saw Malcolm Gladwell deliver a keynote speech at an annual meeting of the American Society of Association Executives years ago. He was very insightful. I read Blink . I read Tipping Point . I read Outliers . I’ve enjoyed how he analyzes the world and its intricacies, patterns and phenomena from interesting points of view. After hearing his recent podcast episode of Revisionist History, in which he attempts to turn “golf” into a pejorative word, my admiration is wavering. I encourage readers to listen to the podcast. For someone who metaphorically hits the ball pretty well, Gladwell shanks this one. The Revisionist Historian With Revisionist ...
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So, I did something this past weekend I haven’t done in 10 years. I went on a guys’ golf trip. Seven of us played 72 holes over three days in North Carolina’s Sandhills. There was beer-drinking. There was joke-telling. There might have been a little gambling. And I might have strung together three rounds in the 70s, something I’ve never done before. But, of course, the “industry guy” in me was making observations and mental notes about the golf operations I was experiencing. I want to share something I admired about two of the courses I played: Talamore Golf Resort in Southern Pines and West End’s Dormie Club. What struck me about these two very different ...
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