Muni Courses are Looking to Innovate

Dear Community Golf Fan,
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Welcome to Reading the Green 2017, Vol.1; the four times a year, golf related brief that focuses on improving the viability of Municipally owned golf facilities through the latest trends, creative uses for golf courses, and recent developments in resource management. Staples Golf Resource Group is a golf design and development consultancy that has served communities like yours for the past 14 years.

In this volume, we look at how GPS imaging technology is helping golf course managers to use their resources more strategically (creating higher customer satisfaction), as well as a slightly new way to setup tees so that golfers are playing their optimal course difficulty. And lastly, we check in on the progress with Municipal Golf Course Dairy Creek, and their efforts to diversify user demographics. Please read on!

New Tech Helps Customer Retention

Municipal courses may be interested to learn the USGA (U.S. Golf Association) has created a new GPS mapping technology that helps course managers increase pace of play through pinpointing their golfer traffic, which results in the added benefit of making maintenance and budget decisions more sophisticated. In providing higher quality golf experiences, customer satisfaction goes up, giving more reasons to return again and again!

Such GPS developments are seemingly on the cusp of a breakthrough, making these resources more widely available. This is also one of the goals of the USGA, which offers the product exclusively for now. You can learn more about this tech by clicking here.

Ready for Vari-TEE?

It’s no secret the golf industry is constantly on the lookout for ways to get new golfers to the game, and to get current golfers playing more. One such idea that's been evolving over the years, is in establishing appropriate tees for golfers of various swing speeds. Longleaf Golf Course in Pinehurst, NC is taking an approach to the teeing system that seems to be getting some attention.

“There’s nothing like having a 70-year-old lady talking about making her first eagle. It’s the same game. We have to get away from calling them women’s tees, seniors’ tees, and from saying `That is where you have to play from.’ If we’re going to move forward as an industry, we have to take a different approach.” Click here to learn more; this system may be worth exploring at your course.

Outside the Box Thinking!

Rarely a day goes by we're not reading about a different struggling course looking for ways to get closer to break-even. While we all understand this obvious desire, few facilities are actually looking outside the box for solutions! We’re proud to say we’re working with a few facilities that are, and one in particular is right in the crux of vetting their best options, and determining mixed uses for bringing in non-golfers; Dairy Creek Golf Course in San Luis Obispo, CA.

One quote from a recent article for Newsdeeply.com sums up the objectives; “So what we’re looking to do is pretty much bring the entire community together to educate them on the issues and plan for the future. We’re hoping to do some things that attract 100 percent of the community by expanding the alternate uses: camping, hiking, annual event opportunities.” By clicking here, you can read the entire piece, which also goes into some of our other projects.

In closing, we would love to hear from more of you! What would you like to see in future newsletters? What's most important to you as an administrator that we may be under emphasizing? Feedback can be sent directly to our inbox by clicking here!

Please remember, we present Community Links webinars at no charge to administrators who oversee struggling facilities. If that's of interest to you, please tell us about your golf course by clicking here. Great decisions start with open-ended dialog, so let’s start a positive, open dialog today.

Sincerely,

Andy Staples, ASGCA