Muni Golf Practice Facilities Need Love!

Community Golf Fan,

Staples Golf has been doing a lot of work recently on practice facilities, and want to stress the importance of improving your course's practice facilities to capitalize on current golf trends, and driving revenue. Oddly enough, this is a significant area of neglect for many courses, so here are 5 Reasons Why Your Practice Facility Offerings Might Deserve More Attention:

Practice: A Big Draw

Practice Facilities are the most crucial piece to player development, and what used to be "warm up" ranges, are now becoming full blown learning centers. Golfer habits have evolved over recent years with our every increasing busy lives, and most don’t have time to play 5 hours rounds anymore. Therefore, the nation is seeing an increase in the use of driving ranges, putting courses, short courses, and other practice facilities to accommodate this reality. Technology in the form of simulators are also becoming drastically more popular for their easy of use and wealth of informative swing data.

Widening Your Net

Quality practice facilities appeal to the serious golfers dedicated to improving their game, which means these facilities play a significant role as competitive differentiators. Golfers that take their game this seriously, are happy to drive much further out of their way to the facility that appeals to all aspects their game's improvement. By providing the type of facility worthy of extended travel, operators can capture golf practitioners in which their golf course alone, might not appeal to for play.

First Impressions

Most golfers are willing to check-out a practice facility first and foremost, as a means of convenience, regardless of their preference for playing the "more prestigious" courses. Getting your practice facility right in the mind of the cachet golfer, will encourage them to give their "local muni" a try, and if your course can offer an above par experience, you’ll likely have a new green-fee customer. Here's a great article by the USGA on Investing in Practice Facilities if the aim is to appeal to new customers.

A Place to Congregate

If done properly, a course’s practice facility can actually be a place worthy of socializing and hanging-out, particularly when working in concert with the clubhouse. By creating an improved sense of community, your facility can bring in more golfers, more often, and have them sticking around longer. This is especially true for families who are getting their kids involved with golf, and if your course can offer some non-golfing activities for the youngsters, that's even better. Triggering this subtle, subconscious feeling of "belonging" in your customers, is going to result in much more utilization.  

More Revenue

In the end, our emphasis on the increased utilization of your practice facility through quality improvements, almost makes this last reason unnecessary to point out, but it's perhaps the most important takeaway. So with all of this said, consider checking out this article onPracticing with Purpose to further understand what those serious golfers look for in a quality practice facility.

Here's What You Need To Know:
- Practice Facilities are evolving into serious learning centers
- Practice Facilities can be used to increase patronage
- Practice Facilities act as first impressions
- Practice Facilities can foster a sense of community
- Practice Facilities can make you more money(!)

Additional Resources:
- Click here for the Staples Golf's Philosophy on Practice Facilities.
- And click here to view some of our practice facility projects.

Timing is Everything

We realize more often than not, everything comes down to timing, so when you're ready for us, we'll be ready for you and your golf course!

Please remember, we present webinars at no charge to stakeholders who oversee facilities looking to improve. If that's of interest to you, please tell us about your golf course byclicking here.

Sincerely,

Andy Staples, ASGCA