There are plenty of people sharpening their knives and predicting the death of golf club membership – but there remains life in the old dog yet.
Headlines have screamed all year it is in decline. We’ve seen clubs going to the wall. Industry experts are lining up to tell us more will follow. Resignation rates at clubs are reported to be on the rise.
Yet there are reasons to remain optimistic. Recent figures released by England Golf revealed there are still over 730,000 golf club members in that country alone.
Given the average price of a yearly subscription must be pushing £1,000 now, and is much more in many places, I think the number of people prepared to commit that kind of sum of money remains astonishing.
When you consider there were 647,224 members just four years ago, as the game had gone through a decade or so of stagnation, you can see many of the gains brought about in such tragic circumstances by the Covid pandemic remain in place.
Membership is clearly in a better position than it was at the start of the decade, despite the doom-mongers.
The huge number of iGolfers (some 60,000 now accounting for more than 7 per cent of those with a handicap index in England) combined with the millions of people who pick up their sticks at least once a year also shows there is still enormous potential for growth in the sport.
That is not to say clubs shouldn’t be mindful. The days of keeping membership as an exercise in loyalty are rapidly running out.
Traditional stalwarts tend to get their heckles up when I say this but the experience is becoming more of a transactional exercise. That will only increase.
Clubs must give golfers a membership experience they treasure
Cost of living remains a challenge. Who among us isn’t feeling the squeeze as food prices and utilities continue to eat at our salaries?
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Who has the money to pay for things they don’t use? Golfers are members because they want to play regularly. When that doesn’t happen, whether it’s for injury, illness, family, or time, it’s a relatively easy decision to ditch a big financial commitment in the face of others more pressing.
So clubs must concentrate on providing members with an experience they treasure and want to keep. They also need to spend as much time retaining members as trying to recruit new ones.
I’ve been in and out of a couple of doors during my days and I can tell you from experience they are not always amazing at this. If you’ve had a spell away from the fairways, does your club get in touch? Or is the air only filled with the sound of silence?
For those who’ve decided to move for the exits, have you ever been asked why you’re leaving? I’ve slinked out without a word ever being uttered.
They were none the wiser as to why I’d gone. There was no chance to learn. Maybe they didn’t care. I was history. Yesterday’s man. But there was never anything to say I might not return. Wasn’t it worth 10 minutes of their time to find out?
Clubs don’t always need to offer a new subscriber an 18 for 12-month deal. But they do need to keep those already within the confines of the clubhouse committed and engaged. It costs far less to keep a member than to gain one.
I’d hope clubs would work hard to talk to their customers – because that’s really what they are. They should survey them, understand their needs, work out what makes them tick. That takes time and effort, of course, but surely it’s less stressful than the never-ending carousel of continually trying to plug more holes with new faces?
For while the end is far from nigh for golf club membership, work remains to be done to convince people of its joys – or we could very soon find ourselves back in difficult waters.
Now have your say
How do you think golf club membership is shaping up? Are you worried for its future? Do you agree that loyalty is no longer enough? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment on X.
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