Golf club managers can go a bit quiet when you start talking about membership renewals. There isn’t much else that can turn their knuckles whiter than the contemplation of a number that’s leaning towards the side of a heavy loss.
Industry experts talk about it in bleak terms too. It’s known as the resignation rate. The aim is to come out with as few of those as possible and, hopefully, breathe a sigh of relief as you contemplate another year ahead. Such has been the way of the golfing world over the last decade and a half.
But add a pandemic into that already frantic mix, and try and encourage people whose own economic prospects looked bleak as lockdown took hold, and the shuttered windows and bolted doors at the club made everything look even more terrifying.
Some turned to what they knew to get through in one piece – a month free here, 15 for the price of 12 there, pay the interest deals: get the numbers in now and bank on things turning around when golf became the socially distanced sport of dreams.
Holme Hall Golf Club went another way. Perhaps there was a hint of anguish when 76 members disappeared as the Scunthorpe club started their new membership year at the height of the shutdown.
If there was, though, they stood firm and then decided to make a wider point about the way they priced what they had to offer.
“We did lose members – who either didn’t re-join or didn’t want to pay while they weren’t getting any golf and simply cancelled,” says club general manager Andrew Watson.
“They weren’t the traditional members. Once golf returned, we very quickly got most of them back and the number returned to a normal figure.
“There were obviously some offers and discounts being offered (by some clubs). We’ve taken the view that part of the problem in this area is that golf has been driven down. It’s the price spiral and it’s always been a bidding war between the clubs.”
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It’s the course where a young Tony Jacklin honed the iron play that won him Opens on both sides of the Atlantic but Holme Hall is squeezed on all sides by golf clubs – from the massive Forest Pines resort, to the likes of Grange Park and Normanby Hall.
