I’m bummed. One more enjoyable thing in life is becoming incrementally more expensive and out of reach financially. For me, that’s golf.
Increasing prices for the products and services we use are nothing new. And golf has never been a cheap sport. It is certainly an investment of time and money if you want to play decently and feel like you accomplish something.
But for the past five years or so, my older brother and I found a great way to lower the cost and play for less than $20 per round in the Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) metro area. If you went near any urban area in the world, you probably couldn’t play for twice that cost.
A local golf management company put together a card that you purchased for anywhere from $169-$229 depending on the price that year, then you got to play all the courses for free, any time of day, any time of the week, and the fee included use of a cart. You can’t beat that.
As long as we stuck to the 10-12 courses on the card (you got to play each course once, and if you played it a second time, you still got a 20 percent discount), the average cost was less than twenty bucks per outing. That’s dang good.
That system is now going away. We knew it was too good to last, but kept thanking the golf gods for giving us the opportunity to hang out together and not break our respective family banks. Now, we’re not sure what to do.
The company that put the card out in past years has been taken over by a new management firm and the way the pay structure is now set up, you get a couple of free courses and a percentage discount. It’s hardly worth it.
The card had put the price of golf back into the range where more people could consider playing the sport. Without it, the field narrows considerably. And that’s incredibly sad.
It’s another example of something going way beyond the means of the Normal Joe. So my brother and I will play less, look for special deals, maybe go out at twilight just to get some swings in, tell a few jokes and stories, and appreciate the hangout time.
Golf is certainly discretionary personal spending, so many people will have little sympathy for the message here. They can’t afford golf regardless, or they don’t care about it.
Golf is a business. Those who run courses have to make their ends meet, and most must turn a profit to stay alive. If fewer people play, management must raise fees, or figure out some way to make money elsewhere, like at the bar, driving range, pro shop or restaurant.
Cutting costs is the other option. Have fewer people work on the maintenance crew, don’t mow the fairways as often, curtail your hours of operation. The measures are similar to those taken by any industry looking to stay alive year after year.
So I get it. But it doesn’t make it any less sad for someone who loves the game, being outdoors, enjoying the elements rather than holing up inside.
I fear for the game and its future. Millennials already forsake the game. People raising kids don’t have time to play. Fees, equipment and golf balls are all dollar investments that keep the cost out of reach of the mainstream.
When we lose special deals, the next round of players gets squeezed out. Pretty soon there won’t be anyone left.
Increasing prices for the products and services we use are nothing new. And golf has never been a cheap sport. It is certainly an investment of time and money if you want to play decently and feel like you accomplish something.
But for the past five years or so, my older brother and I found a great way to lower the cost and play for less than $20 per round in the Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) metro area. If you went near any urban area in the world, you probably couldn’t play for twice that cost.
A local golf management company put together a card that you purchased for anywhere from $169-$229 depending on the price that year, then you got to play all the courses for free, any time of day, any time of the week, and the fee included use of a cart. You can’t beat that.
As long as we stuck to the 10-12 courses on the card (you got to play each course once, and if you played it a second time, you still got a 20 percent discount), the average cost was less than twenty bucks per outing. That’s dang good.
That system is now going away. We knew it was too good to last, but kept thanking the golf gods for giving us the opportunity to hang out together and not break our respective family banks. Now, we’re not sure what to do.
The company that put the card out in past years has been taken over by a new management firm and the way the pay structure is now set up, you get a couple of free courses and a percentage discount. It’s hardly worth it.
The card had put the price of golf back into the range where more people could consider playing the sport. Without it, the field narrows considerably. And that’s incredibly sad.
It’s another example of something going way beyond the means of the Normal Joe. So my brother and I will play less, look for special deals, maybe go out at twilight just to get some swings in, tell a few jokes and stories, and appreciate the hangout time.
Golf is certainly discretionary personal spending, so many people will have little sympathy for the message here. They can’t afford golf regardless, or they don’t care about it.
Golf is a business. Those who run courses have to make their ends meet, and most must turn a profit to stay alive. If fewer people play, management must raise fees, or figure out some way to make money elsewhere, like at the bar, driving range, pro shop or restaurant.
Cutting costs is the other option. Have fewer people work on the maintenance crew, don’t mow the fairways as often, curtail your hours of operation. The measures are similar to those taken by any industry looking to stay alive year after year.
So I get it. But it doesn’t make it any less sad for someone who loves the game, being outdoors, enjoying the elements rather than holing up inside.
I fear for the game and its future. Millennials already forsake the game. People raising kids don’t have time to play. Fees, equipment and golf balls are all dollar investments that keep the cost out of reach of the mainstream.
When we lose special deals, the next round of players gets squeezed out. Pretty soon there won’t be anyone left.