FOR THOSE WHO STILL FEEL THE NEED TO STUDY

Four days after the National Allied Golf Associations trumpeted the findings of their economic impact study, I went and played a casual round with a bud of mine, a typical Saturday morning pastime for folks who merely love the game as opposed to working within it.

From what I saw that day, there were no high fives between golfers about the positive results in the NAGA report, nor did I see a conga line of patrons dancing down the cart paths in celebration of its findings. I did hear a few F-bombs that I suspect had nothing to do with the report and more to do with a triple bogey.

Of course, golfers are going to be more worried about their scorecard than a study. Golfers are like kids who want the latest video game, but don’t worry about the hours their parents work in order for them to enjoy such entertainment.
That isn’t a criticism of golfers, either.

Why should they spend time pouring over the results of such a study? Many of them get enough of that at their own jobs, so the last thing they want to do under a blue sky, if there is such a thing anymore, on a Saturday is pay attention to
numbers and dollar signs.

The only numbers that matter to them are the ones that go on the scorecard and how they relate to par and the only dollars they’re concerned with are how many they shelled out to play. They use golf to wind down from business, not to be thrown back into it.

So, it means little that the seven associations within NAGA either individually or as a group will use the results to lobby various levels of government on subjects such as high property taxes, the inclusion of golf as a legitimate business expense, pesticides and water issues.

“On the surface, they’re not going to care,” admitted Jeff Calderwood, executive director of the National Golf Course Owners Association, which is a member of NAGA.

In explaining the importance of the study, Calderwood boiled it down to a simple principle, that being that if the cost of business goes up, so too does the price paid by consumers.

If golf isn’t armed with numbers that show its positive economic impact, then “we’re going to have to put the price of golf up, or there’s going to be nobody else wanting to build a golf course because they’ve made it impossible to run the
business through government regulation,” said Calderwood.

“So, there are several results that affect consumers,” he added.

There are less places to play, or they cost more, or the service levels go down, you’ve got brown greens. Those things translate into what’s in the golfers’ interests, but they’re not going to see that on the surface out of this report,” said
Calderwood.

It’s now up to NAGA to determine how the numbers in the study are used. Calderwood says he would like to see something like the National Golf Day that was held in the United States earlier this year, in which leaders of the game went to Washington to spread the good news about the game’s economic impact there.

Canadian golf is also armed well, according to the study conducted by the Strategic Networks Group Inc in 2008 that included 350 golf courses and more than 4,000 golfers across the country.

The study showed that golf accounts for $11.3-billion of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product, including 341,794 jobs, $7.6-billion in household income, $1.2-billion in property and other taxes and $1.9-billion in income taxes.

It also showed that Canadian golf generates an estimated $29.4-billion in gross spending, while the total direct sales from the industry is $13.6-billion, including $4.7-billion directly from golf courses, facilities, and driving ranges, which is
comparable to all other participation sports and recreation facilities combined.

Those are just some of the highlights to illustrate that NAGA has some impressive numbers to carry into its government lobbying efforts and to use in other issues affecting the industry, but there was one disturbing aspect to the study that comes from golfers who spoke through their actions.

Approximately 70-million rounds were played in Canada last year, a number that is as much as 10 per cent lower than previous years. While some have chalked that up to bad weather in 2008, the scary part is that the study was taken before the economy crashed last fall and more bad weather hit this year.

Therefore, if rounds were down five to 10 per cent in ’08, does that mean it’s double that or more because of a tougher economy and more of the same on the weather front. It could even be as high as 20 to 25 per cent, but it’s so hard to say without the data.

However, it doesn’t take cold, hard numbers to clearly state that this is a trend that needs reversing sooner than later.

If the number of rounds continues to decline, it could have the same consequences that Calderwood mentioned, that being less places to play, service levels going down, brown greens and conceivably higher cost to play as the golf
course operators that remain struggle to stay in business.

All of that would only compound the problem because affordability, which may be the actual reason that rounds were down in 2008, was the biggest barrier to people playing the game, according to the most recent participation
study conducted for the Royal Canadian Golf Association.

If that’s the main reason for the decline in rounds, then the problem is more chronic than temporary, which it would be if the economy or weather were the causes and the problem becomes even more worrisome.

While golfers may not take an interest in what NAGA is doing with its economic impact study and what results may come out of ensuing industry efforts, it isn’t their job.

On the other hand, the industry needs to pay attention and respond to what consumers are telling them through the declining number of rounds.

That is its job.

• from The Fall 2009 Magazine | talking in your backSwing : Ian Hutchinson