Golf Course Greed

GenErr

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My buddies and I pay a yearly fee to play golf at a nearby course. The fee allows golf with cart, monday thru and including friday. They have another membership that allows play 7 days a week, which costs more, and we don't need since we don't golf on weekends. We've continued this 5-day membership for about the past 5-6 years.

This year we were informed by the club that they will still offer a 5-day membership (at the regular 5-day yearly fee rate), however, during June, July and August, we will only be allowed to play monday thru thursday. They are reserving fridays for the LBI vacationing golfers. We can play on friday, we were told, if we pay the normal daily rate for golf and cart! This would be in addition to our yearly membership fee!

Obviously there are a lot of angry golfers, but it appears at this point there is no recourse. If we want to play on fridays, we either ante up an additional daily fee for golf and cart, or we pay the additional amount for a 7-day membership, which allows play on friday.

What do you think about this, and what would you do? The one advantage of the course is that it is a 5-minute drive for most of us, the other golf courses are at least a 25-30 minute drive.
 
Is it a course that you could walk? This would save the cart fee at least.
 
Did the rate for the 5 Day (except summer months) membership go down accordingly for blocking out an additional 13+ days? If not, then I'd have to consider how much I play on Friday and do the math on which is the better value at which point.
 
Time to do the math.
 
I guess its about how important the Fridays are to you guys... many courses have gone to including Fridays in the weekend rates. Maybe not many, but several...
 
Sounds about right for most things these days. I would have to do the math if I was playing a bunch of fridays. Or ask them why the rate didn't change for the loss of all those days..
 
I don't know if this is a case of greed, or just rising costs/opportunity costs for the golf course. Of course, golf courses are free to adjust pricing and offers to maintain profitability. Maybe they are losing money in another area and need to boost profits in this way.

Sorry that the deal changed, sounded like it was a good one for you.
 
Could be greed, or could be necessary to keep the course alive. Hard to say without a ton more info.
 
Is it greed if enough demand is there to validate an increase in price, which is essentially what the result of this is? Maybe you were lucky to have a sweetheart deal for the past few years?


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I'm going to go with the others and agree that it probably isn't greed. Costs are rising all over the place and if the demand on Fridays outopaced the supply than the options were raise prices or cut the membership.
 
I guess its about how important the Fridays are to you guys... many courses have gone to including Fridays in the weekend rates. Maybe not many, but several...

The club I work at includes Thursday AND Friday in the weekly rates. $125 Mon-Wed and $150 Thurs-Sun
 
Most of the Courses I play in New England consider Fri part of the Weekend and these are all public courses.

It's not greed by the way. They are changing the deal going forward and it's not as good as the last deal. It's your decision whether you want to take advantage or go find a better deal at another course.

Maintenance costs aren't fixed and usually cost more each year. Expecting a deal to stay the same forever is unreasonable.
 
My buddies and I pay a yearly fee to play golf at a nearby course. The fee allows golf with cart, monday thru and including friday. They have another membership that allows play 7 days a week, which costs more, and we don't need since we don't golf on weekends. We've continued this 5-day membership for about the past 5-6 years.

This year we were informed by the club that they will still offer a 5-day membership (at the regular 5-day yearly fee rate), however, during June, July and August, we will only be allowed to play monday thru thursday. They are reserving fridays for the LBI vacationing golfers. We can play on friday, we were told, if we pay the normal daily rate for golf and cart! This would be in addition to our yearly membership fee!

Obviously there are a lot of angry golfers, but it appears at this point there is no recourse. If we want to play on fridays, we either ante up an additional daily fee for golf and cart, or we pay the additional amount for a 7-day membership, which allows play on friday.

What do you think about this, and what would you do? The one advantage of the course is that it is a 5-minute drive for most of us, the other golf courses are at least a 25-30 minute drive.

Not greed, just basic supply/demand factors. Golf courses are becoming increasingly expensive to maintain and operate.
Outside tournament play, higher greens fee Fri-Sat-Sun play, and food-beverage sales are the factors which allow a lot of courses to stay open rather than close up shop forever.
 
I'm used to friday being treated as the weekend, so I can understand why they'd do that. I would think they'd do like a limited time discounted friday rate or something transitionally, but I don't think they really have to. It does suck, but it is business.
 
Our private course has started allowing public play but members still have priority. A lot of members dropped their membership but after doing the math, I play too much to justify dropping mine.
Sad to say but either pony up for Fridays or plan on not playing those 3 days.


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A few courses around here treat Friday like part of the weekend anyways, rates are higher.
 
Thanks for the responses. We've done the math and it still is a pretty good deal, its just the principle of the thing that bothers us. I guess we thought that golf courses would treat their yearly members a little better than this, but as many have pointed out, its just business!
 
Is it greed if enough demand is there to validate an increase in price, which is essentially what the result of this is? Maybe you were lucky to have a sweetheart deal for the past few years?


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The club I work at includes Thursday AND Friday in the weekly rates. $125 Mon-Wed and $150 Thurs-Sun

I have to agree with the above. Supply and demand rule in business... at least it should. Private businesses should be able to charge whatever they deem necessary for their product without any interference. If they don't sell enough, then they know they've priced themselves out of the market and they'll have to lower their rates. If they continue to sell out and realize demand is greater than they anticipated, then the cost might rise more still. Sadly, this doesn't work for everything the way it should.

Thanks for the responses. We've done the math and it still is a pretty good deal, its just the principle of the thing that bothers us. I guess we thought that golf courses would treat their yearly members a little better than this, but as many have pointed out, its just business!

As stated above, I agree with the S&D concept. However, I'm with you in your thought that businesses should treat their loyal customers better. It irks me that I have to renegotiate subscription prices so often on everything from cable (had to do it with Comcast, Verizon, and now Cox) to SiriusXM (wife negotiates it every 5-6 months) to cell phone plans, etc. Long term loyalty means nothing to most companies anymore.
 
I was really hoping to be a regular member at my local course, but the prices are so high I would literally have to play 10 times per month to save $5. I like to play various courses, and I'm lucky to play twice a week so I'll stick with the JC golf membership which gives me a small discount at 8 local courses.

Whiskey
 
Arghhh those Benny's and shoobies!

If you play primarily on Friday, may don't even do the membership and just put that money towards the fridylay rounds (and the occasion mon-thurs round)

They should at least offer a discounted rate for you guys on Friday if you keep the membership

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I don't know too many courses at all that don't consider Friday part of the weekend and therefore have higher play rates. You should ask them if the price you paid for the membership is less since you don't get that day now though!
 
This is not going to be the popular opinion here but public golf courses aren't making their money on the majority of "pass holders" because pass holders are not typically the big spenders. What golf courses need to survive are the occasional group of golfers that don't mind spending money on a premium tee time and then drop a bunch of money on beer, food, snacks, balls, etc because they are out to have a good time with their buddies and not set the course record.

I don't mind that the pass I have at a public course is restricted M-F and after 11 AM on weekends and holidays. Furthermore, there are tournaments nearly every day this time of year so I don't get to play much now. The reason it doesn't bother me is that it keeps my pass cheap because the course saves the premium times for the $70-$80 per person foresomes that will also drop another $100 at the course and not have that tee time tied up by 4 pass holders that may buy 2 sodas and a candy bar between them. There is a significant opportunity cost leaving prime tee times open to pass holders.
 
This is not going to be the popular opinion here but public golf courses aren't making their money on the majority of "pass holders" because pass holders are not typically the big spenders. What golf courses need to survive are the occasional group of golfers that don't mind spending money on a premium tee time and then drop a bunch of money on beer, food, snacks, balls, etc because they are out to have a good time with their buddies and not set the course record.

I don't mind that the pass I have at a public course is restricted M-F and after 11 AM on weekends and holidays. Furthermore, there are tournaments nearly every day this time of year so I don't get to play much now. The reason it doesn't bother me is that it keeps my pass cheap because the course saves the premium times for the $70-$80 per person foresomes that will also drop another $100 at the course and not have that tee time tied up by 4 pass holders that may buy 2 sodas and a candy bar between them. There is a significant opportunity cost leaving prime tee times open to pass holders.

I agree with your logic as me and my golfing buddies play golf and go home. We don't spend money at the bar, or buy over-priced golf balls, gloves, tees, etc. at the pro shop, as the vacationers do.

HOWEVER, we are there in the off season, playing golf during the week when the vacation crowd is long gone. We pay our yearly membership and the course gets the benefit of our yearly fees when no one else plays. If all of the yearly monday-friday golfers chose not to join the club, it would have a severe impact on their financials. But the decision has been made, and we'll probably join again, and re-adjust our golfing schedules around the 10-12 fridays that we're not allowed to play in the summer.
 
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