What we know about golf today after COVID

Let’s go back in time. It is January 20^th, 2020. The Sunbelt is playing lots of rounds as the industry gets ready for another PGA Merchandise Show. There is nothing extraordinary on the calendar at the club beyond wondering about the final 2019 numbers and how they might grow 3-4% in 2020. Fast forward to March 30^th, and the world has gone dark. The pandemic has set in and this country, like the rest of the planet, is scrambling, looking for answers on how to protect lives and really, protect a way of life. It is a time we have never seen before. Unlike other catastrophes, this pandemic is surrounding the entire globe with an invisible yet deadly virus. At this moment, March 30^th, 2020, there is no cure, no go-forward plan. The instructions: stay at home and when you must go shopping wear a mask and stay six feet away from anyone and everyone.

We are now back. It is May 2024, and the pandemic is behind us. For the golf operator, the world moved from a place of absolute fear to a place where it felt like everyone now wanted to be your friend, promising to be your best customer. Golf was hot! No, it was warmer than hot. If you haven’t done a review of this period, it may make for a good study. This post is about what we know today, right now about the business. It has gone through glorious times but with ugly migraines, back pain, and palpable stress throughout these four years. In this In My Opinion post, I will touch on three things we know today about the industry:

There were more than 530 million rounds of golf played in the U.S. in 2023: It is a truly amazing number, one I hope the game can reach again. With the old average being in the ballpark of 441-443 million rounds per year, the 2023 number simply says WOW. It is especially earthshaking when you consider that rates were largely higher across the country as people continued their addiction to the sport. What a life-changing time.

Just as with every other industry, golf is going through a talent crisis: Busy times produce great burnout, and Boomers are moving away from careers at an alarming rate. These changes will continue to leave grand holes in many a work schedule. Finding talent, developing talent, and paying for that talent is a very different conversation in 2024 than it was even in 2019. Talent is leaving the game in large numbers as people look to work from home or just not work when the rest of America is on vacation or simply taking the weekend to clean the garage.

YouTube is becoming the golf instructor of choice: This is the mentality for many young people new to the game. Why go to the range and take hours and hours of lessons when instead a person can watch and repeat on the phone or the pad from home or the park? While there is no argument that the men and women of the PGA of America provide great instruction, including for all parts of the game, the average new golfer may simply not know the options and opportunities available at your facility. As I have suggested before, helping people play better golf should be an integral part of a golf club offering and its membership menu. It simply makes sense that when people are playing better, they will want to play more. The opposite can also be true. By combining menu items, those assets that make sense to golfers, you are moving your offering to a place where so many new golfers already hang out. Combine value, add membership dollars, and improve the experience to help keep the post-pandemic round euphoria growing.

The staffing situation will take an understanding of what talent expects. What they will offer, what they ask for in return. No doubt, it will be a change, a new way to operate the business. Know that COVID changed not only the world over three years, it changed the way people think about what’s next. Isn’t it better to rebuild now than to start from a deeper hole later? To maintain the success of the recent past, you will need talented men and women to drive the business.

We have also learned one other thing: through the period of the toughest times within the men’s professional game, people have focused on their health and their golf. They simply left that conversation behind to hang with family and friends and search for that sweet spot one more time. In early 2020, we were blind to what was about to happen to the game and the world. Today, we know a few things vital to how we might move forward. Although 2019 was just five years ago, the way people think and act today makes 2019 simply a distant memory.

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Jack Dillon writes the In My Opinion post. Jack is a long-time golf expert, speaker, consultant, merchant, and coach in service and communications. Check in to learn more. Jack and his associates can offer you and your club real change for this new game. Go to www.youdontknowjackd.com to learn more, or call Jack at 407-973-6136. Jack and his associates all live in Florida.