Connecticut’s golf course suffered significant losses in the number of rounds play and spend per round through the first half of the year, all but insuring a negative season for the industry.
Through June — one of the most popular months in Connecticut for golf — 8,299 rounds were played, down 12.2 percent from last year. Golfers also spent less per round than 2010, with the average revenue per round dropping 7.2 percent this year, according to industry statistician PGA Performance Trak.
Golf courses “don’t expect to recover,” said Ron Drapeau, executive director of the Connecticut State Golf Association. “Lost days are lost days, and you can’t make them up.”
The weather was the undoing of many golf courses this spring, especially in June, Drapeau said. The weather was cold, cloudy and rainy, keeping rounds and revenues down.
“You’ve also got the lingering bad economy, which impacts whether somebody sticks around after their round for a sandwich and a beer,” Drapeau said.
The average temperature in the Greater Hartford area was 68.5 degrees in June with 6.75 inches of rainfall and 28 days of cloudy or partly cloudy weather, according to the National Climatic Data Center. June 2010 had much fairer weather with an average temperature of 70.6 degrees, 4.02 inches of rain and 25 days of cloudy or partly cloudy weather.
Recreational golf is a $1.1 billion industry in Connecticut with 11,500 employees. In the Northeast, the golf season is short compared to the rest of the nation, starting around mid-April and wrapping up in October.
June is a critical month for the golf industry in Connecticut, Drapeau said. Kids are out of school, the days of sunlight are the longest, and businesses entertain clients on the fairways. PGA Tour event The Travelers Championship is held in June in Cromwell, spiking interest among recreational players.
With the significant downturn for the first half of the year, courses can hope for an above-average autumn to make up the difference, Drapeau said. But in the fall, kids are back in school, and courses fight against the return of football. It’s next to impossible to make up the difference.
“Guys my age aren’t going to go play 36 holes just because they missed a day in the spring,” Drapeau said. “It is a challenge being in the golf industry in New England.”
The PGA Performance Trak numbers include private, public, municipal and resort golf courses. Although a breakdown by course type isn’t available for Connecticut, private and resort golf courses fared much better nationally.
Although fewer rounds mean fewer guest fees and cart rentals, “the weather isn’t as detrimental to the private clubs as it is to the public courses,” said David Costenbader, general manager for the Wampanoag Country Club in West Hartford.
Private courses are driven more by their membership numbers than the rounds played, Costenbader said. In the recession of the last three years, private clubs around Connecticut are hurting for membership, as more people drop the expense from their budgets.
“Most clubs are looking to build their membership, and if somebody says that they aren’t, they are probably lying,” Costenbader said.
Last year, Wampanoag launched a new membership initiative where new members and sponsoring members receive two years of due credits when a new member joins. The program helped Wampanoag add more than 40 members this year, bringing the club to 350 members, and hopefully securing solid membership numbers for the immediate future.
The club also pushes the staycation concept to entice new members. Rather than families spending money for a one-time vacation, Wampanoag promotes the idea of spending the same amount of money for a membership giving access to club amenities all year long.
“If you can keep a new member active through two golf seasons, you are likely to keep them for seven years or more,” Costenbader said.
Wampanoag Country Club still wants to increase the number of rounds played by its members because then they get maximum value for their membership, Costenbader said. Value helps keep members with the club longer.
One club not hurting for rounds or revenue is TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, where The Travelers Championship is played each June.
Despite surrendering 10 days of play to the PGA tournament in June, the number of rounds at TPC was up 150 rounds in that month alone. The weather had an opposite effect on the club.
“Because of the weather, there has been pent-up demand for all our services,” said Bill Whaley, TPC general manager. “Knock on wood, we are pinching ourselves that we are having a stellar year.”
Like Wampanoag, TPC keeps its membership numbers under control to avoid saturating its facilities and disturbing the current membership. TPC is in the midst of a membership drive, adding 37 members in 2010 and continuing the program into this year.
TPC is part of a chain of 21 clubs across the nation managed by the PGA. Unlike a stand-alone club, TPC isn’t as impact by fluctuations in the market and has access to capital to keep its quality up to members’ standards, Whaley said.
Hosting The Travelers Championship helps as well.
“People enjoy playing golf and measuring their rounds against the best players in golf,” Whaley said.
