Food For Thought

If you’re a course operator in my neck of the woods, the snow is on the ground and 2019 is in the books… no one will be putting a peg in the ground on your first tee until well into 2020. It’s that time of the year to sit back and THINK for a bit and formulate your plans for 2020 so you’ll have time to implement your changes before spring.  Some would argue that December is the most important month of your year… good planning now could make a substantial difference in your results next year. One decision that every Upper Midwest golf course operator faces this time …

When I was a kid, I remember calculating how old I’d be when 2000 arrived and it seemed like forever away.  Now here we are in 2020.  Happy New Decade. What does your 2020 vision reveal? Will the golf industry continue to shrink slowly as the attention span of the younger generation shrivels and as economic realities evolve to make it impossible to justify devoting 100+ acres of prime real estate to golf? Or are we on the cusp of a ‘Roaring 20s’ for the industry where the providers of the greatest game ever invented find a way to restore positive growth? I don’t know for sure… neither do you… all …

Should we be doing more to help young golfers stay engaged in the game as they enter adulthood?

Monopolies are not built to last. No matter how strong a position a competitor may hold at any point in time… staying on top is often harder than getting there in the first place.

We continue to watch the evolution of the golf course management software market… here are the results of our most recent research… with much more coming in September.

Have your digital assets been tidied up recently? If not, give them a good scrub.

Salespeople should listen at least twice as much as they talk. Do you agree?

Drivable par 4s create vivid memories. Do you have any of these thrill producers on your course?

Those people that yell “It’s in the hole” every time a pro hits a shot at a PGA event are awfully annoying, but every once in awhile the ball actually does go in.

After a dismal weather year in the Twin Cities Metro in 2018, the Golf Gadfly expected the rate of golf course closures to tick upward this year… but it appears that the opposite has happened. Do you know why?