Golfers Are Putting Dollar Value On Their Time

Tiffany Gordon is general manager and executive professional of the Cottonwood Golf and Country Club near Calgary and president of the PGA of Alberta. She frequently lends her thoughts to GNN, including the following on the year ahead.

When I look at 2010 from an operations standpoint, I think that we’ve got a little bit of a rough ride left in us with the economy. I think to say that the economic crisis is over is pretty aggressive.

Are things going to get better? Yes.

Are we through it? No, I’m not budgeting to be there this year. I think we’ve got another year similar to 2009 ahead of us.

From my standpoint, I think we’re going to see people making decisions based not only on economics, but also the time required to play the game. I think we need to be more proactive in improving pace of play.

People still want to play the game, but they’re starting to put a dollar value on time. We never did – it was just time. However, it’s not just time anymore and people are calculating what their time is worth because they’re forced to, so I think that’s going to play a part in our success in the future.

At Cottonwood, we’ve made a really aggressive run at our pace of play program. That’s always been a big selling feature for us as a club. When pace of play is good, you’re a hero. If it’s slow, it can skewer you.

If the couple who plays golf on Friday afternoons after work has to endure five hours on the golf course, they wont come in for dinner to have your Friday night special or a glass of wine and chat it up with a bunch of the other members.

Instead, they head right for their lockers, they’re ticked off and they’re out of there. That’s not the atmosphere or the culture that we’re trying to create.

To improve pace of play, we’re looking at changing up our intervals. We’re looking at help with our services at the halfway house and going with a stationary cart versus a roaming beverage cart because a roaming cart, depending on the day, can slow things up.

We’re going with a real education program about ready golf and the etiquette of the game. There’s a huge stress that needs to be placed by the industry on education.

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