Saving Big Expenditures For Later This Year

As I’ve mentioned in past contributions, I think there’s a good feeling in golf after the economic challenges of the past year or so.

I think what’s happening is that people are realizing that the sky isn’t falling, but there’s a wait-and-see attitude as opposed to a “woe is me” attitude.

A month ago, it was the dead of winter, but I’ve had a lot more calls in the last two weeks than I have in the past couple of months with the season quickly approaching.

We’re talking about capital expenditures right now and we’re talking with the board and even members and the way we’re looking at it is that we’ll look at doing some capital expenditures, but now is not the time to go too crazy.

Let’s wait and see what the summer brings is our mindset.

I think it’s one of those things where people are excited about changes at their own golf course, the little things, but let’s see where the summer goes before we commit to that major change.

I don’t think golf courses are saying let’s not make the major change, but instead believe that the summer is going to be great, so let’s not jump the gun right now.

We’re more optimistic now, but we haven’t said it’s over just yet, so let’s not do everything right now. It’s more like we can see our way through this, so we’ll do a little now, but we’ll probably do a lot more in the fall.

If things go well in June-July-August, we may be ready to unveil big changes in August, even if they don’t get started until November-December. You hope that, in August, you have the means to say, `We’re doing it, look at these renderings, look at these drawings.’

Then, people might look at those renderings and realize that the start of this project is only a few months from beginning. Why wait until next April to get the accolades? Get the excitement up this summer.

We’ve opened the purse strings lately. They’re not wide open, but planning for when they are may result in a pleasant buzz circulating around your clubhouse.