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The State of the Golf Course Industry (2025 Edition) · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: The twenty twenties have been a weird time in the
0:03
Speaker 1: golf course industry. Golf architects are busier right now than
0:06
Speaker 1: they have been for a generation at least, and yet
0:10
Speaker 1: it seems harder and more expensive than ever to build
0:14
Speaker 1: new courses. The art of golf course design is thriving,
0:18
Speaker 1: the quality of the work being done is generally very high,
0:22
Speaker 1: but at the same time, a lot of golfers feel
0:25
Speaker 1: frustrated that so many of the best new and newly
0:29
Speaker 1: renovated courses are extremely expensive to play or simply inaccessible.
0:36
Speaker 1: So from a bird's eye view, we're in the midst
0:38
Speaker 1: of a renaissance, but from a ground level view, it
0:42
Speaker 1: just doesn't always feel that way. So in today's episode,
0:46
Speaker 1: we're exploring some of these dynamics with Greg Nathan, the
0:50
Speaker 1: President and CEO of the National Golf Foundation. Greg and
0:54
Speaker 1: I are talking about the current state of the golf
0:57
Speaker 1: course industry. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is Designing Golf.
1:09
Speaker 1: Greg Nathan, Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
1:12
Speaker 2: Great to be with you. Garrett.
1:15
Speaker 1: First of all, for those who aren't familiar, you are
1:18
Speaker 1: the President and CEO of the National Golf Foundation. What
1:22
Speaker 1: does the National Golf Foundation. Do I never have to
1:26
Speaker 1: answer that question.
1:27
Speaker 2: That's funny, you know, the NGF is is the best
1:32
Speaker 2: known as the independent and objective reporter on the vital
1:35
Speaker 2: signs of golf so on. On one side of our business,
1:40
Speaker 2: we're five oh one c six trade association. We are
1:44
Speaker 2: the trade association for every golf related business, the only
1:48
Speaker 2: organization that works with the business leaders, the leading companies
1:52
Speaker 2: in every vertical. But then the other part of our
1:57
Speaker 2: business is NGFC and that's where we do private research,
2:01
Speaker 2: marketing and consulting work for many of the most prominent
2:05
Speaker 2: companies in golf. And so that's what gives us the
2:08
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty degree view is that we study
2:11
Speaker 2: the supply and demand everything about the goth economy. But
2:17
Speaker 2: then we're also very fortunate to be let inside of
2:21
Speaker 2: some of the biggest golf companies. So it gives us
2:25
Speaker 2: a three hundred and sixty degree view that a lot
2:27
Speaker 2: of the business leaders like from us.
2:30
Speaker 1: You provide a great perspective on where the golf industry
2:34
Speaker 1: is at any given point. That's what I get out
2:36
Speaker 1: of a lot of your research and the kind of
2:40
Speaker 1: the writing that you do for the public based on
2:44
Speaker 1: your research, and so talking to you, talking to other
2:48
Speaker 1: people at the MGF is a great way for me
2:50
Speaker 1: to understand where the golf course industry is at any
2:53
Speaker 1: given point. And so that's what we're talking about today,
2:57
Speaker 1: specifically focusing on golf course development, since that's more my focus.
3:02
Speaker 1: I know you do an awful lot of research on
3:04
Speaker 1: other areas of the you know, supply and demand equation
3:07
Speaker 1: in the golf industry, but I'd like to get into
3:10
Speaker 1: golf course development. Has a starting point. I think we
3:14
Speaker 1: should probably say a few things about participation, right Obviously,
3:18
Speaker 1: participation in golf is the driver of new development and
3:22
Speaker 1: the source of vitality for the golf course design industry.
3:27
Speaker 1: I think everyone is aware that golf welcomed a lot
3:30
Speaker 1: of new players during the COVID years of twenty twenty
3:33
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty one. Has that uptick in participation proven durable?
3:41
Speaker 2: You know? Is? It is a generationally incredible time right
3:45
Speaker 2: now in the golf business, Garrett. I've looked forward to
3:50
Speaker 2: our conversation about the development side, but there are more
3:53
Speaker 2: ways today than it seems than ever for people to
3:56
Speaker 2: participate in this game. Of course, the NNGF reports always
4:00
Speaker 2: about the green grass game. But we also know for
4:03
Speaker 2: many years been the most vocal advocate for off course participation,
4:09
Speaker 2: especially where someone hits a real ball with a real club,
4:12
Speaker 2: with a full swing, so that you can get golf's drug,
4:16
Speaker 2: you know, shot euphoria. So what we've had if I
4:20
Speaker 2: start at the top, let's just start with golf's reach.
4:25
Speaker 2: So we're at like nearly one hundred and forty million
4:29
Speaker 2: Americans who play, watch, read, or follow golf. That's like
4:35
Speaker 2: one out of every three Americans. Now we don't golf
4:39
Speaker 2: is ubiquitous today in a way that has never been
4:44
Speaker 2: so just on green grass participation. Now we're at about
4:47
Speaker 2: twenty eight million. I'm still using sort of the year
4:51
Speaker 2: end twenty twenty four numbers because we haven't released the
4:54
Speaker 2: new ones yet, but twenty eight point one en course,
4:59
Speaker 2: that's up sixteen percent from pre COVID twenty nineteen. Thirty
5:05
Speaker 2: six million Americans playing off course in essentially three different
5:11
Speaker 2: ways golf entertainment, screen golf, and traditional or gamified driving ranges.
5:18
Speaker 2: So we're just I mean, on the off course, we're
5:21
Speaker 2: up fifty five percent versus twenty nineteen, and it's just
5:26
Speaker 2: an incredible time relative to demand for tea times and
5:32
Speaker 2: demand for golf in general. And we're even getting you know,
5:37
Speaker 2: when we look at the capacity that's available for growth
5:41
Speaker 2: in public and private, we're really getting to the point
5:44
Speaker 2: where the white space is much smaller than it's been
5:49
Speaker 2: in a very long time, really since you know, like
5:52
Speaker 2: the mid eighties, I would say, and I can remember
5:56
Speaker 2: being in New York and you know, as as a
6:00
Speaker 2: young man, a young professional in the advertising industry in
6:03
Speaker 2: Manhattan in you know, nineteen ninety five, I had to
6:07
Speaker 2: wake up on Tuesday mornings and start speed dialing a
6:12
Speaker 2: golf course in Poughkeepsie, you know, an hour and fifteen
6:16
Speaker 2: minutes away. I was speed dialing for tea times. And
6:22
Speaker 2: if people still did speed dialing for tea times, they'd
6:25
Speaker 2: be doing it now. So demand is incredibly strong, and
6:31
Speaker 2: it's such an incredibly exciting time in the golf course business.
6:37
Speaker 2: And we can take that conversation anywhere you'd like it
6:40
Speaker 2: to go.
6:42
Speaker 1: Well, there are a number of different directions. I tend
6:45
Speaker 1: to be most interested in the green grass side of
6:47
Speaker 1: the equation, but I'm curious before we get there, what
6:52
Speaker 1: different forms participation takes. Right, This is a potentially very
6:57
Speaker 1: capacious term participation in in golf. You've mentioned already the
7:04
Speaker 1: various golf activities that people can do off the course,
7:08
Speaker 1: going to driving ranges, gamified driving ranges, top golf, et cetera.
7:14
Speaker 1: How in what other ways do you understand participation? How
7:19
Speaker 1: what does engagement in golf look like?
7:22
Speaker 2: I mean, I generally would would under most circumstances, Garrett,
7:27
Speaker 2: I'd keep a pretty narrow definition of places where I'd
7:30
Speaker 2: hit a real ball with a real club, with a
7:32
Speaker 2: full swing. If you were playing golf on a video game, okay,
7:37
Speaker 2: or you know, you step that up and you go
7:39
Speaker 2: to putt putt or adventure golf, or you go to
7:43
Speaker 2: the next level and you are going to what doctor
7:47
Speaker 2: Bettett's my predecessor, would have called a stop and swat
7:50
Speaker 2: driving range. You know, that's that's without the gamification. But
7:56
Speaker 2: you know, the off course that we generally track the
8:00
Speaker 2: closely is always going to be the full swing, reel ball,
8:05
Speaker 2: real club. Because you can get golf drug because in
8:09
Speaker 2: our study of how you get hooked, and most of
8:12
Speaker 2: the industry that we serve depends on green grass golf, well,
8:16
Speaker 2: you can get hooked by getting shot euphoria and that's
8:20
Speaker 2: why we track those three methods so closely the golf
8:24
Speaker 2: entertainment like top golf, screen golf, or driving range, because
8:28
Speaker 2: then you'd be like, hmmm, I like the way that felt.
8:32
Speaker 2: I liked watching the ball fly. And that's what can
8:37
Speaker 2: often motivate someone to go play in green grass. And
8:40
Speaker 2: of course you can there's short course activity, which we
8:44
Speaker 2: think is a great what we would call a transitional
8:49
Speaker 2: place where someone could go from being off course only
8:52
Speaker 2: to a less intimidating, more accommodating, less nerve racking experience
8:59
Speaker 2: for someone who who doesn't play green grass. But I'll
9:02
Speaker 2: give you this may be a shocking statistic, maybe not,
9:08
Speaker 2: but outside of the twenty eight million people who play
9:12
Speaker 2: green grass golf, there are more than fifty million Americans
9:17
Speaker 2: who are not currently in that twenty eight million number
9:20
Speaker 2: who've played grass played on green grass, fifty million who
9:25
Speaker 2: are not in the twenty eight million number. So that's
9:29
Speaker 2: where we look at the generations and the movements of
9:34
Speaker 2: the so called pig through the python. For example, like
9:38
Speaker 2: the Boomers, you know that Boomer generation that helped to
9:41
Speaker 2: grow the golf industry over the past thirty forty years.
9:46
Speaker 2: You know, they're just now starting to be at the
9:48
Speaker 2: point where they're playing a little less, so as inventory
9:53
Speaker 2: of green grass tea times titans that white space. I mentioned,
9:58
Speaker 2: what an incredible thing for sustainability of the green grass
10:02
Speaker 2: game that you have all these other ways that people
10:05
Speaker 2: can participate, so that when there is more white space created,
10:11
Speaker 2: that there are people to fill fill those tea times
10:14
Speaker 2: with the pent up demand.
10:16
Speaker 1: In other words, it keeps people close.
10:19
Speaker 2: You want, yeah, keep keep them close.
10:21
Speaker 1: That they don't they don't completely separate themselves from from
10:26
Speaker 1: the game. I guess at least that's the hope. What
10:29
Speaker 1: are some of the signs that you're seeing that that
10:32
Speaker 1: this increase in interest in golf might or might not
10:37
Speaker 1: be sustainable? How do you determine whether any given fad
10:43
Speaker 1: might might last? I guess that's probably pretty difficult. But
10:47
Speaker 1: when you're looking at this, at this era that we're
10:50
Speaker 1: in right now, are you seeing signs that this can
10:53
Speaker 1: be durable?
10:55
Speaker 2: I generally would say, again, our biggest, our biggest concerns
11:00
Speaker 2: are actually all things outside of our control. The number
11:03
Speaker 2: one threat always to golf is the availability and affordability
11:08
Speaker 2: of water. That's always going to be number one, especially
11:12
Speaker 2: in certain parts of the country. And then I worry
11:16
Speaker 2: as anybody would about geopolitical events that would affect any
11:21
Speaker 2: type of recreation or discretionary spending, and you worry about
11:26
Speaker 2: recession and stock market crash, because as long as the
11:31
Speaker 2: general population, especially the higher end demographic that plays golf,
11:38
Speaker 2: if they feel confident and good in their personal financial situation,
11:43
Speaker 2: they're going to spend the money and take the time
11:45
Speaker 2: and play. You also have right now, you just have
11:51
Speaker 2: so much of there is sustainability in the game because
11:59
Speaker 2: of how many people are playing away from the course,
12:02
Speaker 2: which was not the case like Great Recession time. And
12:07
Speaker 2: when we had the Great Recession, we did see a
12:09
Speaker 2: meaningful decline in the number of participating green grass golfers.
12:15
Speaker 2: But back then we didn't have thirty six million off
12:19
Speaker 2: course players, and we didn't have social media doing what
12:23
Speaker 2: it's doing. So there are little there are little things
12:27
Speaker 2: that we see that are maybe blind spots for the game,
12:30
Speaker 2: like a lot of the growth in the number of
12:33
Speaker 2: players that we've seen since twenty nineteen, Garrett has been
12:36
Speaker 2: in less than eight rounds a year, you know, what
12:40
Speaker 2: we refer to as occasionals, and that's a similar thing
12:44
Speaker 2: that we saw during the Tiger boom of like two
12:47
Speaker 2: thousand through two thousand and four, late nineties through through
12:51
Speaker 2: two thousand and four was a lot of the growth
12:54
Speaker 2: was in less frequent, less committed players, and when the
12:57
Speaker 2: recession came, they're out. Yeah. But some of these these
13:03
Speaker 2: underlying other positives that we have today, they didn't exist
13:08
Speaker 2: back then.
13:10
Speaker 1: You have this group of golfers that might occasionally play
13:13
Speaker 1: around at a green grass course, but are also engaged
13:17
Speaker 1: in these other forms of golf for other kind of
13:20
Speaker 1: delivery mechanisms of golf, and that is that is something
13:24
Speaker 1: that seems to be different about the current era.
13:27
Speaker 2: So we have really we both those who play encurse
13:35
Speaker 2: and off course, which is now, by the way, we
13:38
Speaker 2: haven't released this yet. It's pushing sixty percent, Okay, sixty
13:44
Speaker 2: percent of encourse players do some off course experiences, and
13:49
Speaker 2: those who do both we call them duelis. They play more,
13:55
Speaker 2: they're more committed, they spend more. There are all kinds
14:01
Speaker 2: of signs that those are among golf's best customers.
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16:23
Speaker 1: So we have what seems to be a meaningful and
16:28
Speaker 1: reliable surge and demand. Now we can talk about the
16:33
Speaker 1: supply side of the equation. As we all know, there
16:37
Speaker 1: there was a major shift in the supply of US
16:42
Speaker 1: golf courses during and after the recession. A lot of
16:45
Speaker 1: courses closed and not that many opened. But earlier this year,
16:50
Speaker 1: the NNGF published an article stating that this supply correction
16:55
Speaker 1: is now effectively over. How did you come to that conclusion.
17:00
Speaker 2: It really has to do with the trajectory of closures
17:05
Speaker 2: flattening out, and we you know, we every year since
17:10
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, Garrett, We've had more closures than
17:13
Speaker 2: openings every year since two thousand and six, and that
17:16
Speaker 2: hasn't changed. That still happens now, but it's at a
17:20
Speaker 2: much different level. So in twenty twenty four we opened
17:25
Speaker 2: twenty two eighteen whole equivalents we closed seventy two. And
17:32
Speaker 2: so that gap, which I think is been getting even
17:35
Speaker 2: tighter and tighter, it just doesn't have a huge effect
17:40
Speaker 2: on the net change in golf supply the way it did,
17:45
Speaker 2: you know, in twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve, and
17:49
Speaker 2: so what we have now, and this ties into the
17:55
Speaker 2: demand part of our conversation is that the tightness of demand,
18:01
Speaker 2: the fullness of the t sheets, the capacity discussion, it's
18:06
Speaker 2: not going to change based on the opening of a
18:09
Speaker 2: meaningful number of golf courses where the people are land
18:15
Speaker 2: is too expensive. The cost basis of having a new
18:20
Speaker 2: eighteen hole golf course in a major market. It's just
18:25
Speaker 2: what they would have to charge and the capacity they
18:28
Speaker 2: would have to fill in order for that to make money.
18:32
Speaker 2: It's a real that's a gamble, that's a bit of
18:34
Speaker 2: a gamble. And so we have a very stable supply side,
18:40
Speaker 2: and now after the build up in demand, we got
18:44
Speaker 2: a pretty stable demand side. And so that's one of
18:48
Speaker 2: the things that maybe also the just the financial how
18:53
Speaker 2: the financial markets have performed over the last twelve years.
18:58
Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons why you see the development
19:00
Speaker 2: of these really fantastic destination golf locations, primarily high end
19:08
Speaker 2: private retreats or additions to resorts, and in some cases
19:15
Speaker 2: you got a disproportionate number of short course construction, and
19:21
Speaker 2: it just means that still despite the fact there's not
19:25
Speaker 2: going to be a lot of construction in major markets,
19:29
Speaker 2: we still have amazing golf course supply and significant investment
19:35
Speaker 2: in golf course supply. It's special stuff that's getting Bill.
19:41
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about the destination sector a
19:45
Speaker 1: little bit later in our conversation as well as the
19:49
Speaker 1: short course sector, but just staying for a moment on
19:54
Speaker 1: the supply of public courses in in highly populated air is.
20:02
Speaker 1: This is something I've heard about from a lot of golfers.
20:04
Speaker 1: It's something I've experienced myself, this kind of cognitive dissonance
20:08
Speaker 1: about the actual state of golf course development. You know,
20:12
Speaker 1: on the one hand, we're hearing that the market is recovering,
20:15
Speaker 1: existing courses are doing better, New courses are being built.
20:19
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you can't get a tea
20:21
Speaker 1: time at a lot of public courses, and it seems
20:24
Speaker 1: like not that many new, reasonably priced local public courses
20:31
Speaker 1: are being built. I know the National Golf Foundation has
20:34
Speaker 1: done a study on the supply of public golf courses
20:37
Speaker 1: across the United States state by state. What did you
20:41
Speaker 1: find in that study and what kinds of insights did
20:44
Speaker 1: that provide into the kind of supply of public courses nationwide.
20:48
Speaker 2: On the good news side, Grek, three quarters of golf
20:52
Speaker 2: courses in America are open to anyone, and I think
20:55
Speaker 2: that that tends to surprise a lot of people. I
21:00
Speaker 2: think the numbers like seventy three percent. You also have
21:04
Speaker 2: a situation where we're at the high water mark in
21:07
Speaker 2: history for municipal golf. You know, in the hot, very
21:11
Speaker 2: high two thousands, approaching three thousand of the fourteen thousand
21:15
Speaker 2: facilities are a municipal. So public golf dominates golf in America.
21:22
Speaker 2: You know, people who live in major cities who maybe
21:25
Speaker 2: are fortunate enough to play a lot of private golf,
21:28
Speaker 2: they don't see that they don't see what's happening everywhere
21:31
Speaker 2: everywhere in America.
21:33
Speaker 1: Now.
21:34
Speaker 2: At the same time that I tell you that, I
21:36
Speaker 2: would say that the great majority of the roughly two
21:40
Speaker 2: thousand golf course closures that have happened in the last
21:44
Speaker 2: twenty some odd years disproportionately daily fee, and daily fee
21:52
Speaker 2: just means privately owned public golf versus municipal government owned
22:01
Speaker 2: public golf. So daily fee is where the great majority
22:07
Speaker 2: disproportionate closures have come from. We're in the middle of
22:10
Speaker 2: doing a deeper study right now about the last one
22:14
Speaker 2: hundred openings and the last one hundred closures and stories
22:18
Speaker 2: about them, because we've been talking about it for years
22:21
Speaker 2: and I'm pretty sure we've said the right things relative
22:24
Speaker 2: to what's what's been closing and what's been opening. But
22:27
Speaker 2: we're just going a little deeper right now. But so
22:31
Speaker 2: the good news is seventy five percent of golf courses
22:34
Speaker 2: public high water mark ever municipal golf. But when supply
22:39
Speaker 2: and demand is at a place where it is now,
22:42
Speaker 2: golf courses for the first time in a generation have
22:45
Speaker 2: had pricing power, and good for them. They've you know,
22:49
Speaker 2: the golf course owners and operators in general they don't
22:53
Speaker 2: operate on huge margins, and they've gone a long time
22:57
Speaker 2: where they were under a tremendous amount of pressure because
23:00
Speaker 2: of the building boom that happened between nineteen eighty six
23:04
Speaker 2: and two thousand and five. Four thousand plus new golf
23:08
Speaker 2: courses built in America. That would make it kind of
23:11
Speaker 2: hard to compete, but that's we're not going to see
23:16
Speaker 2: that sort of activity to loosen up the demand for
23:22
Speaker 2: tea times, and therefore golf courses can charge more. And
23:25
Speaker 2: I'm going to be the last person who's going to
23:28
Speaker 2: say that they should take less. You know, one of
23:33
Speaker 2: the things that they're really have made huge strides in
23:37
Speaker 2: is yield management and dynamic pricing. And good for them,
23:43
Speaker 2: because you know what, when golf courses are financially healthy,
23:46
Speaker 2: it's fantastic for the golf economy. And golf courses are
23:51
Speaker 2: only financially healthy because it is the recreational golfer from
23:56
Speaker 2: whom all blessings flow and they're raising their hand, they're
24:01
Speaker 2: not dialing as much, maybe online a little more, they're
24:04
Speaker 2: making their tea times and they're paying their green spees,
24:08
Speaker 2: and that makes for a healthy golf economy. It does
24:13
Speaker 2: make for some pricing pressure in terms of paying for
24:17
Speaker 2: a green spece it.
24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does put pressure on that recreational golfer, and
24:23
Speaker 1: we seem to be in a situation where part of
24:26
Speaker 1: the pricing power of golf courses comes from the fact
24:29
Speaker 1: that there is a persistent undersupply of public golf courses
24:35
Speaker 1: in certain areas where there's a lot of demand for
24:39
Speaker 1: public golf. I don't know, maybe I could frame this
24:42
Speaker 1: as a difference between the eras of golf that we've
24:47
Speaker 1: seen recently. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, it seems
24:50
Speaker 1: to me that we saw the development of a lot
24:53
Speaker 1: of daily fee golf courses, a lot of new daily
24:57
Speaker 1: fee golf courses came online privately owned public golf. In
25:03
Speaker 1: the twenty twenties, we have not seen nearly as much
25:07
Speaker 1: new development, new build development in that sector. It's not
25:12
Speaker 1: as though the demand for daily fee golf has significantly
25:18
Speaker 1: gone down since the eighties and nineties, it's just our
25:21
Speaker 1: ability to provide it as an industry seems to have
25:25
Speaker 1: stalled out a little bit. I know your work on
25:28
Speaker 1: this is ongoing, but do you have any theories about
25:32
Speaker 1: why that is why we're seeing such a difference between
25:35
Speaker 1: the boom of the eighties and nineties and the action
25:39
Speaker 1: that's going on right now in golf course development.
25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well it's such. It's the activity level
25:47
Speaker 2: is so modest in the major market. In the major markets,
25:51
Speaker 2: if you were if you were building a public golf course,
25:56
Speaker 2: generally you would want to do that where the people
25:58
Speaker 2: are look. I may we may end up being shocked
26:03
Speaker 2: and find out that the calculus works based on this
26:07
Speaker 2: level of demand, and someone will find a plot of
26:11
Speaker 2: land in Charlotte somewhere and build a daily fee golf course.
26:18
Speaker 2: It's just those who are investing in new property, new
26:24
Speaker 2: golf courses these days. That's not the trend. The trend
26:28
Speaker 2: is in retreat destination style places that you know, someone
26:33
Speaker 2: who has the wherewithal and the vision and is willing
26:38
Speaker 2: to go and search for great golf land. You know,
26:42
Speaker 2: those of us who are just so passionate about golf
26:45
Speaker 2: course architecture can really love that trend about what's being
26:50
Speaker 2: built and how special it is. But if you're looking
26:54
Speaker 2: for a public course tea time in a major market,
26:57
Speaker 2: you're under a lot of pressure right now. And I
27:01
Speaker 2: just don't anticipate that changing in the short or medium term,
27:08
Speaker 2: and anybody who's wishing for that is likely maybe they
27:13
Speaker 2: don't know it, but they're wishing for recession in stock
27:15
Speaker 2: market crash.
27:17
Speaker 1: That was going to be my follow up question. Basically,
27:20
Speaker 1: the only thing that changes this dynamic is a shock
27:23
Speaker 1: to the economy.
27:24
Speaker 2: Right, that would be my That would be my general assessment.
27:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and nobody's nobody wants that. That doesn't that doesn't
27:33
Speaker 1: benefit anybody obviously.
27:34
Speaker 2: Right, No, nobody is rooting for that. And look, I'm
27:37
Speaker 2: not going to hide for the hide from the fact
27:40
Speaker 2: that golf is more expensive today, and it is. But
27:44
Speaker 2: as I said earlier, you know, I'm delighted for the
27:47
Speaker 2: golf course industry because it's it's been They've had decades
27:53
Speaker 2: of very difficult times, and what it means when they're
27:58
Speaker 2: financially healthy is they're investing. They're investing in new Toro equipment,
28:06
Speaker 2: they're investing in irrigation, they're investing in golf cars, they're
28:11
Speaker 2: investing in clubhouse renovation. And one of the other trends,
28:14
Speaker 2: which you know you didn't ask me about, but it's
28:18
Speaker 2: really part of what's going on, especially in the private
28:22
Speaker 2: club world, is golf establishing itself as third place behind
28:29
Speaker 2: home and work, and that is a great trend for
28:35
Speaker 2: the golf industry. The fact that people view the golf
28:39
Speaker 2: course or the golf club as a place of safety,
28:44
Speaker 2: a place for socializing. And I also would throw out that,
28:50
Speaker 2: you know, as negative as a lot of the tribalism
28:54
Speaker 2: trends that exist in America right now, and a lot
28:58
Speaker 2: of those are really negative. The fact that people want
29:04
Speaker 2: to be with like minded community that translates to golf.
29:13
Speaker 2: And I'm not you know, I don't want I'm not
29:15
Speaker 2: commenting on the on the political side of it. Let's
29:18
Speaker 2: just call it the social behavior. Of social behavior of
29:23
Speaker 2: Americans is more tribal these days, and therefore, being being
29:29
Speaker 2: at the golf course or the golf club, you know,
29:31
Speaker 2: there's a certain it's a certain wonderful element of safety
29:35
Speaker 2: and trust that goes along with that. But I also
29:39
Speaker 2: see the downside of you know, golf started in America
29:42
Speaker 2: as purely a private game, and we're not in a
29:45
Speaker 2: place where we have to risk that. But there's elements
29:51
Speaker 2: of that that are some of the negative things in
29:53
Speaker 2: golf's past.
29:55
Speaker 1: Well, golf as a third place is a very interesting idea.
29:58
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that that's uh explained to everybody.
30:02
Speaker 1: When you say third place, you're referring to a place
30:05
Speaker 1: outside of work and home that people can gather and
30:11
Speaker 1: socialize and be in person with each other, live with people. Right,
30:17
Speaker 1: So many of our relationships now are virtual. It's easier
30:21
Speaker 1: to be enemies with people when your only relationship with
30:24
Speaker 1: them is not embodied. And so golf's role as a
30:28
Speaker 1: third place is very important for those obvious reasons, and
30:33
Speaker 1: also for the reason that a lot of other traditional
30:38
Speaker 1: third places that used to perform this function in society,
30:42
Speaker 1: the bowling alleys, the public squares, the various other places
30:48
Speaker 1: that people still gather but used to gather more often
30:53
Speaker 1: have become less healthy recently, and so the golf course
30:58
Speaker 1: can really serve that function as as a as a
31:01
Speaker 1: gathering place for people to get to know each other.
31:05
Speaker 2: And and what what a wonderful analog game this is
31:09
Speaker 2: that we love.
31:12
Speaker 1: Analog. I like I like that term analog golf.
31:15
Speaker 2: We we can build build in as much technology as
31:20
Speaker 2: we choose, you know, it's it's uh, we we can
31:25
Speaker 2: you know, we can use our RCOs, we could use
31:27
Speaker 2: our our rangefinder, we can use our different GPS technology
31:34
Speaker 2: to enhance our game. Uh, but it's still at the
31:39
Speaker 2: end of the day, it's a social game, it's outdoors,
31:42
Speaker 2: it's exercise, and it's a wonderful analog game. It is.
31:48
Speaker 2: It provides some relief to the rest of our lives.
31:52
Speaker 1: So, getting back to this question of supply, part of
31:55
Speaker 1: that story is the supply of short courses, so PAR
32:01
Speaker 1: three courses, courses with fewer than eighteen holes, often courses
32:05
Speaker 1: that don't meet that regulation standard of a par of
32:10
Speaker 1: seventy two and seven thousand yards and you know, a
32:15
Speaker 1: certain composition of par fives and PAR four's. Short courses
32:20
Speaker 1: of various kinds were pretty hard hit during the recession years.
32:27
Speaker 1: There have been NNGF studies that have revealed the extent
32:32
Speaker 1: of the damage that the short course sector took during
32:36
Speaker 1: the recession. What did that damage look like and why
32:39
Speaker 1: did it happen?
32:41
Speaker 2: The answer the answer to that typically lies in a
32:46
Speaker 2: couple of things. Number one is short course land is
32:51
Speaker 2: more likely to have the opportunity to be redeveloped. The
32:57
Speaker 2: so called higher and better use like we've seen reduct
33:02
Speaker 2: over the last twenty five years, the reduction in driving
33:05
Speaker 2: ranges in America, like I think at the high water mark,
33:09
Speaker 2: maybe it was fifteen hundred, and we're definitely like half
33:14
Speaker 2: or less than that for the same reason. And that's
33:19
Speaker 2: as similar rationale as to why short courses would have closed,
33:23
Speaker 2: either because the land could be redeveloped or the short
33:26
Speaker 2: courses were not well maintained, were not well invested in,
33:31
Speaker 2: and so they couldn't compete with all of the new
33:34
Speaker 2: building that would come into these markets. So that's the
33:39
Speaker 2: way I would make sense of it. I will say that,
33:42
Speaker 2: of course, you've read things from us that that's turned
33:45
Speaker 2: around somewhat, and I'll give you a couple of stats.
33:50
Speaker 2: So this year up to this point, we've got about
33:56
Speaker 2: twenty four openings. You know, we've got time left in
34:01
Speaker 2: the year. We got twenty four openings and more than
34:05
Speaker 2: half are short courses. So that tells you a lot
34:10
Speaker 2: about what's happening now. Across the street from the ngf's
34:14
Speaker 2: headquarters is the so called little Monster Jupiter Dunes eighteen
34:19
Speaker 2: whole Par three, And I wouldn't say that most of
34:26
Speaker 2: the construction of the par three's that's happening now is
34:30
Speaker 2: like community public Par three. There's some of that, but
34:35
Speaker 2: most of it Garrett, and you're well aware of this
34:39
Speaker 2: is happening at resorts, you know, like Bandon has two
34:44
Speaker 2: short courses, you got Cohler with the baths, You've got every.
34:50
Speaker 1: One stream song. The chain has recently opened.
34:54
Speaker 2: Sand Creek at French Lique Resort, the Sawyer at Garland Lodge, Cliffhangers,
35:00
Speaker 2: that big seater. It's really amazing par three activity, and
35:06
Speaker 2: it's great for the guests, and it's great for the
35:09
Speaker 2: resort owner and operator. And so what the par three's
35:14
Speaker 2: that are getting built, they're really special and those of
35:17
Speaker 2: us who love golf course architecture and great golf experiences,
35:20
Speaker 2: we can be really excited about that.
35:23
Speaker 1: They're very cool courses. They are being presented though as
35:28
Speaker 1: an amenity for an overall resort experience. Generally, some short
35:36
Speaker 1: courses have also been built at these destination private clubs
35:39
Speaker 1: that we've referred to a couple of times. So it
35:41
Speaker 1: seems like the model that is helping an excellent short
35:45
Speaker 1: course exist and be sustainable is that it is in
35:49
Speaker 1: addition to a larger experiences. That's how it seems to
35:55
Speaker 1: be functioning for the most part right now. But of
35:59
Speaker 1: course I think everybody wants those local short courses to
36:03
Speaker 1: be available because those are serve such an important function.
36:06
Speaker 1: They help onboard people, they help get people into the game.
36:11
Speaker 1: Whereas you know, as great as short the short courses
36:16
Speaker 1: that bandon Dunes are as great as I'm sure the
36:18
Speaker 1: chain at stream Song is. Those courses aren't necessarily in
36:22
Speaker 1: the trenches converting people to golf. They are serving people
36:26
Speaker 1: who are already in the fold and going to destination resorts.
36:32
Speaker 1: And so it seems like it's a little bit difficult
36:35
Speaker 1: to make a standalone urban short course work right now
36:42
Speaker 1: financially from the business side, what are some of the
36:45
Speaker 1: difficulties of making a short course work.
36:48
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always going to be start with the
36:50
Speaker 2: cost of the land, which right now is one of
36:53
Speaker 2: the more prohibitive factors. So you got the cost of
36:57
Speaker 2: the land, cost of construction, cost of operation, and I
37:01
Speaker 2: think just I'm not a real estate expert, but I
37:07
Speaker 2: just think the math is very difficult to make work
37:14
Speaker 2: without charging really expensive greens fees. So, yeah, this is
37:20
Speaker 2: an aspect of where we are today that is really challenging.
37:24
Speaker 2: And we at the ENNGF, I mean, we have huge
37:28
Speaker 2: belief in the short courses being incredibly important to the
37:32
Speaker 2: golf industry. And we've done some study you may have
37:36
Speaker 2: seen from us where we actually looked at We had
37:41
Speaker 2: look at the websites, for example, of every short course
37:45
Speaker 2: in America, we look at their social media presence, and
37:51
Speaker 2: they don't have a lot. There's fantastic exceptions like the
37:56
Speaker 2: Butler Pitch and put in Austin, Goat Hill and Diego.
38:01
Speaker 2: There's such great examples of the vibe.
38:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Butler is perfect example.
38:07
Speaker 2: And so what I'm getting at is the existing part threes,
38:14
Speaker 2: not the ones that are getting built now, but the
38:15
Speaker 2: ones that are out there now. They need energy. They
38:21
Speaker 2: need to build energy around them. The advertising that they
38:25
Speaker 2: do shouldn't show just a couple of golf holes. They
38:29
Speaker 2: need to show people having fun. This is recreation. This
38:32
Speaker 2: is a place you can go that's not intimidating. You know.
38:36
Speaker 2: The Butlers of the world make it so you could.
38:39
Speaker 2: You could play in flip flops and tank top. Uh,
38:43
Speaker 2: there's food trucks, there's music, it's it's they take pride
38:50
Speaker 2: in being the antithesis of golf with all its orthodoxies.
38:56
Speaker 2: And so I don't think we're at a loss here, Garrett.
39:00
Speaker 2: For opportunity to create energy around the short courses that
39:05
Speaker 2: are out there in America and make them more centers
39:10
Speaker 2: of fun and centers of the community for young people.
39:16
Speaker 1: What you're saying is really interesting because one of the
39:19
Speaker 1: problems certainly facing many short courses is that they aren't
39:25
Speaker 1: taken seriously. They're seen as not real golf courses. If
39:29
Speaker 1: you want to go play a real golf round, you've
39:32
Speaker 1: got to go to an eighteen hole par seventy to
39:36
Speaker 1: seventy two golf course, and you know, and you just
39:40
Speaker 1: don't want to compromise and have the short course experience.
39:46
Speaker 1: But the counter to that is sort of what you're saying,
39:51
Speaker 1: where short courses don't try to compete with traditional golf courses,
40:00
Speaker 1: is they embrace their short courseness. They say, this is
40:03
Speaker 1: a distinct experience. This is a different experience from what
40:08
Speaker 1: you'll have at a traditional golf course, and it's good
40:11
Speaker 1: in its own right. So it's interesting that it's sort
40:14
Speaker 1: of a it's not so much a numbers question, a
40:18
Speaker 1: business question, a spreadsheet question. This is sort of marketing
40:22
Speaker 1: right now. Total that a lot of short courses need
40:25
Speaker 1: to sort out.
40:28
Speaker 2: The exercise that I described to you earlier about where
40:32
Speaker 2: we analyze the websites and social media presence. I mean,
40:37
Speaker 2: we've done that on a sampling basis for golf courses
40:42
Speaker 2: in Palm Beach County or surrounding where we are here
40:47
Speaker 2: in South Florida, and you'd be blown away by how
40:50
Speaker 2: badly golf is presented in these ways at all kinds
40:56
Speaker 2: of public courses. So if you were to go and
41:00
Speaker 2: google great things to do in Palm Beach County, it's
41:06
Speaker 2: going to show all kinds of things, and the advertising
41:09
Speaker 2: for it is all going to show people having fun.
41:12
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, you the first golf
41:15
Speaker 2: course that comes up is going to be on the
41:18
Speaker 2: third page, and it's going to be a picture of
41:21
Speaker 2: an empty golf hole. So golf golf has a little
41:26
Speaker 2: bit of a ways to go in terms of not
41:29
Speaker 2: shooting itself in the foot from a marketing standpoint, and
41:33
Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons why people have game shame
41:36
Speaker 2: and why people are are intimidated like this is supposed
41:41
Speaker 2: to be fun, right, People prioritize things in their lives
41:45
Speaker 2: that are fun. You know when I you know, you
41:48
Speaker 2: constantly hear back in the day, why doesn't golf grow more?
41:52
Speaker 2: Now we don't have that problem at the moment. But
41:55
Speaker 2: you know why doesn't golf grow more, Well, it's it's
41:58
Speaker 2: it's too expensive, and it takes too long, and it's
42:01
Speaker 2: too hard. Well, I've always, you know, sort of bristled
42:05
Speaker 2: at that. And while those things might be real, our
42:10
Speaker 2: research much more shows that it's the intimidation and the
42:15
Speaker 2: field the fear of embarrassment, and that means that those
42:20
Speaker 2: things don't sound like much fun to me.
42:30
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43:27
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the episode. So the
43:37
Speaker 1: last aspect of the current golf landscape that I want
43:40
Speaker 1: to touch on is very different from what we're talking
43:44
Speaker 1: about here. It's maybe actually the opposite end of the
43:47
Speaker 1: spectrum from the Butler Pitchon put in Austin, Texas, and
43:51
Speaker 1: that is the rise of destination golf. If there's one
43:57
Speaker 1: sector in the new bill golf course development industry that
44:01
Speaker 1: has conspicuously thrived in the twenty twenties, it's the creation
44:06
Speaker 1: of new destination resorts, so like the ones built by
44:11
Speaker 1: the Kaiser's Dream Golf and Cabot, and the creation of
44:15
Speaker 1: new private destination golf clubs. Why has destination golf been
44:23
Speaker 1: so vigorous at this time in history.
44:30
Speaker 2: Let's see the answer is probably that there have been
44:34
Speaker 2: some very wealthy visionaries who love to play golf, who
44:40
Speaker 2: visit places that other really wealthy visionaries have built, and said,
44:47
Speaker 2: you know what, I want to have one of these,
44:50
Speaker 2: and I'd like to go look for a great piece
44:53
Speaker 2: of land to do that. Part of this is totally
44:57
Speaker 2: in line, Garrett, with the trends tour. It's experiences versus
45:03
Speaker 2: good versus material goods. And I mean, at any time
45:08
Speaker 2: we can discuss the whole and one I made on
45:10
Speaker 2: a par four at a hoopy match club, you know,
45:13
Speaker 2: for anybody who's interested in that. But places like a
45:20
Speaker 2: Hoopie and Congaree for example, sand Hills of course, really
45:27
Speaker 2: started started the whole thing for those of us who
45:32
Speaker 2: love golf and love golf, and it's in its most
45:34
Speaker 2: wonderful design form on amazing pieces of land. I mean,
45:40
Speaker 2: I think it's as simple as that. You know, You've
45:42
Speaker 2: got you've got visionaries with money who like the idea
45:48
Speaker 2: of build building something really special that they can run
45:53
Speaker 2: as a business, and it's a place that they and
45:55
Speaker 2: their friends can go and have an amazing time. And
46:00
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's not Unfortunately, it's not something that
46:03
Speaker 2: everybody's going to get to see or consume because it
46:07
Speaker 2: is primarily private. I mean, I'm looking right now, Garrett,
46:12
Speaker 2: we've got one hundred and forty new US golf course
46:17
Speaker 2: projects in active development. One hundred and forty. That's the
46:21
Speaker 2: most since twenty ten, when the real serious development period
46:27
Speaker 2: was slowing. Sixty percent of those projects that are in
46:34
Speaker 2: active development are private. Forty percent of them are in Florida,
46:38
Speaker 2: Texas and South Carolina. See, you just got some really
46:44
Speaker 2: amazing activity happening. Is it going to be able to
46:50
Speaker 2: be consumed by the masses? No? Is it going to
46:53
Speaker 2: help turn non golfers into golfers? No? Is it interesting
46:57
Speaker 2: investment and raising the quality of golf the golf as
47:02
Speaker 2: a whole in America? Yeah? It is.
47:06
Speaker 1: Well, subjectively, this is just my own opinion. A lot
47:10
Speaker 1: of the most interesting golf course architecture is being done
47:14
Speaker 1: in exactly this area. And you can understand why because
47:20
Speaker 1: these projects, the private destination club, the destination resort developed
47:27
Speaker 1: by the Kaiser family or by Cabot, these are attractive
47:31
Speaker 1: projects to golf architects because they generally get really good
47:36
Speaker 1: pieces of land. The priority has been placed on finding
47:41
Speaker 1: land that is well suited to golf, and then you
47:43
Speaker 1: get a lot of artistic freedom as an architect, generally
47:47
Speaker 1: from these clients, because Dream Golf and Cabot have built
47:51
Speaker 1: their brands around outstanding, prestigious, well regarded golf architecture. And
47:58
Speaker 1: then when you're building a donation private club for a
48:03
Speaker 1: client who's trying to appeal to golfers, you know, a
48:09
Speaker 1: relatively small subset of golfers that is generally pretty well
48:13
Speaker 1: informed about golf architecture. You get a lot of freedom
48:17
Speaker 1: there as well. There aren't a lot of restrictions on
48:20
Speaker 1: what you can build and how you can build it,
48:23
Speaker 1: and so a disproportionate amount of the most interesting boundary
48:29
Speaker 1: pushing golf architecture has been done in these contexts, the
48:34
Speaker 1: destination resort and the destination private club, which can be
48:39
Speaker 1: frustrating to people because these are pricey, high end and
48:44
Speaker 1: sometimes hard to access experiences. And yet a lot of
48:49
Speaker 1: these places, most of these places, I would venture to say,
48:52
Speaker 1: have become successful businesses. Band in Dunes very successful business,
48:58
Speaker 1: sand Valley very successful. And Dream Golf is continuing to
49:02
Speaker 1: expand in the twenty twenties. They have started, they have
49:06
Speaker 1: founded a lot of new resorts, the destination private clubs
49:12
Speaker 1: that I know about, their balance sheets look really, really good.
49:16
Speaker 1: And so clearly there is a base of golfers right
49:21
Speaker 1: now who want this stuff and who are willing to
49:26
Speaker 1: pay a premium for this. Do you think there is
49:29
Speaker 1: a larger story here about a change in how golfers
49:33
Speaker 1: spend their time and money. You mentioned the kind of
49:37
Speaker 1: experience economy, the shift toward experience that has that has happened.
49:42
Speaker 1: Is that part of this story?
49:47
Speaker 2: I would, you know, based on what we're seeing also
49:50
Speaker 2: in terms of the highest end golf resort bookings and
49:57
Speaker 2: a year in advance booked up. I mean, this is
50:01
Speaker 2: not this has not been normal in America. So it
50:06
Speaker 2: is a trend towards experiential. It's a trend towards retreat
50:11
Speaker 2: type environments once again, sort of the trend towards the analog,
50:17
Speaker 2: which you know, those of us who are fortunate enough
50:20
Speaker 2: to play at some of these places, there's a magic
50:24
Speaker 2: to it. And I'm just looking right now Garret at Florida. Okay,
50:30
Speaker 2: Florida not exactly known for its amazing golf land, you know,
50:35
Speaker 2: because of the lack of elevation change. Florida has more
50:40
Speaker 2: golf courses than any other state in America, over a thousand.
50:44
Speaker 2: But stream Song building built, you know, David McLay kidd
50:49
Speaker 2: building a fifth course is stream Song, Tom j Oak
50:53
Speaker 2: at Old Shores, High Grove, Fries Straka at Miakah. That
51:00
Speaker 2: there you go. That rhymes, it does, Yeah, the Ranch
51:07
Speaker 2: North Course at Apogee, Old Charlie, South Carolina, Old Barnwell
51:14
Speaker 2: twenty one Club, Old Sawmill.
51:17
Speaker 1: South Carolina. The ones that you mentioned, yeah right far away.
51:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I'm just looking down the list at Florida,
51:24
Speaker 2: South Carolina and Texas, Wild Spring Dunes, Travis Club, Laura Loma,
51:30
Speaker 2: Childress Hall. I mean, these are wonderful for those of
51:35
Speaker 2: us who love golf course architecture and playing golf on
51:38
Speaker 2: great land. And it's clear that those golfers in America
51:47
Speaker 2: who have the wherewithal to do this travel, it's just,
51:52
Speaker 2: you know, the it's an embarrassment of riches. And from
51:56
Speaker 2: a standpoint of the types of places we can go
52:00
Speaker 2: for these analog golf retreats with friends, it's extraordinary.
52:05
Speaker 1: Do you have any working theories about why it is
52:07
Speaker 1: that so much of the action is concentrated around specifically
52:13
Speaker 1: Hope Sound in Florida and specifically Aiken in South Carolina.
52:18
Speaker 1: There are certain hotspots, it's not all happening in those
52:21
Speaker 1: two places, and then there are a variety of spots
52:24
Speaker 1: in Texas that are saying a lot of activity. But
52:28
Speaker 1: why the Southeast, I mean speaking.
52:32
Speaker 3: About would foot thirty forty minutes the road from where
52:38
Speaker 3: I'm sitting right now. It's a ranchland, relatively flat for
52:44
Speaker 3: the most part, but rangeland that relative to the other
52:50
Speaker 3: land in the area is highly affordable relative relative, And
52:58
Speaker 3: that building has a lot to do with.
53:00
Speaker 2: The migration of older, affluent folks from the Northeast moving
53:08
Speaker 2: down here. Yes, I think it's a little bit. I
53:10
Speaker 2: think that's quite a bit different. While those are still
53:14
Speaker 2: sort of destination club oriented, the ones in Hope Sound
53:18
Speaker 2: some of them have real estate and they're really for
53:21
Speaker 2: people who are either want to second or third home
53:24
Speaker 2: or want to retire there. I think that's a little
53:28
Speaker 2: different than what's going on in Aiken. And I just
53:31
Speaker 2: think that's more driven by they're finding great land there
53:37
Speaker 2: and perhaps they're thinking, you know, I can make I
53:41
Speaker 2: can make a tremendous amount of money during the week
53:44
Speaker 2: surrounding the Masters in a totally different dynamics between those
53:50
Speaker 2: those two things. Yes, I agree.
53:54
Speaker 1: I think Aiken is so interesting because one, you have
53:59
Speaker 1: the the attractive proposition of being thirty minutes from Augusta, Georgia,
54:05
Speaker 1: and so every year you know you're going to get
54:07
Speaker 1: a deluge of people interested in playing your excellent golf course.
54:13
Speaker 1: But then you're also an hour from Columbia, South Carolina,
54:17
Speaker 1: You're two hours from Charlotte, You're about two hours i
54:21
Speaker 1: think from Charleston. And these are growing cities. These are
54:27
Speaker 1: cities that are taking on a lot of you know,
54:31
Speaker 1: similar migration to what you're talking about around you know, Jacksonville,
54:35
Speaker 1: in various cities in Florida. Those cities are growing too,
54:39
Speaker 1: but I think Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston are growing more in
54:46
Speaker 1: the kind of middle aged, young family areas because you
54:54
Speaker 1: just have a lot of kind of well off folks
54:56
Speaker 1: who are relocating to those cities and working often in
55:01
Speaker 1: their financial sectors. And so a club in Aiken is
55:05
Speaker 1: very attractive because you can get away for a weekend,
55:09
Speaker 1: go stay in your place out by Aiken, and enjoy
55:13
Speaker 1: your club there. It's almost as if Aiken is becoming
55:16
Speaker 1: the Hamptons of some of these growing Southeast cities. And
55:22
Speaker 1: so that's maybe part of the reason that some of
55:25
Speaker 1: this stuff is happening there. And there are parallel reasons
55:28
Speaker 1: that we're seeing development in Florida, but it has to
55:32
Speaker 1: do with the fact that these areas are growing and
55:35
Speaker 1: taking on a lot of people who have the money
55:38
Speaker 1: to join another club.
55:39
Speaker 2: I suppose. Yeah. I mean, I'm super excited to go
55:44
Speaker 2: and visit some of these places. They will be what
55:47
Speaker 2: they were intended to be, destination trips. But it's a
55:54
Speaker 2: really interesting dynamic. Certainly, you know, those properties have their
56:00
Speaker 2: own risks involved, and they're they're banking on you know,
56:08
Speaker 2: just putting two and two together, they're banking on the
56:10
Speaker 2: fact that even if we had a recession certain things
56:15
Speaker 2: that challenge the feelings of financial well being of huge
56:21
Speaker 2: swaths of Americans, that those folks who have the memberships
56:28
Speaker 2: are somewhat insulated, you know, from from some of that
56:33
Speaker 2: recessionary activity if it were to happen. But there's there's
56:37
Speaker 2: a natural risk associated with those properties that if it's
56:43
Speaker 2: the look, these are problems of only a very small
56:48
Speaker 2: group of people, But if that's my fourth or fifth
56:51
Speaker 2: or sixth club, what's the first to go? You know,
56:55
Speaker 2: do I start to think about that in the case
56:58
Speaker 2: of a stock market crash or meaningful recession. But for
57:03
Speaker 2: the most part, those just add to the quality of supply.
57:07
Speaker 2: They don't really change the supply and demand dynamics of
57:11
Speaker 2: the golf economy. They're jewels. They are special, special jewels
57:18
Speaker 2: and special destinations, but they're not you know, I'm very
57:23
Speaker 2: The NGF often would say, Garrett that all golf is local. Well,
57:27
Speaker 2: there's a meaningful exception.
57:31
Speaker 1: To that theory, right, So, Greg, the National Golf Foundation
57:37
Speaker 1: does a lot of interesting work. You mentioned that coming up.
57:41
Speaker 1: You're looking at the last one hundred closures and last
57:45
Speaker 1: one hundred openings. Are there any other areas of research
57:51
Speaker 1: that you're particularly interested in right now? I wonder if
57:54
Speaker 1: there's a preview of the stuff that you're doing right
57:57
Speaker 1: now that you can get us.
58:00
Speaker 2: Three weeks away from our annual symposium, and we always
58:04
Speaker 2: share that's the first presentation of the new state of industry,
58:11
Speaker 2: and we're also working on a really amazing strategic report
58:17
Speaker 2: with McKenzie. So the NNGF twice in our history has
58:22
Speaker 2: collaborated with McKenzie to look at the future of golf.
58:28
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty eight, we did the first one with
58:32
Speaker 2: McKenzie and in nineteen eighty eight golf was significantly undersupplied.
58:39
Speaker 2: So at that time, in nineteen eighty eight, if there
58:41
Speaker 2: was a one sentence that comes out of that report
58:45
Speaker 2: with McKenzie and the NGF it's if golf's going to grow,
58:49
Speaker 2: we need more golf courses. Then we did in nineteen
58:53
Speaker 2: ninety nine a second report with McKenzie and based on
58:59
Speaker 2: the huge building boom that happened in the late eighties
59:01
Speaker 2: and nineties. When we got to nineteen ninety nine, we
59:06
Speaker 2: were like, whoa. We already had put a yellow light
59:09
Speaker 2: up on development, and we were getting ready to put
59:13
Speaker 2: a red light up on development. And at that time
59:17
Speaker 2: it was okay, we've got supply, but supply Unfortunately, the
59:23
Speaker 2: boom built a lot of homogeneous stuff. Okay, expensive to build,
59:29
Speaker 2: expensive to maintain, high green s fee was built, not
59:33
Speaker 2: necessarily what you need to grow to turn golfers into
59:37
Speaker 2: non golfers, and so there was a there was a
59:42
Speaker 2: disconnect between the golf being built and whether it actually
59:46
Speaker 2: grew the game. And I really don't like that phrase
59:48
Speaker 2: grow the game. It's creating golfers from non golfers. So
59:53
Speaker 2: the last one nineteen ninety nine. So now in twenty
59:56
Speaker 2: twenty five, you know, twenty five years later, we were
1:00:01
Speaker 2: undersupplied in eighty eight, we were oversupplied in ninety nine,
1:00:04
Speaker 2: and now you could argue we're at equilibrium. So that
1:00:08
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about new State of Industry. It will
1:00:13
Speaker 2: be different than it's been in the last several years,
1:00:15
Speaker 2: just in terms of some new developments that we've seen,
1:00:20
Speaker 2: most of them to the positive. But I've already hinted
1:00:25
Speaker 2: somewhat to when you think about growth, where's it going
1:00:31
Speaker 2: to come from?
1:00:33
Speaker 1: Yes, what do you do when there's equilibrium? What's the
1:00:36
Speaker 1: imperative so.
1:00:37
Speaker 2: That that white space, that shrinking white space for green
1:00:41
Speaker 2: grass growth? You know, that's an area that we're looking
1:00:45
Speaker 2: at very carefully right now. And so the SOI the
1:00:51
Speaker 2: State of Industry is going to have certain new things
1:00:53
Speaker 2: that are our constituents haven't seen before. And then the
1:00:57
Speaker 2: McKinsey Report, you know, bringing in all of their really
1:01:02
Speaker 2: high level insights on American consumer behavior tied with ngf's
1:01:08
Speaker 2: unique golf specialty perspective. So I'm really looking forward to that.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: And obviously after the symposium for those who are members
1:01:17
Speaker 2: who support the organization and some things that we put
1:01:22
Speaker 2: out for free to the entire industry, we're gonna have
1:01:27
Speaker 2: a lot of new content.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: I guess I'll have to have you back on at
1:01:30
Speaker 1: some point soon.
1:01:32
Speaker 2: You know, I will say yes to that.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: As always Greg, I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming
1:01:38
Speaker 1: on the pod raping with you, Garrett, Thanks so much
1:01:41
Speaker 1: for the conversation. This episode of Designing Golf was produced
1:01:53
Speaker 1: by Will Balsam. Thank you Will. If you've been liking
1:01:58
Speaker 1: this podcast, I can just about guarante that you would
1:02:00
Speaker 1: love what we're doing in Frida Egg Golf Club. That's
1:02:04
Speaker 1: Frida Egg Golf's membership. Go to the Frida Egg dot
1:02:07
Speaker 1: com slash membership to see what it's all about. We
1:02:10
Speaker 1: do a lot of exclusive golf architecture related content in there,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that I don't think you'll be
1:02:17
Speaker 1: able to find anywhere else. We're also going to get
1:02:20
Speaker 1: my new colleague, Kevin van Volkenberg involved in some club content,
1:02:24
Speaker 1: so that's something to look forward to. So join us
1:02:27
Speaker 1: in the club. We're having a lot of fun there.
1:02:29
Speaker 1: One thing actually that I want to mention that we're
1:02:31
Speaker 1: doing right now is running a whole design contest. The
1:02:35
Speaker 1: winning design will actually get built at a new short
1:02:38
Speaker 1: course designed by Andy Staples in Minnesota. So if you've
1:02:43
Speaker 1: been thinking about entering this contest but just putting it off,
1:02:47
Speaker 1: now is the time. The deadline is October fifteenth at
1:02:50
Speaker 1: noon and we're going to go from there pretty much
1:02:53
Speaker 1: right away, hold a hangout of virtual hangout with club
1:02:56
Speaker 1: members and look at some of the designs and make
1:02:59
Speaker 1: some decisions on finalists. So I'm really looking forward to that.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: Hope you enter your your whole design, come up with
1:03:05
Speaker 1: something creative, and we'll take a look. All right, thank
1:03:09
Speaker 1: you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with
1:03:12
Speaker 1: another episode.