The demographic and democratic dilemma in golf

A few years ago at the annual general meeting of my golf club there was a heated discussion (and for diplomacy’s sake we’ll call it a discussion) between a very small group of members with families and the large fraction of pensioners (aka mature golfers/elderly members) who are often present at the AGM. The discussion was triggered by the proposal from the steering committee and club manager that we needed to raise the yearly membership fees for seniors (22yrs +) from 4950kr to 5150kr, a rise of 200kr (£18). The sacred 5000kr barrier was about to be breached, something that the club members had almost regarded as taboo! Not only that but a proposal was also put forward to halt new membership of the “vardagsmedlem” (weekday)  as well as 70+ membership categories.  “But  but  but….it’s too much!”, the elderly members squealed. “We should be the ones getting concessions, we’re poor pensioners!” There were howls from the galleries as our club manager tried to explain the increase in costs. “What are you doing to get more members?!”, was the response. “Retain current membership levels, why have we lost so many members?!”, they cried. Meanwhile on the other side of the room the small minority of members with families started to voice their opinion. “Why should the elderly members get concessions? There’s four of us in our family! We should be attracting more families to golf by decreasing membership fees for us! It’s costing us a fortune!” But the next comment was the one that dealt the fatal blow.

The pensioners should actually be paying more. They use the golf club and course far much more than we do. They block all the tee times and are wearing out the fairways!

The number of purple faces in the room increased to near stroke levels and I was worried that we were about to decrease our membership numbers by 30 in one fell swoop! However, the pensioners countered:

Maybe you should cut down your beer and wine instead, then you could afford it!

It was certainly an experience but as I sat listening I couldn’t help feeling for both sides of the argument. The problem is that golf costs money and golf courses demand a lot of time and effort for maintenance and improvements. When member numbers fall (for whatever reason) then the rest of us have to cough up if we want to keep our club going, and therefore hard decisions have to be made.

Golf clubs, in Sweden at least, are more often than not non-profit organisations although a few are privately owned. This in itself makes it tough going to run a golf club effectively and efficiently and presents the following challenges:

• Rising costs of maintaining a golf course/club
• Pricing strategies, perceived value for money and pensioners who don’t want to pay full price
• How to get younger people into golf and re-balance the demographic pyramid in most golf clubs
• How to plan an investment strategy for the future when the Swedish tax authorities put a profit constraint on you. Profits that clubs need to make investments in order to grow.

When the pensioners are in charge of the golf club committees there can be a risk regarding lack of vision as well as a tendency to be rather conservative towards new ideas and therefore be financially prudent (due to the tax reasons I’ve already mentioned plus an unwillingness to raise prices)

Demographic time bomb?

Now you might be thinking that Swedish pensioners are a bit of a rum bunch, but their contribution to keeping Swedish golf clubs up and running is phenomenal and extremely valuable. Furthermore, expecting concessions is of course not just a Swedish phenomenon. When you consider how many other concessions pensioners receive in general (free bus passes, cheaper prescriptions, cheaper entrance to swimming pools etc) across the board it’s the same almost everywhere and is now almost presumed a god-given right for years of contribution to the tax system. And let’s be fair, state pensions aren’t what they used to be or what people think that they should be. A recent article in the Golf Club Management magazine also brought to light the issue of concessions on the UK golf scene. However, golf clubs are a bit like a micro cosmos of society and mirror well the challenges facing golf, and society, as a whole: an aging population with a lot of time and voting power. Our elderly members, as much as we love them, are a ticking demographic time bomb for golf.

Now this is by no means a revelation within Swedish golf or elsewhere. Attracting new younger people to golf is a top priority for most of the club pros and managers I’ve spoken to here. As part of my role within our Junior and Membership Committees I’ve started doing some research. Within my golf club’s municipality we have just over 5000 kids living here, 50 of which are members of my club, with elderly golfers being by far the majority. 50/5000. That’s 1%! Or in other words, 99% of the kids are not playing golf at their local club. That’s a big future market to tap into. Imagine the challenges for golf clubs with an elderly steering committee trying to change the club’s strategy by adjusting member fees so that we can reduce fees for young seniors, as we now have done, and maybe even give the really young ones access to free lessons. As in our case, they are almost making decisions that they feel are against their own interests, or wallets, even if they do understand the need to secure the club for future generations.

AGMs – a minority dictatorship?

It’s a huge pressure for clubs to get the right pricing strategy for membership and greenfees when golf clubs don’t want to rock the boat too much for fear of driving a lot of elderly golfers away. And golf clubs need their elderly golfers right now because they are the main source of income for many. However, there are tough decisions that need to be made now before the generation gap increases and membership levels sink further. As part of their club development strategy clubs need to make sure that they also have a succession strategy in place at both management and steering committee level to attract the younger members into these type of roles now, and perhaps even more so, get the Millennials to go to the AGMs, put forward motions and make sure there’s a balanced decision-making process. As one person said, who I spoke to about AGM participation:

AGMs are currently nothing more than a minority dictatorship. The same old people with the same old views are the ones who keep turning up and voting for the same old stuff!

As with all dictatorships they eventually crumble leaving a mess for the next generation to clean up and there’s not one golf club in Sweden that wants that. We’ve already seen too many club closures over the past few years and it’s not good for Swedish golf.

Well times thankfully started to change at my club a good while back following that heated AGM and we’re now seeing positive effects of a new pricing strategy, even if the average age of our steering committee is around 58. They are forward thinking and have a good level of ambition according to the type of club and prerequisites that we have as a small but friendly local club.  We’ll never be Bro Hof or Barsebäck but nor do we aim to be. Anyway, I’ve been put forward as a “deputy” within the steering committee at our AGM in 2 weeks time.  IF I get voted in I will at least sink the average age a bit more and hopefully be able to contribute to the growth of our club. It will be interesting to see how decisions are made and I hope if nothing else that others in my age category will feel brave enough to actively get involved and be part of the club’s future. We won’t have our elderly members with us forever. We need to be willing to learn from them and they need to be willing to let us in and teach us so that we can make a demographic change now and prepare for the future.