Why am I a Golf Course Business Consultant?
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I believe I am more experienced in the golf course business than almost anyone. I've been at it for over 50-years in Canada and the Southern USA.
I started in this business in the middle 1950's raking bunkers at a Toronto, Ontario public golf course known as Tam-O-Shanter Golf Course. We called it 'Tam'.
Tam was one of the 'thresholds' that opened up golf to the masses. It became more than a golf course. By 1959 it had a big public swimming pool, a banquest room seating over 500 people, a full service fine dining room, a 20-sheet curling rink, a full size hockey rink (Toronto Maple Leafs practiced there), and an 8-lane bowling alley. Tam even had an indoor golf school (which I ran for one winter).
I worked in every department at Tam from 1956 through 1962. At one time or another I was a curling rink 'rink rat', a bowling alley pin setter mechanic, a dishwasher, assistant golf pro, and a swimming pool attendant. I also did my time on the golf course maintenance crew cutting cups etc. I was also on a crew that installed an irrigation system, and built several new greens.
I worked my way into the pro shop at Tam, eventually joining the Canadian PGA as an assistant professional in 1959 as an apprentice under John Evelyn. I held my PGA card until 1967.
In the long hot summers at Tam we hosted endless golf outings, some with over 400 players. By 1959, the golf course was so busy we had a 6-minute tee sheet. We also had 100 rental sets that went out, sometimes twice, every day. I cleaned the rentals every day. I also re-whipped the woods, regripped, re-set sole plates, straightened shafts, and tightened wood heads.
In 1960 I could handicap a 40-player scoresheet in about 100-seconds (Callaway handicap system). We managed outings from start to finish - even setting up the prize tables. Some of our large corporate outings tied up Tam for an entire Saturday. They would have an entire day of golf, swimming, eating and drinking well into the night. I'de seen my share of fights and weird activities during those summers.
In January, 1963, Canada's leading golf entrepreneur, Bert Turcotte, invited me to work at his 'in' golf school located in one of Toronto's wealthier neighborhoods (Torontonians know the Eglinton-Avenue Road area). Working that golf school was one of the most grueling jobs I ever had, because myself and four other golf professionals taught private lessons at 1/2 hour intervals from 10: AM to 10: PM (really!). We took an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner. Our work week was 7-days, but we got off at 5: on Saturdays and Sundays. I made $3.00 per lesson. From mid January to mid March all of us averaged at least a dozen lessons a day.
Turcotte really liked my attitude and decided I would be his manager for a golf center he built in Peterborough, Ontario. Built on barely 63-acres, the 18-hole facility icluded a lighted 9-hole par-3 golf course, a lighted driving range, a lighted miniature golf course, and one of the best clubhouse designs I have ever seen. Turcotte was one of the 'breakout' entrepreneurs in golf - actually using the same concession planning theaters use (and still use today).
We built an additional 9-holes that opened in 1966. We tied it to one of the other nines to create one of the first executive golf courses - ever. It had a par of 60 on 3300 total yardage. It was also unique, because the entire course was sewn in bentgrass - greens, fairways, tees and rough. Wall-to-wall bentgrass became a real learning process for us - good and bad!
Peterborough is a city of 55,000 people about 80-miles northeast of Toronto. Turcotte sent me to finish the golf course and clubhouse, and to put an advertising campaign together for our planned June 1, 1963 grand opening. Man! That was one of the most disappointing things that ever happened to me. Later, I'll tell you two revelations I had and implemented that turned that golf center into an absolute 'cash-box'. In fact, eventually I called the place my 'Money Tree'. And it's clubhouse was perfect to make money.
The design of the Peterborough golf center clubhouse is still a strong influence on me today. It was attractive, but almost sneakily laid out to take advantage of every possible concession opportunity. It's the reason I always make money in food and beverage at golf courses I can influence, because the watch-word is 'opportunity'.
[Maybe you're starting to see why I get the best out of a golf course business.]
WHY PETERBOROUGH, ONTARIO?
Don't you wonder why Turcotte chose to build a golf center in Peterborough, Ontario? Actually, it was for a very good reason (side bar here):
Peterborugh, Ontario was a very conservative blue-collar city of 55,000 people in 1963. It's industry included Outboard Marine Corporation, General Electric Corporation, Quaker Oats Company, Westclox General Time Corporation, a major Cocal Cola bottling plant, and others like Ovaltine and Ragu. Sounds of the city were steam whistles and lunch time bells.
Beacuse of it nature Peterborough was a popular test market for new products before they were introduced throughout North America. Here are a few of products I got to see or taste before almost anyone else in North America:
- Sprite
The executives at Quaker Oats and Cocal Cola often came to our driving range at lunch time and I got to know them. They would bring me new products they planned to take to market. I remember tasting Gator Aide and laughed when I thought it tasted like watered down Cool Aide.
The Coke people told me they expected Tab to eventually outsell Coke.
Bert Turcotte chose Peterborough to open his unique golf center to learn how it would be accepted and operated. His plan was to build hundreds like it around North America.
The Peterborough golf center was named 'Liftlock Golfland' because it was located on the banks of the Trent Canal beside an amazing hydrolic liftlock. The lock, pictured here,
moved large yachts up and down the canal with a 60-foot drop and rise. I watched $ millions and $ millions worth of beautiful yachts pass by our golf center for over 25-years. Even the Queen herself once travelled through those locks - right past our golf center!
In fact, the lockmaster's son was one of my employees.
In april and May of 1963 my job was to open the golf center from scratch. I painted, hired, advertised, fired up a new irrigation system, grew in greens and fairways, stocked shelves, lined up suppliers and services, put in phones, paved the parking lot, set up the driving range, set up the snack bar, and prepared very stingy inventory sheets. I was 22-years old, green as grass, but my first love in life was advertising and marketing and I got to do it all myself on that job.
By the way: My salary in 1963 was $80.00 a week, plus a $20.00 a week car allowance. However I got to keep all my golf lesson money, and I earned bonuses for meeting certain benchmarks.
My marketing campaign included all the area media - billboards, radio, TV, and newspapers. We designed a brochure that we handed out at a major 4-way stop intersection - all holidayers from Toronto headed for 'cottage country' - the many lakes surrounding the City of Peterborough.
The experience opening the golf center taught me how to write copy for billboards and newspapers. I wrote my own radio copy and even 'directed' my own television commercials. I learned how to properly design a brochure, what radio times to buy, how to position my ads in a newspaper, and how to design a sale ad. All are skills I posess today.
OPENED THE GOLF CENTER ON JUNE 1, 1963.
I mentioned the opening day at the golf center was one of the most disappointing days of my life. Consider this:
We spend over $4,000 on billboards, brochures, radio and TV ads - all announcing our grand opening on Saturday, June 1st. Saturday, June 1st in Peterborough was a beautiful sunny day, temperature about 80 degrees. I had the clubhouse open at 7: AM, my staff all in place, even nice uniforms on my snack bar girls. By 8: AM I was becoming concerned, because nobody had shown up. Not a single sole! I though, "Not to worry. Maybe Peterborough slept in on Saturdays." By 9: AM, still nobody. Around 10: AM, one the the city aldermen, Mr. A. B. Burrows came in. He looked around and asked where was everybody. He asked for permission to play the 9-hole par-3 course. When my clerk asked for $1.25, Mr. Burrows said he was an important city alderman and did not pay for such things. So he went out there by himself, my one-and-only customer - and he was playing for free!
Bert Turcotte was my mentor back in the 60's. When he arrived at the golf center on that June 1st day and saw the place was empty he took me to lunch in town. He told me how to respond to people if they asked why we had no business. He drilled into me the term, "Success Breads Success. Failure Breeds Failure." I was never allowed to say things like, "Business is slow." Or to openly say, "Busines is down." He told me, People go where people go. People won't go where people won't go!" Never admit anything but business is great and getting better. Never let on that people won't come to your business.
That empty Saturday morning, June 1st, 1963 was one of the best business lessons I ever had. Disappointing, yes, but I was undaunted and as time went by, people did start coming to the golf center, but it really didn't boom until Mr. Turcotte gave me cart-blanch authority to build the business. He figured it could only improve, as that year our entire gross receipts were only $33,000 (in change).