PHILIP REIDon The Irish Timesquestionnaire to clubs which indicates while times are still tough, memberships have stabilised since 2010

IF YOU click onto the website for Turvey Golf and Country Club in north County Dublin, you will find nicely produced pages which reflect its growth – from a nine-hole course with a portacabin as its office, it developed into a fine 18-hole parkland course with a modern clubhouse and hotel rooms.

These days, there is no golf played there. And the website has the words no club ever wants to highlight: “Course Clubhouse Closed Until Further Notice. Gone into receivership.”

This is personal to me, in that I was once a member of the club and enjoyed many years there with decent people who loved their golf and only wanted to improve what they had. Unfortunately, it all ended sadly and its recent demise – with the banks calling time – has brought home a reality that many clubs in Ireland are struggling to find solutions to. Turvey is the extreme case, epitomising how it all went wrong, but there are many other clubs hurting too as people attempt to prioritise their spending. In this regard, golf has suffered more than most sports.

And, yet, the haemorrhaging of membership which many clubs experienced in 2010 seems to have eased to a large extent. It might be too early to call this calming a form of “green shoots”, which were the buzz words for economists a few years ago as the recession started to bite, but the general stabilisation of club memberships – reflected in an Irish Times questionnaire to clubs all around the country – would indicate, although times are still tough for golf clubs, there might now be some light at the end of the tunnel.

While clubs are suffering, golfers have rarely had it so good, with annual subscriptions reduced and, in many cases, no entrance fees required to join clubs. For the social player, those without GUI or ILGU cards, the cost of green fees makes for very good value . . . however, the advent of what one club terms “supermarket prices” – reflecting a price war in the retail world – would substantiate the belief that clubs undercutting other clubs in their green fee pricing structures are damaging the economic viability of other clubs.

It is a fair point, especially with some establishments caught within Nama’s tentacles offering green fees (often with hotel accommodation) at much reduced rates.

In the main, our survey shows:

* The biggest challenge is retaining members: many clubs continue to suffer a slight decline in membership renewals, but nothing as drastic as 2010 when an estimated 14,000 players failed to renew.

* Private clubs are further hit financially by having to pay a high VAT rate, compared to member clubs.

* There is an aging membership in many clubs.

* Many clubs have scrapped the policy of charging entrance fees.

* Many clubs have introduced easy-payment options to assist members pay their annual subscriptions.

Interestingly, only a small number of clubs appear to have taken up on the suggestion mooted at the “Road to Recovery: Golf Business Conference” held in Dublin last November which recommended that clubs start to look at sharing arrangements in machinery and bulk purchase of materials.

However, as Bernard Gibbons of Powerscourt Golf Club put it of this proposal, “I am not in favour of this operation. I know it may save a little but I do believe in the long term that quality is lost. I have maintained our course staff level in order to provide a consistent and high quality golfing experience.”

Another aspect which clubs are finding difficult is in competing with courses run by Nama. As Avril Duggan of Highfield Golf Club in Kildare – speaking for many – put it, “business is very hard especially with the likes of the Nama courses offering ‘Noddy’ cheap deals to get people in to keep a cashflow for the liquidator or the banks, not in line with actual cost/repayments or reality. It is the most unfair aspect of this whole recession, a bit like the dummy hotels squeezing out the traditional operator.”

Next week ...

We look at the primary sources of the overseas green fee market and at the mission statements of clubs in their attempts to combat the issues of falling memberships in a recession.