Local courses bucking golf trend

Adam Candee

Wednesday, July 2, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

While the number of rounds of golf played in the United States precipitously dropped in the past year, both the Las Vegas area and the Southwest region are avoiding the trend.

That is the conclusion of the National Golf Foundation's annual study of the golf business throughout the nation. Surveying about 2,300 facilities -- 14 percent of the total golf facilities in the country -- the NGF reports that rounds played in America fell by almost 16 million in 2002, a drop of about 3 percent from 2001.

Yet in the Southwest region -- Nevada, central and southern Arizona and all but a tiny section of northern California -- rounds played dropped just 0.2 percent. Seven of the 11 regions surveyed experienced a bigger falloff than the Southwest, an area insulated against serious dropoff by its status as a travel destination and by steady population growth.

Local course managers said they are not seeing a drop in rounds played. Some, in fact, report an increase over the past year. They are, however, witnessing increased competition for scarcer dollars with so many new courses opening in the area.

"I can't say the rounds of golf are down, but instead more spread out," said Jim Stanfill, sales and marketing director at Silverstone Golf Club.

The struggling economy increases that competition, as regular players reduce their outings and weekend warriors cut out their rounds. Eric Dutt, general manager at Rio Secco Golf Club, said there is only so much that can be done when it comes to the price of play keeping players away.

"It's expensive as hell to play golf here, but it's expensive as hell to build a golf course here," Dutt said. "It kind of goes hand in hand, unfortunately."

That fact of desert golfing life is reflected in a revenue-per-round increase of $2.44, or 4.9 percent, from $49.89 to $52.33 in the Southwest from 2001 to 2002.

As is the norm, courses across the Valley are reducing their rates during the scorching summer months. Some courses are even going a step beyond that, dropping greens fees throughout the year in an effort to attract more consistent play.

Wildhorse Golf Club general manager Tim Chew said that beyond lowering prices, the best thing a course can do to attract more business is to increase the level of service. That's a switch from years past.

"Every course was packed all the time," Chew said. "It didn't matter if you had the service, as long as you had the golf course."

There are now plenty of golf courses to be had, if not the number of golfers to consistently fill them.

"We need to find new sources of rounds and not take rounds from each other," Dutt said.

Overall, the NGF study shows the Southwest region to be in excellent shape, including a 4.7 percent increase in total revenue over the past year. At $3.39 billion in 2002, the Southwest trails only the Northeast ($3.57 billion) in total revenue.

The only major dropoff in the Southwest is in merchandise revenue, which fell almost 5 percent in a year.