Course owners who sell green fees as well as memberships often strive for an ideal balance between walk-up play—at higher per-round revenue—and the steadier money provided by dues. When new owners took over 27-hole Meadows Farms in Locust Grove, Virginia, last summer, they heeded the suggestion of well-traveled head professional Larry Knupp and greatly reduced the club’s number of memberships.
In tandem with general manager Josh Dotson, Knupp sketched out a very limited program of 25 individual (at $1,400 each) and 12 family memberships ($2,200). Then, relying on his previous big-box retailing experience, Knupp used Black Friday as the membership purchase opportunity and emphasized the fact that no additional space would open up once the block was sold out. In short order, approximately half the available slots were sold. For a first pass at the program, it was a positive outcome, especially given that the promotional effort was very minimal—just word-of-mouth and some social media. In fact, when Knupp arrived at the golf shop at 8 o’clock that Friday morning, there were people waiting outside to be sure they didn’t miss out.
During the frigid winter weeks, Knupp kept in touch with the club’s new members (as well as with other customer clusters in the Meadows Farms database) to promote “quirky” activities that would help create a real “insider” feeling for participants. The most popular was a closest-to-the-pin contest from the back porch of the clubhouse to a green 230 yards away and an ice-covered pond in between. Using middle irons, golfers skipped their shots (at $5 for two swings) along the frozen pond and let them hop onto the putting surface.
A small contingent of members and special attention from the staff is Knupp’s formula for creating buzz that will carry over to the whole clientele. “I want people who are sitting at home to be saying to themselves, ‘I wonder what’s going on at the club.’”