I like to ask this question, and I think the answers are very telling about how the operator thinks. But I also think it gives the interviewee some information on my expectations of optimizing your premium days at our golf courses.
So when I say optimize your premium days, I am really saying, how do you take a day that sells 100% of the tee time inventory that anybody could sell (simply because it’s a beautiful day, it’s at the right time of the year) and how do you maximize the profitability on that day and not just have a full tee sheet, make some money, and call it a day?
There are ways you can make more money by optimizing but, first let's layout our golf course setup.
- Traditional Public Golf Course
- AM – Premium Fees
- Midday – Small Price Break
- Twilight – Bigger Price Break
- 7:30 AM Start
- 10 Minute Tee Time Intervals
Whenever an operator can run the facility at maximum capacity my initial assumption is you’re doing an adequate job, at least. However, because the day was going to fill up because the golf course is in great shape and it was a perfect day for golf, we’re finding that most operators don’t know how to properly optimize the tee sheet to increase revenue on these days other than the standard answer of simply raising prices or pushing alternative revenue sources.
While those answers are plausible, simply raising prices can negatively impact our other days that aren’t quite a sell-out and pushing revenue in other departments is important, however for this question, we’re talking about green and cart fee revenue only.
Okay, so how do you optimize your premium days for green and cart fee APR? Well, here are 7 techniques that should be considered.