Evolution Golf

As the golf industry evolves in India we all notice there are some lovely gated communities being planned that are at various stages of construction, some of them located in stunning locations. Remarkable as it seems, the developers and investors are all looking at setting up medium to large sized gated communities centered around a golf course. Yes, the golf course is the centre piece of most of these developments.
 
Being in the business of golf, I have the good fortune of meeting at the very minimum half a dozen current and potential developers in India and the Middle East every month. As I get involved with their projects at various levels, one common thought process or rather the lack of it strikes out, that very few of these developers are actually setting up academies at their golf courses.
 
All of them are investing heavily into the golf courses and the infrastructure, bringing on board master planners with global experience, golf course designers that bring immense value to the property, landscape artists and architects that have created some of the best clubhouses and hotel / hospitality partners who are big attractive brands, but very few of them seem to be aware that without a good golf academy they are seriously limiting their projects long term growth and sustainability.
 
It is one thing to construct a lovely golf course, but altogether another matter to maintain it to ensure that the members and patrons get on a consistent basis the product that they bought into. Without golfers or adequate members any golf course will find it extremely hard to break even. No two ways about it, regular usage is the key to the long term success for any golf course.
 
The big question in a country such as ours is - "From where will the new golfers come ?" The only logical and obvious answer is from golf academies... Kind of a no brainer isn't it.
 
Let's put it this way, it takes at an average anywhere between two to three years to have a ready golf course from start to finish. Most developers will along the way sell their residential lots to clients and complete the golf course. Given that India has a population of 1.2 billion people and under a 100,000 golfers, chances are that over 90% of the people that buy lots within the golf community aren't even golfers. So now we have a spanking new ready to play golf course and only the existing golfers in the region that the golf course is entirely dependant on to join as members or pay green fees and play.
 
It is more than likely this golf course will have a driving range, but certainly not an academy. Do we even understand and appreciate the difference between a driving range and a golf academy ? Does branding a driving range as an academy make it one ? The truth is educated and trained golf professionals with social skills and a solid curriculum are the key elements that do. No matter how beautiful the driving range is, and how good the quality of the rental equipment, range balls, golf ball dispensing machine or the hitting mats look you do not have a golf academy... A systematic structure and plan to get out into the local community to grow the sport as a fun family activity with a solid curriculum does. The golf academy has to in reality be a centre to create golfers. It is the property developers investment into the future.
 
The other aspect that personally baffles me is that in most cases the driving range or golf academy as the case may be comes up after the golf course is ready or is a part of the last leg of the completion of the golf course. Would it not be so much easier to have the golf academy constructed as the very first part of the golf course developement. At the very maximum six months is what it takes to have a driving range ready and then another month or so to get the systems in place to set up a golf academy and then we are good to go. So while the golf course is being built the golf academy is the vehicle that the developer uses to create new golfers and allow those that have already bought lots to experience and learn golf. I'd safely say that by the time the golf course is ready for play a couple of years down the line the developer would have at the very minimum a few hundred new golfers that would not only buy membership to the golf course but would also be potential buyers for the housing lots.
 
It is my belief that using the golf academy as the project showcase lends itself very well to the marketing for the development too. It is well documented that golf as a sport and buying into a golf community is very much aspirational. Given that the academy would be the first experience or interface for a potential club member or a residential lot buyer, the developers job just got a whole lot easier to make the sale. Who doesn't want to belong to a well run and classy institution and learn to play golf along the way ? Isn't that what the sales pitch was all along ?