The dollar is showing signs of life and the price of a barrel of oil is slowly creeping upwards. Neither are registering what could be described a healthy pulse but there is life in the body nonetheless.
For all industries in Alberta these are two areas which are under the microscope as we move forward in 2016 and the local golf industry is part of this study.
Most courses in the province are waiting for Old Man Winter to finally call it quits but local professionals and golf managers have been busy prepping for the season. Optimism is a common thread when asked about the economy and what shape the golf season will take this year.
“We hope it’s not going to be too impactful on ourselves,” said Dean McBride, the head professional at Coyote Creek Golf and RV Resort just south of Sundre. “So far to date we’ve had a lot of group bookings and our RV park is pretty much booked for the summer so that’s encouraging that people are still going to get out.”
So getting golfers out to play is going to be a challenge in some areas of the province. McBride says one option might be to adjust rates in recognition of what Albertans are facing when it comes to spending their recreation dollars this year.
“It’s unfortunate that we’re in the situation we’re in but at the same time we’re not going away so we’ll survive one way or another.”
Murray McCourt, PGA of Alberta director says the future is still an unknown at this point as clubs continue to book tournaments around the province. The PGA of Alberta is also keeping an eye on club memberships which may take a dive due to disposable income choices.
“Memberships seem to be the area in Calgary in particular that people are striving to try to get some more because maybe they are hurting a little bit that way with the economy,” he said.
He says at his course, The Ranch in Edmonton, tournament bookings are about the same as they were last year.
“In my eyes that’s a huge win compared to what I was expecting this year to be,” he said. “Another thing that we’ve all done, at least I have in my business, we are streamlining our own businesses and making sure we’re doing things a lot leaner and more efficiently and appropriately to ensure we can battle the economy if it’s not as good as we want it to be.”
Gregg Lown, Director of Golf at Jasper Park Lodge says they are optimistic about the summer of 2016 at Jasper and Banff with an eye on attracting more foreign tourists to come play their courses.
“There’s a lot of tour business from Australia and Europe and the US as well so the base is there,” he said.
The two Fairmont properties are also addressing the local angle with their friendly rivalry which aims at bringing people from Northern Alberta to go play Banff and golfers from the south to head north and tackle Jasper.
“This is something we haven’t done in a while and really it’s just about bringing in more Albertans since we know that they’re not going to the states we’re trying to make it easier for them to stay at home.”
A weak loonie has not stopped courses on the other side of the border working to do the right things to get people to head south and play.
Cody Law, with Golf Mesquite says they have a couple of programs on the go with Canadians in mind.
A local only golf pass program which offers four free rounds of golf will be opened up to Canadians who head south and are looking for a bigger bang for the ailing dollar.
“Most of the time Canadians come down for ten days to 3 weeks at a time and so if you’re going to play for more than three of four days you get these free rounds of golf and then after that you get local rates for as long as you want for the rest of the year.”
Canadians can also get 30% knocked off the stay and play packages in Mesquite to try to balance out the exchange rate, he said.
McCourt says a positive sign was the fact the annual Calgary and Edmonton PGA of Alberta consumer golf shows were well attended with plenty of action within the clearance centre in both cities.
“Now it could be a sign the economy may not be too good as people are looking for a deal or maybe it’s not quite that bad because people are spending. We’re just going to have to monitor it and see how it goes and we’ll all make adjustments if we need to along the way.”
Golfers with the itch to play may cash in on an early start to the year which is good for the courses but it remains to be seen if that will carry through the entire season.
But we know, golfers are an optimist bunch and they do love to get out and tee it up.
