Quote:
Originally Posted by tophcfa
(Post 1934549)
You are absolutely correct, supply and demand dictates the ability to charge a higher rate. The people that run this place have purposely created a favorable supply and demand situation to support price increases by building a crapload of new houses since Belle Glade opened (the last Championship course to open), without adding a single new hole of Championship golf. Where we live during the summer, it is a different dynamic because the population of old retired people is small relative to the general population. We can play really nice courses during weekdays, with the senior citizen discount, for between $28 - $42 with a cart. The only hitch is you have to get out early enough to make the turn before the horn sounds and the working folks slide down the dinosaurs tail and rush to the courses for leagues. The same courses cost $55 - $75 to play on weekends, unless you go out after 3 PM on Sundays. It's all supply and demand driven.
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You make several excellent points. My golfing buddies and I were talking just yesterday about how there are 9 championship courses from 466A going north, and only 3 from 466A going south, at this point. I play championship courses twice a week. Priority member. I go north for about 5 months a year, so I get the priority for 6 months, November-April.
I'll spare everyone the itemized math, but for 6 months (the prime months of golf in TV), playing 2x/week, with priority membership, totals about 3250, which averages about $63/ round. Not dirt cheap, but not excessive, IMO.
Conditions aren't in line with top level private country clubs, but I'd be paying many times more per round for that luxury, including paying dues, assessments, initiation fees, restaurant minimums, etc. even for the months I'm up north.
As far as the "golfing experience" here, I'm happy with it. Courses are not overly crowded, and pace-of-play has been rarely a problem, and frankly, sometimes when it has been, it may have been our group that was responsible, and I appreciate the gentle push to keep up moving. It saves me the trouble of being the one to tell the slowpoke in our group to speed it up. All season long, I heard it once. One time in six months and we were politely informed to pick up our pace, and I was happy about it, because one of my group, while we struggling to keep pace, was hawking balls out of a water hazard.
As far as conditions, I agree, they aren't great, and at Havana, they were beyond horrible the one time I played it, but generally, we just "move them everywhere, place them in the bunkers" and move on. We are not playing for big money, and I'm cool with that. I've belonged to , and played at many private clubs in my life, and very few of them were in pristine shape.
One more point about the clubs that offer cheap deals. They are generally doing it out of desperation. There are a ton of clubs right on the edge of financial non-viability, and these bargain deals are their way to just barely stay afloat. It's the reality of golf right now. It costs enough to maintain a course, that many people aren't willing to pay what it costs per round to support it, so clubs have to cut corners when it comes to maintenance, and lower green fees just stay open. Every year, where I go in the summer, there seems to be another club that has closed up. So I wouldn't necessarily look at those super cheap greens fees as the ideal business model for the courses here in TV.
