GOLF SEASON will kick into high gear soon for clubs north of the Sunbelt. Discussions about golf course maintenance budgets often involve factors such as cost per hole or per acre, and characteristics ranging from type of grass to geographic location. To understand how these factors might be used identify accurate bench- marks for course maintenance expense, Club Benchmarking undertook extensive analysis of club industry data, studying a wide range of golf and country clubs across the U.S.; small clubs and large, nine to 108 holes, growing every type of grass and seeing every variation of seasonality, weather conditions and rainfall.
The result of that research runs contrary to conventional wisdom: The reality is that clubs spend what they
can afford on the golf course. The proportionate distribution of gross profit (the money a club has for funding fixed operating expenses) is consistent across the entire industry +/– a few percentage points, independent of club size (based on total operating revenue) or geographic location. The business model
of clubs, as defined by data from the industry itself, defines these proportions as the benchmark. The average club spends roughly one-third of its gross profit (don’t think revenue) on golf course maintenance.
Analysis provided by Club Benchmarking.