Marshalling his troops - Pitchcare

Bob Taylor BSc (Hons),
MIEEM, MBPR, Head of
Ecology & Environment at
the STRI, looks at the
changing face of golf
business and makes a
strong case for
biodiversity as the way
forward
What does the next ten
years hold within the
golfing industry? This
was the question
discussed in Peter
Larters (BIGGA Midland and North
West) regional seminars held in the
spring of 2010, and to which STRI
contributed.
We have all seen the industry realign
with the modernisation of the game
and, one thing is sure, golf will
continue to evolve as differing external
pressures and influences bear down on
it. As in nature, it is all about
adaptation and the survival of the
fittest. Natural selection allows those
best fitted to succeed, whilst others
become extinct.
In business (and each golf club is a
business working independently and in
competition with each other), it is
essential to recognise change and adapt
to it. Those that fail will struggle to
survive long term. A suitable business
analogy would be that a golf club is a
large fish operating in a relatively small
sea, and there are many other similar
sized fish in the sea all competing for
the same resources. As the other fish
grow then the sea will effectively
diminish, meaning that only the better
able and better adapted will survive.
Golf clubs are working under the
constraints of increasing competition,
arising through the more innovative
clubs moving forward as new ideas and
enhanced services help provide a more
rounded product offering.
Competition can manifest itself in
several different guises. A major and
very recent competitive pressure, on top
of changing environmental legislation
and developing technologies in golf,
has been the global recession. This has
brought with it quite severe selection
pressures and is, perhaps, a first
indication of the need to adapt, and
adapt quickly. In nature, species that
cannot adapt quickly soon become
replaced by those that can. Adaptation
in this sense would mean looking
closely at the course and recognising
areas where improvements could be
made to ensure visitor and member
retention.
STRI is by no means exempt here;
faced with the recession we have had to
seize the opportunity to bring about
new innovative solutions which, it is
hoped, will bring real long term benefit
to the golfing industry. Such innovation,
backed by research, also enables our
business to remain at the forefront of
golf.
Take, for example, the new
programme set up to allow individual
golf clubs to assess the quality of the
putting and playing surfaces and, for
the first time, to quantitatively track the
improvements being made. Such
innovations are taking the guesswork
and the emotion out of golf course
management.
The case for
Biodiversity