Community - GolfBusiness

Hills Golf Course in Fullerton, California.
Along with its overall quality, “the driving
range has outdoor speakers and you can
listen to music while you practice, which
is a real plus,” the golfer wrote.
Last summer at Whistler, the iconic
resort in British Columbia, staff members
took pains to design an audio
system for the golf range that would
supply a true “background” effect—no
booming bass, just an ambient sound
bed of rock and pop tunes. Speaker
wattage was important because more
speakers at low volume would prevent
audio “hot spots” that tend to disturb
concentration rather than enhance it.
The Scottsdale-based golf course
architect Andy Staples has a proposal
on the table with the County of Los
Alamos, New Mexico, designed to make
golf a cultural crossroads where music,
socializing and the royal-and-ancient
game come together. The golf range
and learning center that Los Alamos
County officials asked Staples to build
would be a multi-purpose facility where
the landing area for striped balls would
flow into winter hiking and snowshoeing
trails, and become part of that network
in the golf off-season. Likewise,
the configuration of the landing zone
would be a bowl-type shape for outdoor
concerts in the summer.
“The larger building they had me
add to the site plan isn’t being called
a range office or golf clubhouse, it’s
a ‘community center,’” Staples adds.
“There’s a smaller and more intimatesized
building where they want golfers
to hang out and eat and drink while
they take practice breaks.”
A big welcome mat that involved
what’s been dubbed “creative programming
options,” plus live music, helped
officials at the Chicago-area Glenview
Park Golf Club rack up year-over-year
growth for the 2012 golf season in
several areas. Rounds were up approximately
6 percent, and overall revenue
grew 11 percent. Among the programming
twists were new mixed leagues
“designed for singles, couples, coworkers,
neighbors or friends who want to
enjoy a relaxing twilight round of golf,”
according to the district’s published golf
report. “The club also offered free live
entertainment on Friday nights, which
drew hundreds of people, both golfers
and non-golfers,” the report notes.
“During the summer months, live performances
from entertainers such as an
Elvis impersonator to steel drum bands
descended on the club’s outdoor gazebo
and patio for food, drinks, entertainment
and dancing.”
Even as conventional golf clubs—
semi-private or member-only—experiment
with their programming to
reshape and reformat the game, facilities
that are based on the reformatted,
time-shift idea demonstrate their viability.
Heading into its second decade,
the Harmon Golf and Fitness Club in
Rockland, Massachusetts, continues
to serve as a combined golf-learningand-enjoyment
center buttressed by
the fitness amenity that does wonders
to create the visitation habit so greatly
needed in the recreation space—be it
racquet sports, fitness or, yes, golf.
In the words of Ron LaVoie, whose
vision of this combined, programmed
approach helped the Harmon Club
find its way to success, “People have a
certain amount of time and a general
wish to improve their golf game, improve
their physical fitness, socialize
a little, and see what new ideas will
help them do any of that.”
David Gould is a Connecticut-based freelance writer
and frequent contributor to Golf Business.