![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/wp-content\/uploads\/Manderley_edit.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nHoping for full fairways in 2010<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve been hit a lot less than people thought we were with the doom and gloom in the U.S.\u201d said suburban Ottawa Manderley on the Green course manager Greg Chambers. \u201cI think Ottawa alone did better with the government workers. The job security is there.\u201d<\/p>\n Manderley actually had more members and tournaments this past season, as well as an increase in the number of weddings at its facility.<\/p>\n The increase in membership and out<\/p>\n side events was echoed by Metcalfe Golf and Country Club\u2019s manager Rob Howell. He said that \u201cwe had the most weddings we\u2019ve ever had\u201d despite a slight drop in tournaments.<\/p>\n Both Howell and Chambers explained that it was not the economy that affected them the most this year, it was the weather.<\/p>\n \u201cThe weather was our biggest challenge first and foremost,\u201d said Howell. \u201cWe got going early in April, the weather wasn\u2019t great in May, and then it was bad for a long while.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe got hit with 23 days of rain in July and that\u2019s what killed us,\u201d said Chambers.<\/p>\n For example, according to an August 2009 study done for the National Allied Golf Association, golf accounts for approximately nine percent of Canada\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), about $11.3 billion.<\/p>\n The same study reports that Canadians also spend $13.1 billion annually on all-things surrounding the game.<\/p>\n Although golfers were ready to play during the recession, pro shop sales stayed flat across the board.<\/p>\n Peter Grant, a sales representative for south-Western Ontario with TaylorMade Golf said that despite that dip in sales at pro shops, people purchased golf clubs\u00a0 mostly through stores\u00a0 such as Golf Town.<\/p>\n \u201cAcross the board the golf pros were being very cautious on their buying last year, and that has continued into 2010,\u201d explained Grant.<\/p>\n \u201cTaylorMade had a very good year in hard goods sales in 2009 surprisingly. We were one of the only companies to show growth in sales. It seems as though people were treating themselves to purchase new golf clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n Where the public courses such as Manderley or Metcalfe saw an increase in nearly everything, the same can\u2019t be said for the private courses in the region.<\/p>\n Carleton Golf and Yacht club suffered a robbery of\u00a0 more than $30,000 worth of high-end golf equipment from the pro shop at the beginning of the season which put them behind the 8-ball. Combine that with the poor weather and the economic situation, many were not prepared to pay the annual dues that come with joining a private club.<\/p>\n The dues for private clubs range from $5000 to over $100,000 which is a whole different entity than playing at a public course.<\/p>\n Greg Richardson, the manager at Carleton, responded by focusing on different demographics of golfers \u2013 mostly those from 27 to 39 — who Richardson says are having children later and may not be as inclined to join a private course.<\/p>\n The initiatives were \u201ccertainly economy related but we had to be a little bit more creative in order to get the members we did and we were successful with some of those programs,\u201d said Richardson, especially those that focused on the aforementioned demographic.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere we were down was our high-profit areas like weddings and tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the differences between public and private courses, they seemed to have similar goals for 2010.<\/p>\n Whether it is a full-time member or a weekend hacker, the managers recognize that keeping customers happy is priority number one.<\/p>\n “It’s five times more expensive to get new business than to keep your existing business,” explained Chambers.\u201cThe best thing I can do is have 144 people after a tournament go away raving about the time they had, and guaranteed they\u2019re going to tell people about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite the recession hitting most Ottawa businesses, the golf industry seemed to be thriving. The biggest problem in 2009 for both private and public courses was not the economic downturn, but the weather. Heading into 2010, courses in Ottawa feel that as long as the weather is clear, their financial picture will do the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1212,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/1212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarc Levac warms up for an early spring.<\/p>\n