The State of the Golf Course Industry (2025 Edition)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: The twenty twenties have been a weird time in the golf course industry. Golf architects are busier right now than they have been for a generation at least, and yet it seems harder and more expensive than ever to build new courses. The art of golf course design is thriving, the quality of the work being done is generally very high, but at the same time, a lot of golfers feel frustrated that so many of the best new and newly renovated courses are extremely expensive to play or simply inaccessible. So from a bird's eye view, we're in the midst of a renaissance, but from a ground level view, it just doesn't always feel that way. So in today's episode, we're exploring some of these dynamics with Greg Nathan, the President and CEO of the National Golf Foundation. Greg and I are talking about the current state of the golf course industry. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is Designing Golf. Greg Nathan, Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

00:01:12
Speaker 2: Great to be with you. Garrett.

00:01:15
Speaker 1: First of all, for those who aren't familiar, you are the President and CEO of the National Golf Foundation. What does the National Golf Foundation. Do I never have to answer that question.

00:01:27
Speaker 2: That's funny, you know, the NGF is is the best known as the independent and objective reporter on the vital signs of golf so on. On one side of our business, we're five oh one c six trade association. We are the trade association for every golf related business, the only organization that works with the business leaders, the leading companies in every vertical. But then the other part of our business is NGFC and that's where we do private research, marketing and consulting work for many of the most prominent companies in golf. And so that's what gives us the three hundred and sixty degree view is that we study the supply and demand everything about the goth economy. But then we're also very fortunate to be let inside of some of the biggest golf companies. So it gives us a three hundred and sixty degree view that a lot of the business leaders like from us.

00:02:30
Speaker 1: You provide a great perspective on where the golf industry is at any given point. That's what I get out of a lot of your research and the kind of the writing that you do for the public based on your research, and so talking to you, talking to other people at the MGF is a great way for me to understand where the golf course industry is at any given point. And so that's what we're talking about today, specifically focusing on golf course development, since that's more my focus. I know you do an awful lot of research on other areas of the you know, supply and demand equation in the golf industry, but I'd like to get into golf course development. Has a starting point. I think we should probably say a few things about participation, right Obviously, participation in golf is the driver of new development and the source of vitality for the golf course design industry. I think everyone is aware that golf welcomed a lot of new players during the COVID years of twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. Has that uptick in participation proven durable?

00:03:41
Speaker 2: You know? Is? It is a generationally incredible time right now in the golf business, Garrett. I've looked forward to our conversation about the development side, but there are more ways today than it seems than ever for people to participate in this game. Of course, the NNGF reports always about the green grass game. But we also know for many years been the most vocal advocate for off course participation, especially where someone hits a real ball with a real club, with a full swing, so that you can get golf's drug, you know, shot euphoria. So what we've had if I start at the top, let's just start with golf's reach. So we're at like nearly one hundred and forty million Americans who play, watch, read, or follow golf. That's like one out of every three Americans. Now we don't golf is ubiquitous today in a way that has never been so just on green grass participation. Now we're at about twenty eight million. I'm still using sort of the year end twenty twenty four numbers because we haven't released the new ones yet, but twenty eight point one en course, that's up sixteen percent from pre COVID twenty nineteen. Thirty six million Americans playing off course in essentially three different ways golf entertainment, screen golf, and traditional or gamified driving ranges. So we're just I mean, on the off course, we're up fifty five percent versus twenty nineteen, and it's just an incredible time relative to demand for tea times and demand for golf in general. And we're even getting you know, when we look at the capacity that's available for growth in public and private, we're really getting to the point where the white space is much smaller than it's been in a very long time, really since you know, like the mid eighties, I would say, and I can remember being in New York and you know, as as a young man, a young professional in the advertising industry in Manhattan in you know, nineteen ninety five, I had to wake up on Tuesday mornings and start speed dialing a golf course in Poughkeepsie, you know, an hour and fifteen minutes away. I was speed dialing for tea times. And if people still did speed dialing for tea times, they'd be doing it now. So demand is incredibly strong, and it's such an incredibly exciting time in the golf course business. And we can take that conversation anywhere you'd like it to go.

00:06:42
Speaker 1: Well, there are a number of different directions. I tend to be most interested in the green grass side of the equation, but I'm curious before we get there, what different forms participation takes. Right, This is a potentially very capacious term participation in in golf. You've mentioned already the various golf activities that people can do off the course, going to driving ranges, gamified driving ranges, top golf, et cetera. How in what other ways do you understand participation? How what does engagement in golf look like?

00:07:22
Speaker 2: I mean, I generally would would under most circumstances, Garrett, I'd keep a pretty narrow definition of places where I'd hit a real ball with a real club, with a full swing. If you were playing golf on a video game, okay, or you know, you step that up and you go to putt putt or adventure golf, or you go to the next level and you are going to what doctor Bettett's my predecessor, would have called a stop and swat driving range. You know, that's that's without the gamification. But you know, the off course that we generally track the closely is always going to be the full swing, reel ball, real club. Because you can get golf drug because in our study of how you get hooked, and most of the industry that we serve depends on green grass golf, well, you can get hooked by getting shot euphoria and that's why we track those three methods so closely the golf entertainment like top golf, screen golf, or driving range, because then you'd be like, hmmm, I like the way that felt. I liked watching the ball fly. And that's what can often motivate someone to go play in green grass. And of course you can there's short course activity, which we think is a great what we would call a transitional place where someone could go from being off course only to a less intimidating, more accommodating, less nerve racking experience for someone who who doesn't play green grass. But I'll give you this may be a shocking statistic, maybe not, but outside of the twenty eight million people who play green grass golf, there are more than fifty million Americans who are not currently in that twenty eight million number who've played grass played on green grass, fifty million who are not in the twenty eight million number. So that's where we look at the generations and the movements of the so called pig through the python. For example, like the Boomers, you know that Boomer generation that helped to grow the golf industry over the past thirty forty years. You know, they're just now starting to be at the point where they're playing a little less, so as inventory of green grass tea times titans that white space. I mentioned, what an incredible thing for sustainability of the green grass game that you have all these other ways that people can participate, so that when there is more white space created, that there are people to fill fill those tea times with the pent up demand.

00:10:16
Speaker 1: In other words, it keeps people close.

00:10:19
Speaker 2: You want, yeah, keep keep them close.

00:10:21
Speaker 1: That they don't they don't completely separate themselves from from the game. I guess at least that's the hope. What are some of the signs that you're seeing that that this increase in interest in golf might or might not be sustainable? How do you determine whether any given fad might might last? I guess that's probably pretty difficult. But when you're looking at this, at this era that we're in right now, are you seeing signs that this can be durable?

00:10:55
Speaker 2: I generally would say, again, our biggest, our biggest concerns are actually all things outside of our control. The number one threat always to golf is the availability and affordability of water. That's always going to be number one, especially in certain parts of the country. And then I worry as anybody would about geopolitical events that would affect any type of recreation or discretionary spending, and you worry about recession and stock market crash, because as long as the general population, especially the higher end demographic that plays golf, if they feel confident and good in their personal financial situation, they're going to spend the money and take the time and play. You also have right now, you just have so much of there is sustainability in the game because of how many people are playing away from the course, which was not the case like Great Recession time. And when we had the Great Recession, we did see a meaningful decline in the number of participating green grass golfers. But back then we didn't have thirty six million off course players, and we didn't have social media doing what it's doing. So there are little there are little things that we see that are maybe blind spots for the game, like a lot of the growth in the number of players that we've seen since twenty nineteen, Garrett has been in less than eight rounds a year, you know, what we refer to as occasionals, and that's a similar thing that we saw during the Tiger boom of like two thousand through two thousand and four, late nineties through through two thousand and four was a lot of the growth was in less frequent, less committed players, and when the recession came, they're out. Yeah. But some of these these underlying other positives that we have today, they didn't exist back then.

00:13:10
Speaker 1: You have this group of golfers that might occasionally play around at a green grass course, but are also engaged in these other forms of golf for other kind of delivery mechanisms of golf, and that is that is something that seems to be different about the current era.

00:13:27
Speaker 2: So we have really we both those who play encurse and off course, which is now, by the way, we haven't released this yet. It's pushing sixty percent, Okay, sixty percent of encourse players do some off course experiences, and those who do both we call them duelis. They play more, they're more committed, they spend more. There are all kinds of signs that those are among golf's best customers.

00:14:12
Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Best Day Brewing. Best Day Brewing makes really excellent non alcoholic beers. This is all about having an active lifestyle. It's not necessarily about teetotaling or sobriety. Everyone gets to make their own personal choices about when they want and where they want to consume alcoholic or non alcoholic beverages. This is just about finding the right usage occasion. So best Day is great for any time during or after a round of golf. It's great for weekday beers, lunch beers, any activity after the activity. So say you've gone skiing or gone on a bike ride or a run or a hike, and you want to reward yourself with a beer or two and need to get stuff done after, can't take a nap afterwards. Best Day is awesome for those occasions. You can be cleaning out the garage or working on your car or working in the yard. Who doesn't love a great beer anytime of the day without the penalties usually associated with full strength beers. Then a lot of people do what's called zebra striping. This is a new concept to me. They drink a non alcoholic beer and then a full strength beer. This way they can keep the party going longer, or they can just switch to non alcoholic beers at a certain point, especially if they're driving or if they just need to keep it together on the back nine of a round of golf. A couple of other benefits besides feeling better in the morning or feeling better after a session of drinking, you get much better nights of sleep, and Best Day beers have about two third less calories than you would usually get in a full strength beer. So here's the deal for designing golf listeners. You can get twenty percent off your first order at Best Day Brewing dot com with the code Frida Egg twenty. This offer excludes subscription orders, but anything else fair game, Best Day Brewing dot Com Frida Egg twenty.

00:16:15
Speaker 2: Check it out.

00:16:23
Speaker 1: So we have what seems to be a meaningful and reliable surge and demand. Now we can talk about the supply side of the equation. As we all know, there there was a major shift in the supply of US golf courses during and after the recession. A lot of courses closed and not that many opened. But earlier this year, the NNGF published an article stating that this supply correction is now effectively over. How did you come to that conclusion.

00:17:00
Speaker 2: It really has to do with the trajectory of closures flattening out, and we you know, we every year since two thousand and six, Garrett, We've had more closures than openings every year since two thousand and six, and that hasn't changed. That still happens now, but it's at a much different level. So in twenty twenty four we opened twenty two eighteen whole equivalents we closed seventy two. And so that gap, which I think is been getting even tighter and tighter, it just doesn't have a huge effect on the net change in golf supply the way it did, you know, in twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve, and so what we have now, and this ties into the demand part of our conversation is that the tightness of demand, the fullness of the t sheets, the capacity discussion, it's not going to change based on the opening of a meaningful number of golf courses where the people are land is too expensive. The cost basis of having a new eighteen hole golf course in a major market. It's just what they would have to charge and the capacity they would have to fill in order for that to make money. It's a real that's a gamble, that's a bit of a gamble. And so we have a very stable supply side, and now after the build up in demand, we got a pretty stable demand side. And so that's one of the things that maybe also the just the financial how the financial markets have performed over the last twelve years. It's one of the reasons why you see the development of these really fantastic destination golf locations, primarily high end private retreats or additions to resorts, and in some cases you got a disproportionate number of short course construction, and it just means that still despite the fact there's not going to be a lot of construction in major markets, we still have amazing golf course supply and significant investment in golf course supply. It's special stuff that's getting Bill.

00:19:41
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about the destination sector a little bit later in our conversation as well as the short course sector, but just staying for a moment on the supply of public courses in in highly populated air is. This is something I've heard about from a lot of golfers. It's something I've experienced myself, this kind of cognitive dissonance about the actual state of golf course development. You know, on the one hand, we're hearing that the market is recovering, existing courses are doing better, New courses are being built. But on the other hand, you can't get a tea time at a lot of public courses, and it seems like not that many new, reasonably priced local public courses are being built. I know the National Golf Foundation has done a study on the supply of public golf courses across the United States state by state. What did you find in that study and what kinds of insights did that provide into the kind of supply of public courses nationwide.

00:20:48
Speaker 2: On the good news side, Grek, three quarters of golf courses in America are open to anyone, and I think that that tends to surprise a lot of people. I think the numbers like seventy three percent. You also have a situation where we're at the high water mark in history for municipal golf. You know, in the hot, very high two thousands, approaching three thousand of the fourteen thousand facilities are a municipal. So public golf dominates golf in America. You know, people who live in major cities who maybe are fortunate enough to play a lot of private golf, they don't see that they don't see what's happening everywhere everywhere in America.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: Now.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: At the same time that I tell you that, I would say that the great majority of the roughly two thousand golf course closures that have happened in the last twenty some odd years disproportionately daily fee, and daily fee just means privately owned public golf versus municipal government owned public golf. So daily fee is where the great majority disproportionate closures have come from. We're in the middle of doing a deeper study right now about the last one hundred openings and the last one hundred closures and stories about them, because we've been talking about it for years and I'm pretty sure we've said the right things relative to what's what's been closing and what's been opening. But we're just going a little deeper right now. But so the good news is seventy five percent of golf courses public high water mark ever municipal golf. But when supply and demand is at a place where it is now, golf courses for the first time in a generation have had pricing power, and good for them. They've you know, the golf course owners and operators in general they don't operate on huge margins, and they've gone a long time where they were under a tremendous amount of pressure because of the building boom that happened between nineteen eighty six and two thousand and five. Four thousand plus new golf courses built in America. That would make it kind of hard to compete, but that's we're not going to see that sort of activity to loosen up the demand for tea times, and therefore golf courses can charge more. And I'm going to be the last person who's going to say that they should take less. You know, one of the things that they're really have made huge strides in is yield management and dynamic pricing. And good for them, because you know what, when golf courses are financially healthy, it's fantastic for the golf economy. And golf courses are only financially healthy because it is the recreational golfer from whom all blessings flow and they're raising their hand, they're not dialing as much, maybe online a little more, they're making their tea times and they're paying their green spees, and that makes for a healthy golf economy. It does make for some pricing pressure in terms of paying for a green spece it.

00:24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does put pressure on that recreational golfer, and we seem to be in a situation where part of the pricing power of golf courses comes from the fact that there is a persistent undersupply of public golf courses in certain areas where there's a lot of demand for public golf. I don't know, maybe I could frame this as a difference between the eras of golf that we've seen recently. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, it seems to me that we saw the development of a lot of daily fee golf courses, a lot of new daily fee golf courses came online privately owned public golf. In the twenty twenties, we have not seen nearly as much new development, new build development in that sector. It's not as though the demand for daily fee golf has significantly gone down since the eighties and nineties, it's just our ability to provide it as an industry seems to have stalled out a little bit. I know your work on this is ongoing, but do you have any theories about why that is why we're seeing such a difference between the boom of the eighties and nineties and the action that's going on right now in golf course development.

00:25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well it's such. It's the activity level is so modest in the major market. In the major markets, if you were if you were building a public golf course, generally you would want to do that where the people are look. I may we may end up being shocked and find out that the calculus works based on this level of demand, and someone will find a plot of land in Charlotte somewhere and build a daily fee golf course. It's just those who are investing in new property, new golf courses these days. That's not the trend. The trend is in retreat destination style places that you know, someone who has the wherewithal and the vision and is willing to go and search for great golf land. You know, those of us who are just so passionate about golf course architecture can really love that trend about what's being built and how special it is. But if you're looking for a public course tea time in a major market, you're under a lot of pressure right now. And I just don't anticipate that changing in the short or medium term, and anybody who's wishing for that is likely maybe they don't know it, but they're wishing for recession in stock market crash.

00:27:17
Speaker 1: That was going to be my follow up question. Basically, the only thing that changes this dynamic is a shock to the economy.

00:27:24
Speaker 2: Right, that would be my That would be my general assessment.

00:27:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and nobody's nobody wants that. That doesn't that doesn't benefit anybody obviously.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: Right, No, nobody is rooting for that. And look, I'm not going to hide for the hide from the fact that golf is more expensive today, and it is. But as I said earlier, you know, I'm delighted for the golf course industry because it's it's been They've had decades of very difficult times, and what it means when they're financially healthy is they're investing. They're investing in new Toro equipment, they're investing in irrigation, they're investing in golf cars, they're investing in clubhouse renovation. And one of the other trends, which you know you didn't ask me about, but it's really part of what's going on, especially in the private club world, is golf establishing itself as third place behind home and work, and that is a great trend for the golf industry. The fact that people view the golf course or the golf club as a place of safety, a place for socializing. And I also would throw out that, you know, as negative as a lot of the tribalism trends that exist in America right now, and a lot of those are really negative. The fact that people want to be with like minded community that translates to golf. And I'm not you know, I don't want I'm not commenting on the on the political side of it. Let's just call it the social behavior. Of social behavior of Americans is more tribal these days, and therefore, being being at the golf course or the golf club, you know, there's a certain it's a certain wonderful element of safety and trust that goes along with that. But I also see the downside of you know, golf started in America as purely a private game, and we're not in a place where we have to risk that. But there's elements of that that are some of the negative things in golf's past.

00:29:55
Speaker 1: Well, golf as a third place is a very interesting idea. I want to make sure that that's uh explained to everybody. When you say third place, you're referring to a place outside of work and home that people can gather and socialize and be in person with each other, live with people. Right, So many of our relationships now are virtual. It's easier to be enemies with people when your only relationship with them is not embodied. And so golf's role as a third place is very important for those obvious reasons, and also for the reason that a lot of other traditional third places that used to perform this function in society, the bowling alleys, the public squares, the various other places that people still gather but used to gather more often have become less healthy recently, and so the golf course can really serve that function as as a as a gathering place for people to get to know each other.

00:31:05
Speaker 2: And and what what a wonderful analog game this is that we love.

00:31:12
Speaker 1: Analog. I like I like that term analog golf.

00:31:15
Speaker 2: We we can build build in as much technology as we choose, you know, it's it's uh, we we can you know, we can use our RCOs, we could use our our rangefinder, we can use our different GPS technology to enhance our game. Uh, but it's still at the end of the day, it's a social game, it's outdoors, it's exercise, and it's a wonderful analog game. It is. It provides some relief to the rest of our lives.

00:31:52
Speaker 1: So, getting back to this question of supply, part of that story is the supply of short courses, so PAR three courses, courses with fewer than eighteen holes, often courses that don't meet that regulation standard of a par of seventy two and seven thousand yards and you know, a certain composition of par fives and PAR four's. Short courses of various kinds were pretty hard hit during the recession years. There have been NNGF studies that have revealed the extent of the damage that the short course sector took during the recession. What did that damage look like and why did it happen?

00:32:41
Speaker 2: The answer the answer to that typically lies in a couple of things. Number one is short course land is more likely to have the opportunity to be redeveloped. The so called higher and better use like we've seen reduct over the last twenty five years, the reduction in driving ranges in America, like I think at the high water mark, maybe it was fifteen hundred, and we're definitely like half or less than that for the same reason. And that's as similar rationale as to why short courses would have closed, either because the land could be redeveloped or the short courses were not well maintained, were not well invested in, and so they couldn't compete with all of the new building that would come into these markets. So that's the way I would make sense of it. I will say that, of course, you've read things from us that that's turned around somewhat, and I'll give you a couple of stats. So this year up to this point, we've got about twenty four openings. You know, we've got time left in the year. We got twenty four openings and more than half are short courses. So that tells you a lot about what's happening now. Across the street from the ngf's headquarters is the so called little Monster Jupiter Dunes eighteen whole Par three, And I wouldn't say that most of the construction of the par three's that's happening now is like community public Par three. There's some of that, but most of it Garrett, and you're well aware of this is happening at resorts, you know, like Bandon has two short courses, you got Cohler with the baths, You've got every.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: One stream song. The chain has recently opened.

00:34:54
Speaker 2: Sand Creek at French Lique Resort, the Sawyer at Garland Lodge, Cliffhangers, that big seater. It's really amazing par three activity, and it's great for the guests, and it's great for the resort owner and operator. And so what the par three's that are getting built, they're really special and those of us who love golf course architecture and great golf experiences, we can be really excited about that.

00:35:23
Speaker 1: They're very cool courses. They are being presented though as an amenity for an overall resort experience. Generally, some short courses have also been built at these destination private clubs that we've referred to a couple of times. So it seems like the model that is helping an excellent short course exist and be sustainable is that it is in addition to a larger experiences. That's how it seems to be functioning for the most part right now. But of course I think everybody wants those local short courses to be available because those are serve such an important function. They help onboard people, they help get people into the game. Whereas you know, as great as short the short courses that bandon Dunes are as great as I'm sure the chain at stream Song is. Those courses aren't necessarily in the trenches converting people to golf. They are serving people who are already in the fold and going to destination resorts. And so it seems like it's a little bit difficult to make a standalone urban short course work right now financially from the business side, what are some of the difficulties of making a short course work.

00:36:48
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always going to be start with the cost of the land, which right now is one of the more prohibitive factors. So you got the cost of the land, cost of construction, cost of operation, and I think just I'm not a real estate expert, but I just think the math is very difficult to make work without charging really expensive greens fees. So, yeah, this is an aspect of where we are today that is really challenging. And we at the ENNGF, I mean, we have huge belief in the short courses being incredibly important to the golf industry. And we've done some study you may have seen from us where we actually looked at We had look at the websites, for example, of every short course in America, we look at their social media presence, and they don't have a lot. There's fantastic exceptions like the Butler Pitch and put in Austin, Goat Hill and Diego. There's such great examples of the vibe.

00:38:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Butler is perfect example.

00:38:07
Speaker 2: And so what I'm getting at is the existing part threes, not the ones that are getting built now, but the ones that are out there now. They need energy. They need to build energy around them. The advertising that they do shouldn't show just a couple of golf holes. They need to show people having fun. This is recreation. This is a place you can go that's not intimidating. You know. The Butlers of the world make it so you could. You could play in flip flops and tank top. Uh, there's food trucks, there's music, it's it's they take pride in being the antithesis of golf with all its orthodoxies. And so I don't think we're at a loss here, Garrett. For opportunity to create energy around the short courses that are out there in America and make them more centers of fun and centers of the community for young people.

00:39:16
Speaker 1: What you're saying is really interesting because one of the problems certainly facing many short courses is that they aren't taken seriously. They're seen as not real golf courses. If you want to go play a real golf round, you've got to go to an eighteen hole par seventy to seventy two golf course, and you know, and you just don't want to compromise and have the short course experience. But the counter to that is sort of what you're saying, where short courses don't try to compete with traditional golf courses, is they embrace their short courseness. They say, this is a distinct experience. This is a different experience from what you'll have at a traditional golf course, and it's good in its own right. So it's interesting that it's sort of a it's not so much a numbers question, a business question, a spreadsheet question. This is sort of marketing right now. Total that a lot of short courses need to sort out.

00:40:28
Speaker 2: The exercise that I described to you earlier about where we analyze the websites and social media presence. I mean, we've done that on a sampling basis for golf courses in Palm Beach County or surrounding where we are here in South Florida, and you'd be blown away by how badly golf is presented in these ways at all kinds of public courses. So if you were to go and google great things to do in Palm Beach County, it's going to show all kinds of things, and the advertising for it is all going to show people having fun. And then all of a sudden, you the first golf course that comes up is going to be on the third page, and it's going to be a picture of an empty golf hole. So golf golf has a little bit of a ways to go in terms of not shooting itself in the foot from a marketing standpoint, and it's one of the reasons why people have game shame and why people are are intimidated like this is supposed to be fun, right, People prioritize things in their lives that are fun. You know when I you know, you constantly hear back in the day, why doesn't golf grow more? Now we don't have that problem at the moment. But you know why doesn't golf grow more, Well, it's it's it's too expensive, and it takes too long, and it's too hard. Well, I've always, you know, sort of bristled at that. And while those things might be real, our research much more shows that it's the intimidation and the field the fear of embarrassment, and that means that those things don't sound like much fun to me.

00:42:30
Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by the USGA Green Section. Coming to the end of twenty twenty five, here it's a great time to evaluate your remaining budget and start planning for twenty twenty six. Data collection is the industry's hottest trend, and the USGA's data collection tools, the GS three ball and the new USGA Moisture Meter, will provide immediate impact and long term ROI. Paired with the USGA's Deacon Course Management system, these tools collect data and create digital records that give you insights into the performance of your playing surfaces. Start making data driven decisions to better manage resources and communicate with course personnel. For only four thousand dollars, you can bundle the GS three ball the USGA moisture meter and the Deacon management system. So order today and get free shipping at gsshop dot USGA dot org. All right, let's get back to the episode. So the last aspect of the current golf landscape that I want to touch on is very different from what we're talking about here. It's maybe actually the opposite end of the spectrum from the Butler Pitchon put in Austin, Texas, and that is the rise of destination golf. If there's one sector in the new bill golf course development industry that has conspicuously thrived in the twenty twenties, it's the creation of new destination resorts, so like the ones built by the Kaiser's Dream Golf and Cabot, and the creation of new private destination golf clubs. Why has destination golf been so vigorous at this time in history.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: Let's see the answer is probably that there have been some very wealthy visionaries who love to play golf, who visit places that other really wealthy visionaries have built, and said, you know what, I want to have one of these, and I'd like to go look for a great piece of land to do that. Part of this is totally in line, Garrett, with the trends tour. It's experiences versus good versus material goods. And I mean, at any time we can discuss the whole and one I made on a par four at a hoopy match club, you know, for anybody who's interested in that. But places like a Hoopie and Congaree for example, sand Hills of course, really started started the whole thing for those of us who love golf and love golf, and it's in its most wonderful design form on amazing pieces of land. I mean, I think it's as simple as that. You know, You've got you've got visionaries with money who like the idea of build building something really special that they can run as a business, and it's a place that they and their friends can go and have an amazing time. And it's you know, it's not Unfortunately, it's not something that everybody's going to get to see or consume because it is primarily private. I mean, I'm looking right now, Garrett, we've got one hundred and forty new US golf course projects in active development. One hundred and forty. That's the most since twenty ten, when the real serious development period was slowing. Sixty percent of those projects that are in active development are private. Forty percent of them are in Florida, Texas and South Carolina. See, you just got some really amazing activity happening. Is it going to be able to be consumed by the masses? No? Is it going to help turn non golfers into golfers? No? Is it interesting investment and raising the quality of golf the golf as a whole in America? Yeah? It is.

00:47:06
Speaker 1: Well, subjectively, this is just my own opinion. A lot of the most interesting golf course architecture is being done in exactly this area. And you can understand why because these projects, the private destination club, the destination resort developed by the Kaiser family or by Cabot, these are attractive projects to golf architects because they generally get really good pieces of land. The priority has been placed on finding land that is well suited to golf, and then you get a lot of artistic freedom as an architect, generally from these clients, because Dream Golf and Cabot have built their brands around outstanding, prestigious, well regarded golf architecture. And then when you're building a donation private club for a client who's trying to appeal to golfers, you know, a relatively small subset of golfers that is generally pretty well informed about golf architecture. You get a lot of freedom there as well. There aren't a lot of restrictions on what you can build and how you can build it, and so a disproportionate amount of the most interesting boundary pushing golf architecture has been done in these contexts, the destination resort and the destination private club, which can be frustrating to people because these are pricey, high end and sometimes hard to access experiences. And yet a lot of these places, most of these places, I would venture to say, have become successful businesses. Band in Dunes very successful business, sand Valley very successful. And Dream Golf is continuing to expand in the twenty twenties. They have started, they have founded a lot of new resorts, the destination private clubs that I know about, their balance sheets look really, really good. And so clearly there is a base of golfers right now who want this stuff and who are willing to pay a premium for this. Do you think there is a larger story here about a change in how golfers spend their time and money. You mentioned the kind of experience economy, the shift toward experience that has that has happened. Is that part of this story?

00:49:47
Speaker 2: I would, you know, based on what we're seeing also in terms of the highest end golf resort bookings and a year in advance booked up. I mean, this is not this has not been normal in America. So it is a trend towards experiential. It's a trend towards retreat type environments once again, sort of the trend towards the analog, which you know, those of us who are fortunate enough to play at some of these places, there's a magic to it. And I'm just looking right now Garret at Florida. Okay, Florida not exactly known for its amazing golf land, you know, because of the lack of elevation change. Florida has more golf courses than any other state in America, over a thousand. But stream Song building built, you know, David McLay kidd building a fifth course is stream Song, Tom j Oak at Old Shores, High Grove, Fries Straka at Miakah. That there you go. That rhymes, it does, Yeah, the Ranch North Course at Apogee, Old Charlie, South Carolina, Old Barnwell twenty one Club, Old Sawmill.

00:51:17
Speaker 1: South Carolina. The ones that you mentioned, yeah right far away.

00:51:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I'm just looking down the list at Florida, South Carolina and Texas, Wild Spring Dunes, Travis Club, Laura Loma, Childress Hall. I mean, these are wonderful for those of us who love golf course architecture and playing golf on great land. And it's clear that those golfers in America who have the wherewithal to do this travel, it's just, you know, the it's an embarrassment of riches. And from a standpoint of the types of places we can go for these analog golf retreats with friends, it's extraordinary.

00:52:05
Speaker 1: Do you have any working theories about why it is that so much of the action is concentrated around specifically Hope Sound in Florida and specifically Aiken in South Carolina. There are certain hotspots, it's not all happening in those two places, and then there are a variety of spots in Texas that are saying a lot of activity. But why the Southeast, I mean speaking.

00:52:32
Speaker 3: About would foot thirty forty minutes the road from where I'm sitting right now. It's a ranchland, relatively flat for the most part, but rangeland that relative to the other land in the area is highly affordable relative relative, And that building has a lot to do with.

00:53:00
Speaker 2: The migration of older, affluent folks from the Northeast moving down here. Yes, I think it's a little bit. I think that's quite a bit different. While those are still sort of destination club oriented, the ones in Hope Sound some of them have real estate and they're really for people who are either want to second or third home or want to retire there. I think that's a little different than what's going on in Aiken. And I just think that's more driven by they're finding great land there and perhaps they're thinking, you know, I can make I can make a tremendous amount of money during the week surrounding the Masters in a totally different dynamics between those those two things. Yes, I agree.

00:53:54
Speaker 1: I think Aiken is so interesting because one, you have the the attractive proposition of being thirty minutes from Augusta, Georgia, and so every year you know you're going to get a deluge of people interested in playing your excellent golf course. But then you're also an hour from Columbia, South Carolina, You're two hours from Charlotte, You're about two hours i think from Charleston. And these are growing cities. These are cities that are taking on a lot of you know, similar migration to what you're talking about around you know, Jacksonville, in various cities in Florida. Those cities are growing too, but I think Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston are growing more in the kind of middle aged, young family areas because you just have a lot of kind of well off folks who are relocating to those cities and working often in their financial sectors. And so a club in Aiken is very attractive because you can get away for a weekend, go stay in your place out by Aiken, and enjoy your club there. It's almost as if Aiken is becoming the Hamptons of some of these growing Southeast cities. And so that's maybe part of the reason that some of this stuff is happening there. And there are parallel reasons that we're seeing development in Florida, but it has to do with the fact that these areas are growing and taking on a lot of people who have the money to join another club.

00:55:39
Speaker 2: I suppose. Yeah. I mean, I'm super excited to go and visit some of these places. They will be what they were intended to be, destination trips. But it's a really interesting dynamic. Certainly, you know, those properties have their own risks involved, and they're they're banking on you know, just putting two and two together, they're banking on the fact that even if we had a recession certain things that challenge the feelings of financial well being of huge swaths of Americans, that those folks who have the memberships are somewhat insulated, you know, from from some of that recessionary activity if it were to happen. But there's there's a natural risk associated with those properties that if it's the look, these are problems of only a very small group of people, But if that's my fourth or fifth or sixth club, what's the first to go? You know, do I start to think about that in the case of a stock market crash or meaningful recession. But for the most part, those just add to the quality of supply. They don't really change the supply and demand dynamics of the golf economy. They're jewels. They are special, special jewels and special destinations, but they're not you know, I'm very The NGF often would say, Garrett that all golf is local. Well, there's a meaningful exception.

00:57:31
Speaker 1: To that theory, right, So, Greg, the National Golf Foundation does a lot of interesting work. You mentioned that coming up. You're looking at the last one hundred closures and last one hundred openings. Are there any other areas of research that you're particularly interested in right now? I wonder if there's a preview of the stuff that you're doing right now that you can get us.

00:58:00
Speaker 2: Three weeks away from our annual symposium, and we always share that's the first presentation of the new state of industry, and we're also working on a really amazing strategic report with McKenzie. So the NNGF twice in our history has collaborated with McKenzie to look at the future of golf. In nineteen eighty eight, we did the first one with McKenzie and in nineteen eighty eight golf was significantly undersupplied. So at that time, in nineteen eighty eight, if there was a one sentence that comes out of that report with McKenzie and the NGF it's if golf's going to grow, we need more golf courses. Then we did in nineteen ninety nine a second report with McKenzie and based on the huge building boom that happened in the late eighties and nineties. When we got to nineteen ninety nine, we were like, whoa. We already had put a yellow light up on development, and we were getting ready to put a red light up on development. And at that time it was okay, we've got supply, but supply Unfortunately, the boom built a lot of homogeneous stuff. Okay, expensive to build, expensive to maintain, high green s fee was built, not necessarily what you need to grow to turn golfers into non golfers, and so there was a there was a disconnect between the golf being built and whether it actually grew the game. And I really don't like that phrase grow the game. It's creating golfers from non golfers. So the last one nineteen ninety nine. So now in twenty twenty five, you know, twenty five years later, we were undersupplied in eighty eight, we were oversupplied in ninety nine, and now you could argue we're at equilibrium. So that I'm really excited about new State of Industry. It will be different than it's been in the last several years, just in terms of some new developments that we've seen, most of them to the positive. But I've already hinted somewhat to when you think about growth, where's it going to come from?

01:00:33
Speaker 1: Yes, what do you do when there's equilibrium? What's the imperative so.

01:00:37
Speaker 2: That that white space, that shrinking white space for green grass growth? You know, that's an area that we're looking at very carefully right now. And so the SOI the State of Industry is going to have certain new things that are our constituents haven't seen before. And then the McKinsey Report, you know, bringing in all of their really high level insights on American consumer behavior tied with ngf's unique golf specialty perspective. So I'm really looking forward to that. And obviously after the symposium for those who are members who support the organization and some things that we put out for free to the entire industry, we're gonna have a lot of new content.

01:01:29
Speaker 1: I guess I'll have to have you back on at some point soon.

01:01:32
Speaker 2: You know, I will say yes to that.

01:01:36
Speaker 1: As always Greg, I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on the pod raping with you, Garrett, Thanks so much for the conversation. This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam. Thank you Will. If you've been liking this podcast, I can just about guarante that you would love what we're doing in Frida Egg Golf Club. That's Frida Egg Golf's membership. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership to see what it's all about. We do a lot of exclusive golf architecture related content in there, the kind of stuff that I don't think you'll be able to find anywhere else. We're also going to get my new colleague, Kevin van Volkenberg involved in some club content, so that's something to look forward to. So join us in the club. We're having a lot of fun there. One thing actually that I want to mention that we're doing right now is running a whole design contest. The winning design will actually get built at a new short course designed by Andy Staples in Minnesota. So if you've been thinking about entering this contest but just putting it off, now is the time. The deadline is October fifteenth at noon and we're going to go from there pretty much right away, hold a hangout of virtual hangout with club members and look at some of the designs and make some decisions on finalists. So I'm really looking forward to that. Hope you enter your your whole design, come up with something creative, and we'll take a look. All right, thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.