Insights · The Business
The golf course event calendar as a yield tool
Every outing occupies a Saturday the member already paid for. The calendar is the product.
A golf course is a calendar business wearing a landscape. The member-guest is the highest-ritual private event on that calendar. Treat the year like inventory.
Stack is the silent leak
Member-guest, member-member, a charity the board likes, two guest days, a member-guest play day, a nine-and-dine. Each one is defensible. Together they spend the Saturdays the dues already bought. The shop and the dining room cannot peak twice in a weekend. The superintendent cannot hold both.
Merion’s pile in the field is a calendar you can read: May One Day Member-Guest, Annual 2-Day Member-Guest, Annual 3-Day Member-Guest, Women’s Member-Guest, plus play days. That is a program. A club that runs one “annual” and six unpriced guest days is not a program. It is a habit.
Rules that keep the year solvent
- Put the named member-guest on the calendar first. Everything else moves.
- Hang one-days and play days on the shoulder. Do not give them the June Saturday unless they are the week.
- An outing rate that sits under the member-guest guest fee does not get a prime weekend. That is a no, not a negotiation.
- Charity plays on the club’s charity day, not on the member-guest weekend.
What the 795-week field adds
170 hosts in the catalog appear more than once. 59 appear five or more times. The clubs that show up again are running a slate. Count your own Saturdays the same way. If you cannot draw last year’s calendar from memory, pull the tee sheet and mark every event that closed a morning. That map is the yield tool. The field is there to steal a look, not a date.
From the field
- Annual 3-Day Member-Guest Merion Golf Club
- Annual 2-Day Member-Guest Merion Golf Club
- May One Day Member-Guest Merion Golf Club
- Women’s Member-Guest Merion Golf Club
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A written plan for this year’s week. Request a consult · Services · All insights