FORGET warbling about solving a problem like Maria. The Sound of Music nuns at Nonnberg Abbey would’ve worked themselves into a quite dreadful fankle if they had to try to solve a problem like Scottish Golf funding.
Nobody likes an increase in price. Gas, electricity, a pint of pale ale or, ahem, the newspaper cover price? You name it, folk will grouse about it.
For Blane Dodds, the chief executive of Scottish Golf, sourcing new avenues of revenue and prising open other commercial opportunities remains key to the general health of the game in its cradle.
After a hefty reduction in government funding – Scottish Golf’s sportscotland budget was cut from just over £1million to around £665,000 this year – the numbers are not adding up for Dodds.
“We are starving our country of golf investment,” he said. “If we do nothing, there will be significant cutbacks, maybe around £400,000 next year, in club support and developmental programmes. That’s something nobody wants.”
To accumulate, they say, you have to speculate and Dodds is well aware that the annual affiliation fee paid by every adult club member to the governing body has to go up.
At present, it stands at £11.25, the second lowest in Europe. So, what about doubling that?
“A lot of club members don’t know what they’re paying,” he said of the current fee. “Some think it’s £20-£25 already. Some secretaries say members will walk out [if there’s an increase] but I struggle with that.
“If it goes up by, say, £2 a month with the benefits we are proposing, I struggle to see people walking away.”
Over the last few months, Dodds has been trying to galvanise the 211,000 members of Scotland’s 587 clubs and encourage them to jump on board with a new strategy aimed at bringing in some £4m over the next four years.
A new Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) is one thing he is hoping clubs will embrace while a national tee-time module aimed at generating money for clubs rather than outside agencies is also part of the strategy.
Meanwhile, an international visitor license, whereby overseas players coming to Scotland pay a kind of modest golf tourist tax, is also on the table ahead of a vote later this year where it will either be a yes or a no for a rise in affiliation fees and a change to the articles.
“In recent history, it’s one of the most important [votes],” stressed Dodds. “The outcome will dictate two ways forward. Either investment and growth or reductions.”
The fortunes of clubs across the country vary markedly. “There are perhaps 100 clubs that are very successful,” added Dodds.
“Then you have maybe 100 clubs in risk of serious issues while 300 or so are surviving. But they need to do more than survive. We want them to grow.
“At present, for example, we have one club development officer per 100 clubs. We need more.
“The only way of actually growing a sport is with a solid platform and that platform is the clubs. It’s a safe environment for kids, it’s a place where we have qualified coaches and where we get the benefits of a sense of community.
“The other argument is that clubs are finished. It becomes just a bland, soulless facility where you pay 40 quid to have a round. That’s the extreme.”
Various guises of that aforementioned CRM system are already in operation at many clubs but Dodds wants everybody to be working off the same database.
Convincing those heavily-populated and financially robust clubs, which already generate considerable sums through visitor green fees and their independent operations, could take a bit of convincing.
“It could be a case of ‘I’m alright Jack’,” he said. “They [certain clubs] have loads of money coming in and they are investing it into how they do it.
“We can say, ‘Fine’, but that then means there will only be a few clubs left then, the ones that are in demand and doing well commercially.
“There is a selfishness. I do anticipate resistance but the time is now to make a change.
“The CRM is a way to share some of that cash and recycle it and invest in the greater good and make sure clubs can survive by using the same system.
“We are all in it together. We won’t be draconian and I don’t like the word ‘mandatory’. But with the CRM, we see it as a benefit of being an affiliated club.”
After doing more roadshows than a campaigning politician at various clubs up and down the country over these past few months, Dodds remains quietly confident that the proposals will garner enough support when it comes to the crunch in December.
“I think people will see the greater good argument and that will win the day,” he said with a sense of cautious optimism.
“The inward looking arguments will dissipate over time. There will be a few who will never change their mind. I could hand a bar of gold to a couple (of clubs) who will find fault.
“Our pitch is that we are all in it together. We all love golf and we want it to succeed.”
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