Things are so good in the Nova Scotia golf business, it’s keeping Karen Works up at night.
Works and her husband, both avid golfers, are members at the Truro Golf Club, which, like most, is enjoying a banner season. It’s so busy that tee times are hard to come by.
“Members can book seven days in advance; our booking line opens at 12:06 a.m., so if, for example, you want to play on Tuesday we have to book late Monday night the week before,” said Works, who wouldn’t normally be up that late.
“God, no! Sometimes we go to bed and set our alarm and get up to make the call.
“If you’re right on the ball at 12:06 you can get on between seven and nine in the morning. If not, you won’t be playing until 2:30. In previous years, you could book the day before or even the day of.”
This week, Works and her husband and a Halifax couple are on P.E.I. for an annual golf trip
“Most of the courses over here are tourist courses so they’re not overly busy, but we played Stanhope today, which is more of a members course, and we had to play at 6:55 or we would have to wait until after noon,” she said.
At Fox Meadow in Stratford, just outside Charlottetown, a foursome looking for a time this Saturday would have to wait until 4:00 to play. On Wednesday, more than 300 golfers played there.
It’s been that way this summer at Grandview in Dartmouth, where the first few weeks were so busy that members could play Saturday or Sunday, but not both.
“Rounds are up 25 to 30 per cent. We’re sold out every day. Most of my staff are working more hours; we still have the same amount of staff, but they’re working more,” said Gavin Fitzpatrick, Grandview general manager.
Grandview needs all those extra golfers, with zero tournament revenue and food and beverage spending down 50 per cent.
“People are hesitant to go into the restaurant. It’s certainly a different year; we’re down 200 grand on tournaments and another 150 in food and beverage. You can’t make all that up in extra rounds,” Fitzpatrick said.
“On the flip side, we have lots of new golfers, especially on the female side, which is fantastic. In my 30 years in the business, I’ve never seen such an increase in females. And our junior play is way up. We had 12 hundred junior rounds before July 1, compared to 25 last year, because kids weren’t in school.”
At Ashburn in Halifax, it’s been a crazy season for one part of the operation and deathly quiet for another.
In June, Ashburn did 6,500 rounds at each of its two courses, a number that’s normally under 5,000. And it’s only in the last few weeks that members have been permitted to invite guests to the club.
“It was a very unusual start. I went from sitting in my office in early May, wondering if we were going to open at all, to the first two months being the busiest two months, probably, the club’s ever seen,” said GM Gordie Smith.
“Things have sort of normalized and we’re allowing guests at certain times with members. So, things are sort of getting back to normal but it was pretty crazy.”
On the other hand, Ashburn’s normally busy events operation has been decimated. About 10 weddings had to downsize and move elsewhere, or be delayed.
“Most of them have moved to next year. We are hanging on to a couple that are late in the year that we may try to do. It’s just a tough year to do them. We don’t want to run into a risk,” Smith said.
“Basically, I redid the budget when the season started and budgeted for zero functions for the last five or six months. We have started to do the odd small one, but we did take a hit in food and beverage. There’s been an uptick in cart usage and the canteens. In food and beverage, we started with takeout and then moved forward as restaurants started to open a little.”
