Heathrow, Florida, United States: Profit-and-loss at a golf facility gets reviewed one amenity at a time. Operators look at the numbers from green fees, from their 19th hole, from shop merchandising, from range balls, from group outings, even from the beverage cart.

Anecdotal evidence has long suggested that dollar figures from the course’s teaching and training activity don’t come in for the same scrutiny. They aren’t measured and managed in a disciplined fashion at many courses.

With that in mind, Proponent Group and the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) crafted an 18-question survey and sent it out to course owners. The survey, in the field last December, was completed by 109 executives from NGCOA member courses.

A handful of questions stood out, based on the strategic possibilities they seemed to spark.

The survey asked: ‘Do lesson-takers spend more money at your facility than non-lesson takers?’ The ‘Yes’ answer was selected by no fewer than 41 per cent all participants. Among those who (elsewhere in the questionnaire) had described instruction as ‘a cornerstone of our success,’ a full 73 per cent answered ‘Yes’ to the higher-spend question.

Another question that drew attention concerned the gathering of lesson-taker data.

It asked: ‘When someone who hasn’t played your course begins taking instruction at your facility, does that golfer’s contact information get routinely entered in your player database, under ‘prospect’ or something similar?’

Only 48 per cent of respondents answered this one in the affirmative, with 52 per cent replying ‘No.’ At a point in time when digital marketing gets so much emphasis, that seems like a notable missed opportunity.

The survey asked: ‘How much have you invested in capital dollars in your learning and practice facilities over the past five years?’ Participants were instructed to include teaching bays, simulators, ball-flight tracking technology, range expansion and short-game area upgrades in their calculations.

Spending of US$100,000 or more was reported by 24 per cent of survey-takers. Meanwhile, the ‘no investment’ option was checked by 25 per cent.

Because capital improvements in golf operations tend to be trend-driven, and so many other upgrades have cycled through the industry of late, teaching and training-related additions could find themselves moving up the capital schedules.

Follow-up research can and likely will investigate the evolving role of instruction-related business-building at golf courses.