Peninsula Strategic Plan

President Doug Provis recently sent a letter to all members entitled “An Update on Strategic Planning at Peninsula”. First of all, I’m pleased to see that club management is at least publicising their intentions and plans for the club. However, it would have been nice for the rank and file membership to have had some input into the process, or at least to provide a range of opinions on the matter. Nowhere in his letter does Doug encourage input or debate – it’s simply a declaration of the committee’s intentions.

Well, never mind. I’m going to provide some input and opinions now.

Doug states that the club has “comparatively low course budgets” – presumably compared to other similar courses. I find this surprising considering we have a larger membership that other sandbelt courses, we have accommodation facilities that most of them don’t have and we take far greater number of paying guests, houses guests and corporate groups than they do. I would have thought this would make up for us having 36 holes to maintain rather than 18.

However, it’s impossible to know for sure as the published financial statements clump expenses together in such broad categories as to make any detailed analysis impossible.

For example, what is Gary Richardson’s total remuneration? I have heard that he gets a commission on all non-membership revenue raised by the club. Is this true and how much does this total in a year? Given Gary’s obvious reluctance to look to greener pastures, one might suspect that he’s on a damn good thing at Peninsula. (Not to mention the fact that this gives him a conflict of interest – members access to facilities versus paying guests and corporate groups. We have seen numerous examples of members being excluded from the course due to priority given to paying guests).

So, Doug, a good start to an open and honest discussion on the club finances would be to provide significantly more detailed disclosure.

Some comments regarding some of the points Doug makes in his letter.

1. There is a decline in membership. I know how to fix that. More later

2. Function, dining and accommodation facilities require upgrades. Did I miss something? Didn’t we just upgrade these in recent years?

3. Lifting the standard of maintenance and presentation of the Clubhouse is a priority. Did you ask the members? Everyone I speak to thinks the Clubhouse and facilities are more than adequate, it’s the condition of the courses that everyone complains about.

4. To do this will require an additional $1M per annum. OK – can we see how you came to that figure please.

Doug states the following “facts”.

§         Membership revenue is 48% of total revenue – the lowest level of the Sandbelt clubs.

Well Doug, of course it is. That’s because the other Sandbelt clubs don’t have the same level of alternative sources of revenue that we have – accommodation, paying guests, corporate golf, etc making membership revenue proportionately smaller.

§         Membership numbers are dropping.

I don’t doubt it. I know of some members who have left, but not because the facilities are inferior, rather because of the poor condition of the courses. Here’s a sure-fire way to reverse the decline in membership numbers :

1. Improve the condition of the courses, in priority order :

- greens

- bunkers

- lose-your-ball rough (bracken, lomandra, very long grass) close to the fairways

- grass rough (next to the fairways)

- fairways

2. Stop giving priority course access to paying guests over members. For example, members hate being dumped onto the recently cored greens so that corporate groups can play on the course in good condition.

No doubt, Doug and Gary would say that we don’t have the funds to adequately do point 1, and we need to do point 2 in order to have sufficient funds at all. However, if you’re truly looking to increase membership numbers, then these two points need to be addressed.

But no, the committee has instead decided to decreases the cost of membership in order to increase membership numbers. Reducing your price is the typical tactic employed when you feel you have an inferior product offering. Visionary organisations, on the other hand, employ a strategy of developing a superior offering.

But that’s not us. We’re going to reduce (or eliminate, in the case of 6 day Membership) our entrance fees. Quite a slap in the face for those members who have paid the full membership fee, especially those who don’t regularly play on a Saturday.

Really, what I think the club most desperately needs is a whole clean-out and refresh of its leaders – the General Manager and Committee.

At the next election, rather than have Gary Richardson pick his own team, let’s have all positions thrown open and a genuine attempt at regeneration of club leadership. Let’s actively encourage open discussion, a diversity of views and nomination to committee positions by as many people as possible.

That would make us a club that people would want to be a part of.

Access to the courses

Hey President Doug Provis, are you there? Still trying to attract new members? A good place to start would be not to deny members access to the courses on weekends or to the non-cored course.

On Sunday 1 April, the North Course was blocked out for Women’s Pennant. At the same time, the vast majority of tee times on the South course had been pre-allocated to outside players – house guests and corporate groups. Too bad if a member wanted to play on Sunday morning.

Then on Tuesday 1 May, the North Course was blocked out again, this time for a Corporate Group. Members had to play on the South Course which had been cored the day before.

No one has a problem with one course being allocated to Pennant or cored, that’s just the way it works. But when that does occur, for Clayton’s sake, don’t fill up the other course with outside players. Once again, this shows that us members are just second class citizens at our own club compared to fee-paying outsiders.

The question I have, is this habit of filling up the courses with outsiders down to pure incompetence in club management, or a blatant disregard for member privileges? It’s got to be one or the other.

Course Maintenance (7)

The Trans Tasman Cup was held at Peninsula recently. I’m told that ground staff were seen furiously crawling all over the North course to spruce it up for the event. That’s good, but wouldn’t it be nice to see the same level of activity for regular course maintenance for the benefit of the rank and file members.

It seems the promise of a nice payment to the club entitles you to a course in excellent condition, but if you’re a mug member who makes payment via annual subscription, you’re a second class citizen in that regard.

By the way, I understand that rakes were left outside of bunkers during the event! (Refer to my previous comments in November on this subject).

Course Maintenance (6)

The are many areas between tee and fairway that are exceedingly rough and difficult to negotiate. Yet another example of issues that make playing golf at Peninsula less pleasant than it should be. I’m very glad to see that there seems to be a program in place to rectify this, with 10 North being the first cab off the rank.

However, it seems to me that the newly re-laid surface is not as smooth as it should be, being quite bumpy and uneven. Would it really have been that hard to get a grader to properly level the surface before re-laying the grass?

“Is Melbourne’s Sandbelt Overrated?”

This article appeared in the February issue of Australian Golf Digest. It quotes Geoff Shackelford who is a US golf author, blogger and course design consultant.

After visiting many of the sandbelt courses during the time of the Presidents Cup, Shackleford observed “… I was surprised at how much grass was in the roughs, particularly the long stuff. Dr Mackenzie would not be pleased!” Sound familiar?

Shackleford was also disturbed by the number of trees on the premier golf courses. There is “simply no good reason to have so many trees when you have such artistic and demanding green complexes.” The article highlights the fact that fewer trees allow “an abundance of light and hot sun to reach the fairways fostering the growth of desirable couch grass.”

There are many obvious examples of fairway grass growth being inhibited by tree shadows at Peninsula. Shackleford makes the point that yes, while fairways are targets to be hit, to miss a fairway should not be such a prohibitive penalty - as is the case at Peninsula - due to the dense and abundant rough and trees.

I wonder whether Shackleford makes international consultations.

Course Maintenance (5)

I note with some despair the condition of bunkers and pathways at Peninsula Country Golf Club. Generally speaking, fairway bunkers have lots of soft sand in them and greenside bunkers are hard, sometimes rock-hard. Also, many of the paths around the courses have an excess of very loose fine sand on them, making them very difficult to push through. Surely, this is all the wrong way around. Paths and fairway bunkers should be hard/firm, and greenside bunkers soft.

Perhaps groundstaff could spend a day moving sand from the paths into greenside bunkers? Of course, I’m being facetious, but it’s yet another example of poor course maintenance at the club. In some places the paths have become almost impassable. Here’s another suggestion. Many players have their umbrellas erected on their buggies, to protect from either rain or sun as the case may be. However, the foliage overhang on some paths make them very difficult to negotiate with umbrella extended. It would only take a couple of hours per month for groundstaff to cut back these overhangs.

President Doug Provis, are you there? Still looking to make Peninsula Country Golf Club one of the “leading private golf Clubs in Australia” and trying to attract new members? Making the courses a bit more pleasant to play would be a good place to start!

The reason for the hard surface in greenside bunkers, but not fairway bunkers is obvious. Unbelievably, we water greenside bunkers! Anyone at the club towards the end of the day will notice that the sprinklers watering both 18^th greens also water the greenside bunkers. Also, you can’t fail to notice puddles in other greenside bunkers even after days on end without rain.

Surely in this day and age, technology exists to enable greenside sprinklers to only water a controllable portion of their 360° arc, thereby avoiding water getting into the bunkers. Either such equipment doesn’t exist (a business opportunity for one of our more entrepreneurial members?), or more likely, a general level of incompetence or indifference exists in the grounds management.

Peninsula rated in Australia’s Top Courses.

Golf Australia released it’s 2012 course ratings in January and our North course was rated number 17 in Australia and the South course 28. I find this somewhat amazing. Do the people making the rating actually visit the courses? Do they not take course condition into account? If they did visit our club, they would have seen greens and bunkers in a disgraceful state, out of control rough, paths that are almost impassable and areas that almost rattle your buggy to bits and are liable to sprain your ankle.

So what exactly is it that, in their view, makes our North course top 20? The layout alone? That’s not what they say.

By contrast, Australian Golf Digest, which claims the high moral ground by not making the “preposterous mistake of allowing its judging panel to be infiltrated, even dominated, by course architects – the very people whose work we’re appraising”, has the North course rated at 30 and the South at 41.

It’s interesting to note their comment about Royal Adelaide having a priority of “fixing” Mike Clayton’s contentious 17^th hole. Hey Mike, I suppose it’s just another example of the “subtlety” of your brilliant design work being “beyond” them.

Anyhow, I have been a great critic of Mike Clayton’s work, but I guess one of the main benefits in paying him a truck load of money is the influence he peddles in these course rating matters.