Derbyshire golf club announces it will close down next year
By Alistair Dunsmuir
A golf club in Derbyshire that has seen its membership drop from 350 in 2006 to 210 today has announced it will permanently close down next spring.
Maywood Golf Club will cease trading on March 31, 2019 – just a few hours after the UK is set to leave the European Union.
According to Tory Moon, who has co-owned the venue since it opened in 2006, younger members have stopped replacing older members when they leave the club.
“We’ve lost around 70 members this year and we don’t feel like we should prop up a sport that appears to have been in decline for years,” she said.
“Around 75 per cent of our members are seniors and many of those leave and don’t stay with the club forever. Younger people don’t want to buy a membership and instead pay and play then go to another course.
“Most of our members are very sad and upset that we are going but we appreciate all the support that we have had, especially from Erewash Valley Golf Club. They have been very supportive and asked if they could help out in any way.
“Many of these clubs will benefit from our closure but nothing will change for us until March. We want to thank everyone who has been with us for many years but it’s time for a new chapter.”
Fellow owner Brian Tucker told DerbyshireLive: “Many of our members come to meet other members who they consider friends. They don’t just play golf but they come and talk.
“Younger people don’t tend to do that anymore.”
Both Moon and Tucker cited other problems with the golf industry that have led to the closure, including an oversaturated market, people being busier than they used to be, clubs putting on ‘crazy deals’ to attract golfers, a VAT disparity between proprietary and private members’ clubs and the game being male dominated.
The website added that the land will stay in the family but could be used for farming or owning horses, while Tory is planning to set up a dog grooming business.
By Alistair Dunsmuir
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I once tried to cross the land on a footpath, the golf course tried to reroute and make impossible to find.
The mouthful we got was unpleasant.
If they treated everyone like that I’m not surprised they closed.
Here’s your problem..you’re trying to sell an expensive, time wasting, frustrating game that no longer relates the younger generations, much less the older group. To make the golf game more relevant to more people today, it has to be economized and efficiency oriented. People no longer want a sport with 4 to 6 hours of expensive difficulty! So to update the game and make it more conforming without spending bags of $$$, here’s the easy way to do it…Try the new Hybrid MD Golf Ball, solves the time to play…cost to play…difficulty & frustration of the game…and makes golf truly enjoyable!
What a lot of balls! Golfers can choose to play any number of holes they want and you can hardly call £10 expensive! Floating balls will fix it all, ball ox!
There are hundreds of UK for course thriving! and thousands of kids getting involved!
This course is failing because its run by someone that knows nothing about the business he is running and is offering a poor product!
Last time I looked at the UK golf situation, there were many courses closing and hundreds in financial trouble as a result of fewer golfers interested in supporting the game. With empty fairways becoming the norm, probably won’t be long for more to follow this routine.
Not the case! Take a closer look. Millions of people playing, they are just choosing to do so in a different way. Not via club memberships!
Anyway, why are getting involved when you obviously aren’t involved in golf? “Last time I looked at the UK golf situation”!!! And why are you trying to sell nasty balls?
A pity, 14,000,000 golfers gone in the last decade. Wake up, the games dropping 2 -3% every year. So who’s coming to save the day, certainly not the new generations who have chosen different time efficient activities and with existing numbers fading away…better economize now or expect to face the foreclosure man soon…empty fairways pay no bills!
Not selling balls… just suggesting a new efficient way to improve the game!
No mention that maybe they weren’t very good at running a golf business!
Everyone else’s fault! The industry, the young, blah, blah, blah!! “The young don’t still down and talk any more”, what utter nonsense!!
How about the course being rubbish or the Groupon offers of a two ball, with a sausage sandwich and coffee for £25 could be selling the product too cheap.
Bleeding farmers running golf businesses. They thought it was a good way of making a few quid out of unused farmland! Well, they got that wrong, didn’t they!
Good luck with your dog grooming! Let me guess, you own a dog and have some scissors! Surely it will be a success!