A view of the golf retail landscape from three viewpoints – TGI Golf’s managing director, retail team leader and PGA professional partner.
Despite the abysmal start to the year for the golf industry with months of rainfall resulting in frequent course closures, the TGI Golf Partnership enjoyed another successful year.
With its PGA professional partners set to finish, on average, ahead of 2023, thanks largely to a record-breaking October and November, we take a look at the year through the eyes of three key members of the group.
Managing director Adele McLean, retail team leader Chris Taylor and PGA professional partner and chairman Mike Bradley of Hollinwell Golf Club give us their views on the year.
The managing director
I would take an old football adage to describe the golf industry in 2024 and amend it ever so slightly to say that it has been a ‘year of two halves’.
We sat down with many of our key suppliers at The Open in July and it still felt like we were waiting for the season to get going.
The poor weather from the end of 2023 continued into the start of 24 and there was no break from it – I think it was the poorest start to a season that I can remember.
However, fast forward to November when we sat down to meet with all our suppliers again and it was a totally different story.
From August onwards things seemed to fly. The weather gave us a break and the numbers picked up – rounds played were still high with car parks full right up until the cold snap kicked in at the start of December.
Many of our suppliers were reporting record breaking Octobers and Novembers with us, which has meant that we have clawed back much of what was lost with the late start. If you’d have offered many of us the chance to be single digits ahead, or even to break even, with 2023 in July then we would have taken your hand off.
If we look at the year from a TGI perspective, as a group we are still performing very well, and comparing our numbers to the most recent from Golf Datatech we are comfortably ahead of the industry average, which is a phenomenal achievement from everyone involved in the group.
We work on very tight budgets and everything that we do is for our partners. Every decision we make, every investment made, it is always the partners that are at the forefront of our minds.
That will never change and moving into 2025 there are plenty of things in the pipeline that we are working on to assist our partners.
We will be investing in the services that we provide for our partners. One that is already in the pipeline, and we hope to have something in place for the end of January, is an additional retail consultant.
Our team of retail consultants provide an invaluable service to our partners and we will be expanding the team next year to continue providing that first class service. The team will grow from four to five, with an additional consultant covering the north of England.
One thing that will have a major impact on golf retailers as we move forwards is the Budget. The announcements made by the government in October will not only have implications on the golf industry but on businesses in every industry,
No matter what industry you are in, people are talking about the Budget, so PGA professionals and golf retailers cannot be afraid to make tough decisions on the back of it.
You must cover your costs, whether it be the rise in National Insurance contributions or the increase in minimum wage, it will affect your business and at the end of the day, someone must pay for these increased costs.
This year I think we will see prices go up in all industries, so golf retailers cannot be afraid to do the same, they simply cannot absorb all these costs themselves.
The retail consultant
TGI Golf’s team of retail consultants travel the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland visiting retailers in store to assist them with every aspect of their business.
With such a diverse cross section of retail operations from driving ranges and members golf clubs to Open Championship hosts and prestigious venues such as The Belfry and Celtic Manor, the group’s retail consultants are uniquely positioned to impart expertise on its retailers in person and at no additional cost to its partners, who value their assistance greatly.
In 2024 the retail consultancy team conducted well over a thousand in-store visits with partners.
Here, retail team leader Chris Taylor gives us his view from the road.
The first three months of the year were very tough out on the road with the inclement weather.
The main focus of our team was trying to keep everyone positive, to keep things upbeat and working with retailers to think outside the box to make sales and market themselves through that poor weather period.
We worked on initiatives they could put in place to generate more footfall in the pro shop while the courses were shut. It was an important time to work with each outlet on what works for them, which is what we pride ourselves on at TGI Golf. All our partners are independent retailers, so there’s no one size fits all approach, we visit each shop and work with them to find what works for that venue.
What we also had was quite a lot of pros looking at coaching breaks for the winter period to generate additional revenue during that quiet period, particularly if the weather is as wet as it was in 23/24.
We’ve seen a real upturn in that side of things and with TGI Golf Travel also owned by our partners, it is the perfect platform to get away, have a bit of sunshine on your back and earn some good money in a quiet period.
The Masters is usually the starting gun for the season, but that didn’t really happen in 2024. By the time we got into May and June we were potentially four to six weeks behind where we should have been.
However, there was still plenty to be positive about, when the weather was good, the car parks were rammed. As we moved through the year we had a great run through the latter months of summer and the autumn, we were all very busy and the partners were reporting great numbers.
This year we have seen more and more PGA professionals asking to speak to us about their pre-books, which is a positive move for all of us. Golf retailers are becoming far more aware of how important pre-book meetings and stock rooms are.
We’ve put in a lot of work over the years in helping our partners prepare for those meetings – what reports to take from your EPOS and what information you need to go into the meetings with, how you need to stay in control and make sure you tell the brands what you want.
Over the course of the year the team have conducted numerous merchandising days, where we go in store and educate the partner, and most importantly the sales staff, on ensuring the shop is laid out correctly. We look at guiding traffic through the store to enhance more sales, capture more impulsive sales and keep the dwell time up.
Over the years our in-store meetings have become longer and longer, the average for this year was around two and a half hours.
During that time, we could be covering many topics, but it’s always relevant to that particular venue. We don’t go in with preconceived ideas we are going to impose on the retailer, we listen to what they need, and tailor our advice to help them enhance their business.
So, we have found that in many of these meetings we’re perhaps discussing less topics but going into far more detail to help.
Marketing has become far more important to retailers as the tools we offer partners become more sophisticated but easy to use for our retailers.
We have more than 80 percent of our partnership signed into MyMarketing HUB, which is an easy-to-use digital platform where they can design their own personalised marketing material to print, use on digital displays or on social media and email marketing.
We provide them with all the templates, tools and education to enable them to utilise the system to create first class marketing material and it’s all free of charge.
The PGA professional
Mike Bradley has been a TGI Golf partner for 25 years and chairman for the last two. He has been head PGA professional at Hollinwell Golf Club in Nottinghamshire for 20 years.
After recent years fighting against pandemics and lockdowns, 2024 was the first year since Covid that we went back to the weather being our biggest competitor.
As PGA professionals, our jobs and our success are so weather dependent and in 2024, for large periods, it just was not on our side.
At Hollinwell we are very lucky in that the course is built on sand, so we can get away with it a little when the rain comes down, but for many golf courses the start of this year was tough right through until May. Speaking to many of my fellow pros across the country it was an exceptionally tough start to the year with course closures resulting in low footfall.
It’s at times like those that having an indoor swing studio can be a lifesaver. I had one installed five or six years ago and if I hadn’t had that done then my business would be in a very different position now.
No matter the weather you can still conduct a lesson or custom fit with the customer warm and dry inside.
Of course, it’s a big cost to have one put in and I can understand how some people may feel they can’t afford it, but you could argue that golf facilities can’t afford to not have one nowadays.
At TGI Golf we are lucky to have TGI Golf Finance there to help us out if we don’t have the funds. They are there to help us to continually evolve our businesses with loans to help us invest in our services and future proof ourselves.
Looking back at the start of the season I, like many golf retailers, started the year overstocked, so I have had to work hard to move that stock on and I’ve been very careful with my forward ordering for next year and only ordered what I think I can sell.
The education I have received from TGI Golf has helped me to take a far more analytical view of my business and I now go into those pre-book meetings with a full understanding of what I need going into the next season.
There is a real focus from the group to educate us as partners in every aspect of our retail outlet, starting with the business conference every February. This event is the perfect kickstart to the season, bringing partners together for two days of educational seminars.
What I love about it is that the seminars are so valuable to all of us as business people, whether we are at established golf venues, driving ranges or starting out in our first job, there is a real cross section of partners there.
It’s a great opportunity to sit down with your fellow PGA professionals and golf retailers and talk about what’s going on, what works and what hasn’t worked in some cases.
As we moved through the season, the back end of the summer and then September through to November have been great for us and has helped me to end the year just ahead of last year, which is a huge bonus.
Being able to continually communicate and market to my membership is vitally important and I’m hugely grateful that as a TGI Golf partner I have the tools and expertise available to help me do that.
I regularly send email marketing communications through TGI’s Email Marketing Service, which is the only service they provide that actually costs us, though it’s a mere £35 a month.
Through the EMS I am provided with countless templates that I can personalise to my business, or I can simply design my own.
The two newsletters I put out a month have open rates of over 70 percent and I can guarantee I’ll make a sale on the back of each one with people coming in to discuss something they’ve seen in News from the Well.
As we begin 2025, I am incredibly thankful for the assistance TGI Golf has given me. My business is in a great position, and I know that with the exciting products coming from the brands and the support from TGI, 2025 promises to be a great year … as long as the weather plays ball.
For more information on how TGI Golf can help your retail business, visit tgigolf.com
Leave a Reply