Club membership has its privileges
As the restrictions surrounding the recent pandemic are lifted, Saskatchewan residents are finding that golf is an ideal option for getting out and having fun while still physical distancing. As a result, memberships at golf and country clubs are becoming more appealing options, but what are the most important incentives to join? John Greenough, PGA of Canada Head Professional at Deer Valley Golf Club, said that his course has a variety of membership options with different perks, but some features are more useful than others, especially under the current COVID-19 restrictions. “Membership privileges out here include advanced booking—so, right now, it’s seven days advanced booking, so you get started on the tee sheet,” he said. “I think what’s underrated is the ability to get a tee time at our golf course,” said Greenough. “If you want 8:30 on a Saturday morning, and you’re a full adult member, you’re going to get somewhere within 20 minutes of that. We don’t do a ballot system or anything like that. It’s really easy to get a tee time at Deer Valley.” This is particularly important given the current pandemic protocols. Not only has the interval between tee times increased, but membership is also booming. “We’ve got approximately 50 per cent less tee times than we would have had on a regular day, so booking in advance is huge, and those members that utilize that are kind of ahead of the game,” Greenough said. Brad Lovatt, head professional at Long Creek Golf and Country Club, agrees. He said that booking privilege for members is, “something we haven’t even needed to have in the past. Our members could generally get any tee time that they would have liked to. But, given the restrictions on tee times, those booking privileges become important for them to ensure they’re getting the times that they want.” Therefore, members at Long Creek enjoy seven-day advanced booking privileges as opposed to the five days that non-members are allowed. Booking privileges aside, the differences between memberships at Long Creek relate to the days on which the members prefer to golf. “Our unrestricted membership is based on 20 rounds for the season, but, because the price varies by day of the week and time of day, the 20 rounds is based off our rack rates or highest price, which is weekend mornings,” said Lovatt. “I know there are golfers out there that don’t like how busy golf courses are on the weekend, especially with the reduced number of tee times we can offer, so our weekday memberships are at a better rate,” Lovatt said. “They can avoid those peak times and not feel like they’re paying not to have those peak times. So, you have an adult weekday membership, which is Monday to Friday (in a lot of places, that would only be Monday to Thursday), and a senior weekday membership as well for those people who want to avoid those times.” For Justin Olszewski, golf shop manager of Sask Landing Golf Resort, the surge in interest dovetails nicely with a more than one-third reduction in the basic membership fee at Sask Landing that the resort had already planned. “In order to try to boost our membership here, to get more out here for a yearly basis versus just paying a green fee at a time, we offered a really big sale on our memberships this year,” he said. “That was actually something we had in place and decided to do last fall when thinking of ideas of how to increase our membership.” Memberships at Sask Landing have roughly doubled, though the course does not provide special booking privileges for members. “Our focus is on the convenience of not having to come in and pay each time. Other than that, there’s no real advantage other than the savings: it only takes about 15 rounds of golf and your membership’s covered,” Olszewski said. “This year, we have so many more members for the check in process now, and, being that everyone gets a cart included, it’s pretty simple.”