€115,000 ensures Lahinch celebrations go with a swing
ONE of the country’s best known golf clubs, Lahinch splurged just under €115,000 on celebrating its 125th anniversary last year.
The €114,121 anniversary spend, revealed in the golf club’s 2017 annual report, included an outlay on a bronze ‘Rampant Goat’ statue by acclaimed sculptor, Seamus Connolly.
Goats have long been associated with the club, with the ‘Rampant Goat’ the emblem featuring on the golf club crest.
The sculpture was unveiled outside the clubhouse last June and the cost of the ‘Rampant Goat’ was jointly funded between the golf club and a wealthy US-based life member.
The golf club yesterday declined to state how much was spent on the sculpture.
The new accounts put before the club’s AGM show that it can well afford the €114,121 celebration spend as green fee income soared to €2m last year on the back of US golf tourists.
At high season, it costs €210 to play a round of golf at the links course – ranked in the world’s top 30 golf courses – and the jump in green fee income resulted in the club recording profits of €525,422 for 2017.
This followed the club’s total income increasing by 8pc to €3.49m.
Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley is currently backing Lahinch to stage the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in 2019 and chairperson of Lahinch golf club, Jim Nolan said yesterday that the 10pc increase in green fee income reflected a strong golf tourism market, particularly from North America.
A spokesman for the club said yesterday that the €210 high season green fee rate “is in line with our peer clubs within the south-west region”.
The club is projecting that green fee income will increase further to €2.175m this year.
The club counts former Irish rugby captain Paul O’Connell as a member and the buoyant year in 2017 contributed to its cash pile increasing from €1.79m to €2.15m.
The club’s total funds amounted to €8.6m and that included a €2m ‘contingency fund’ in place “to recognise the twin risks of a reversal of visitor number trends and of urgent extensive expenditure being necessary on our coastal protection defences”.
Mr Nolan continued: “Our balance sheet remains strong and free of borrowings.”
The exclusive club last year generated €310,000 in new member entrance fees and overseas life membership.
However, the annual report reveals that as a result of a decision taken in December the club will not be open to new members for a time due to pressures on tee-times for existing members.
The report states that this “will continue to be reviewed and it is likely that future limited openings will take place”.
The club’s income from members’ subscriptions last year totalled €994,154.
While the club’s finances are going in one direction, the report does highlight an unexpected loss of golf balls from a new practice area at the club.
The club opened the new Short Game Practice Area and the report points to a significant number of golf balls going missing from the area, adding “we experienced a considerably higher than expected depletion of our stock of practice balls”.
The club’s total spend last year amounted to €3.2m, which included €1.6m spent on costs associated with the course.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €774,377. Staff costs last year increased from €1.25m to €1.27m.
At high season, it costs €210 to play a round of golf at the links course