Golf courses increasingly are counting on meetings to grow business amid a flatttening in the number of rounds played in the past few years.
The number of golf rounds played in the U.S. inched up 0.7% in 2004, marking the first postitive year since the 2000 peak, according to the National Golf Course Owners Association.
Course operators can point to group business for at least some of the recent gain.
Once the mainstay of companies’ incentive reward programs, golf now is more commonly a part of group business that combines incentive programs with business meetings.
The Business Travel News Meetings Monitor reported that 27% of the corporate market expects to hold more meetings in 2005 than in 2004. And a recent survey by Deloitte & Touche LLP found that 55% of business travelers combine work and pleasure in their travels.
That bodes well for Orange County’s 30-plus golf courses.
“More planners are adding golf back into their meetings, but it’s still not at 2000 levels,” said Steve Plummer, general manager at Tustin Ranch Golf Club.
Even so, about one in three groups that hold meetings at the Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach work golf into their events, according to Bob Frear, vice president of sales.
“Those groups are typically incentive,” he said.
Meeting planners say golf outings were pared back during the economic and travel downturn that followed the 2001 terrorist attacks. Corporate budget cuts lopped off almost anything not directly related to business.
But with companies loosening purse strings and a rebound in high-end meetings, golf is again a common component of meetings business.
The difference now is that more groups conduct business for half a day and then hit the links.
Many of those are local or regional businesses, said Eric Lohman, general manager at Black Gold Country Club in Yorba Linda.
“We rent out the banquet room 20 or more times a year for various functions,” he said.
Association conventioneers make up another 20 to 30 groups each year, Lohman said.
At Tustin Ranch, real estate companies book breakfasts or luncheons along with meetings and,perhaps,a round of golf.
Fewer Big Tourneys
Fewer meetings groups are doing full-blown tournaments that can be a minefield for planners trying to balance the needs of novice and experienced players.
Robb Thornsberry, president of Anaheim-based Infinity Events, said the current trend among his corporate clients is to set up tee-times for the hard-core golfers and offer other tours or activities for nongolfers.
Some planners instead include golf lessons for beginners.
“We always offer lessons,” said Kathryn Jurgensen, president of Irvine-based Premier Meetings.
For her high-end corporate clients, she said it gives beginners a chance to do something they might not take the time to do on their own.
“They can still enjoy the dinners and networking events and other things in lieu of golf,” she said.
One Pennsylvania group that met at Laguna Cliffs Marriott in Dana Point took golfers to Pelican Hill while non-golfers went to the San Diego Zoo and Old Town.
Nongolfers increasingly seek solace in spas. Sales managers at Montage say they get more inquiries about spa services than about golf,a trend that’s growing nationwide.
Golf as a teambuilding event has waned in recent years. But at the Aliso Creek Inn, director of sales and marketing Andrea Wilde said planners are adding it with a twist: combining golf and non-golf activities along the nine-hole course (see sidebar, page 36).
“It’s a way to incorporate fun into their meetings,” she said.
Thornsberry said he sells OC golf outings at a handpicked list of courses that include Pelican Hill, Monarch Beach, Oak Creek, Strawberry Farms, Tustin Ranch and Tijeras Creek.
“When people choose Orange County, they do their homework and know what we have to offer,” he said.
Jurgensen typically takes local clients to out-of-town destinations such as Pebble Beach, Bandon Dunes in Washington, or even Alaska, where groups can end a day on the links with a helicopter ride to a glacier for drinks and cigars at sunset.
Clients also have asked her to look at courses in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico and France.
Outings like that require advance planning of two to three years, she said.
“Golf tee times disappear fast,” she said. “If you want prime times, you’ve got to have it on the books that far out.”
To accommodate business meetings, receptions and banquets paired with golf outings, many of OC’s courses offer meeting facilities of their own.
Last December, Tustin Ranch Golf Club expanded to 16,000 square feet of meeting space in order to accommodate two events of 200 people each at the same time.
Strawberry Farms in Irvine hosted a reunion of former Anaheim Angels players earlier this month.
And Black Gold Golf Club has catering, tournament services, event management staff and wireless Internet connections throughout the building.
Pelican Hill, whose clubhouse catering was managed by the Four Seasons until recently, is building a new clubhouse that owner The Irvine Company hopes will be used by local groups as well as visitors.
Other OC courses may pick up some business from Pelican Hill when it closes for two years this fall when the Irvine Co. begins construction on its Pelican Hill Resort at Newport Coast.
Though the course won’t reopen until late 2007, Clarence Barker, president of the investment property group for the Irvine Co., said the company already is getting inquires about booking the course when it reopens.
“It has a brand recognition in the golf world and with groups and social events,” he said.
Thornsberry said golf helps sell a meeting package.
“Golf is one of the reasons some people choose our destination,” he said. “If you’re going to be in this business in this area, you almost have to do golf.”
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Golf for Fun
Golf outings that include non-golfers can be tedious both for beginners and true golfers. Unless, that is, the event is designed for fun.
Destination management company Fun Is First in Laguna Beach created that kind of “mixed” event for a group from Montage Resort & Spa at Aliso Creek Golf Club.
Players were divided into teams looking to score the most points. The options included more than golf strokes.
At each of the course’s nine holes, competitors could play the hole or choose from one of five other challenges not typically found on a golf course.
The games included shooting a target with a bow and arrow, throwing Frisbees at a golf basket, pitching wiffle balls, walking the plank with ropes, launching water balloons or shooting basketballs.
The team with the highest score at the end of the golf “round” was the winner,regardless of what skills they chose to showcase.
,Sandi Cain
