We were so impressed with the Golf Strategic Plan that Los Angeles County released last week that we thought we should share it with others. We have already shared it with the USGA and colleagues from other amateur golf associations. Today, we share it with you, because it strikes us as having exquisitely balanced the equities that suffuse all municipal golf programs in a way that highlights the societal value proposition that public golf courses bring to the communities in which they sit over and above whatever financial value they offer.
The "Plan" revolves around 8 pillars: Community access and integration, golf accessibility and diversity, modern infrastructure, environmental stewardship, private-sector partnership, business intelligence, quality experience, and system unity/sustainability.
Revenue generation is a factor to be sure - in this instance not just for the purposes of full operational and capital regeneration liquidity, but also for the purpose of generating sums over and above those two rather hefty responsibilities to help fund programs in the nation's largest municipality (10.2 million souls) that would otherwise require taxpayer support to operate. The Los Angeles County golf system can credibly lay claim to providing not just affordable, accessible recreational golf to its patrons, but recreational programming to myriad others who never step foot on a golf course.
Add that to some of the other pillars regarding community integration and values, and what this "Plan" accomplishes is what we all know is key to the survival of the nation's urban municipal golf programs - political, social, and financial resonance.
Given that the "Plan" was created for what the National Golf Foundation has described as the most golf starved market in the continental United States (the most golfers chasing the fewest golf holes), it is arguably the most compelling testament we've seen to date to the value beyond mere dollars that a municipal golf program can provide to the 92% of the population that doesn't play golf. The 8% that plays golf needs no convincing. That's something the golf fraternity tends to forget, or as one very wise fellow recently said to a group of golf industry heavyweights: Only a community can save an endangered public golf course; the golf community is never enough.
Enough hype; click here and judge for yourself. The "Plan" is only 24 pages, but they pack a punch.
