January 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 43

Perceived value [divided by] cost.
In simpler English, the goal is to provide a combination of good maintenance, friendly service, and
lack of frustration that leaves the player thinking,
" Hey, that was worth the money. "

Putting Surfaces
Greens may only represent 8-10 percent of the
maintained acreage of a course, but as much as 40
percent of all spending is usually dedicated to them.
Why? Both good and bad players usually take half
their strokes on those 18 little patches of turf. Typical
problems include patchiness, disease, poor mowing practices or equipment, ball-roll speed that's either too slow or too fast or inconsistent from hole to
hole. The rule, according to a legendary superintendent who began his career at a hometown muni,
is to " keep them clean, green and in between 8 and
9 on the Stimpmeter. " Your greens are your reputation...invest in them appropriately.

(Note that the second major area of complaints
about maintenance is usually bunkers. Frankly, other than making sure they drain properly, you can
never do everything to make even a majority of
golfers happy with the sand, the faces, etc. The best
policy when confronted about bunkers is to repeat
the famous quote from Tim Moraghan, the longtime
USGA Championship agronomist who prepped
more than a dozen US Open sites: " It's a hazard...
don't hit it there. " )

Customer Service
An entire issue of this magazine could be devoted
to horror stories about bad customer service, from
the parking lot to the first tee, but instead here are a
few quick key things to focus on:
■■ Put your best, friendliest people behind the counter.

There's nothing worse than golf shop personnel who
treat customers like it's a pain to take their money
or who complain about management or conditions.

business competing for discretionary
dollars with poor customer service
Second, avoid the rush to discounting.
At the end of the day, regardless of
the number of rounds played, net operating income is key. If a course
makes money, it stays in business. If
a course attracts a lot of golfers and
goes out of business by giving golf
away, several employees have lost
their jobs and there are probably unhappy citizens. Plus the offending
course has hurt all of the surrounding golf courses by decreasing the
perceived value of a round of golf.
Finally, efficiency is critical. Government-run operation must remain efficient to thrive or even survive. In a
government environment it's too easy
for political decisions to be made that
are not good business decisions. This
can happen on green fee structure, discounts, annual passes, capital projects
that disrupt the course, debt, etc. Government-run operators must sometimes
swim upstream against the flow of politics in order to stay financially strong.

What unique things are you doing
in Aurora to succeed?

Aurora Golf has seven different golf
courses and, yes, we do unfortunately
have debt. As a result, we must operate very efficiently. One unique thing

www.NRPA .ORG

we do is we generate very accurate financial information every month and
share it with all employees. The fact
that cash flow and net operating income
are everyone's concern has everyone
on board trying to watch expenditures
and maximize productivity. In fact each
week all courses receive a fax indicating current cash balance, Year-to-date
revenue and expenditures and a comparison with the same period last year.
As the old sage stated, " expense
is the enemy of profit. " Acres of maintained turf are one of the big drivers of
expense. We have been actively converting manicured turf areas into strategically located naturalized rough
areas. This has improved the wildlife
habitat, decreased water and fertilizer inputs, reduced mowing and actually made courses more interesting.

Okay, what's the biggest mistake
you see other government-run operations making that put them at
risk during challenging times?

Discounting in a way that is not strategic. Discounts should go to loyal customers and be used to drive consistent
business to your facility not just attract
the " one-and-run " bargain hunter. 
Dennis Lyon can be reached at dlyon@

auroragov.org.

JANUARY 2010

Parks & Recreation

January 2010 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2010 - Parks & Recreation