and Timeline Operational/Program Facilities
When planning and constructing golf courses, most municipal courses take a year for
proper permitting and two years to build the actual course. As contractors and builders with
reasonable goals in mind, we hope to accomplish the construction and course opening in a timely
manner.
January 2012- January 2013- Year 1
Apply for/secure permits
Address site suitability
Explore and develop preliminary layout plans, budget and design criteria
Meet with regulatory agencies prior to plan submittals to review all aspects of the project
Contact land owner and purchase land
January 2013-December 2013- Year 2
January 2013-December 2013 we will:
Start construction of clubhouse, storage facilities, parking lot and golf course
Have applications for staff available as well as volunteer applications for a Marshall and
Starter
Prepare the course for play in December
January 2014- open course for play
45 minutes before sunrise the carts will be pulled out by outside staff to prepare for the
days players to arrive. The clubhouse will open at 7am in the summer and 7:30am in the winter.
The clubhouse will close an hour before sunset and whoever is working the carts will stay until
the last cart comes in.
A parking lot is available for all members and guests. There are approximately 140
parking spaces to accommodate for larger crowds when Newberry Sports Complex hosts
tournaments, as we expect more golfers during tournaments and holiday weekends. In
compliance with ADA rules, there are six handicap spaces, with two available for vans.
Whether it is a private course, resort course or municipal course, athletes want to make sure
they join the right facility that fits their needs and desires. Our mission is to have players of all
skill level whether they have two hours to play golf or eight hours on any given day. By
designing the golf course in such a way that holes three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen and eighteen all
come back around at the club house it will be possible to set prices for shorter rounds of only a
few holes, rather than nine and eighteen. In doing this players who are short on time can still
come out and enjoy a couple of quick holes of golf or opt to play an entire round. Our goals are
to have Newberry Golf Course become a prominent golf course, be successful in our experiment
of shorter play, draw in amateur tournaments and make sure players enjoy their experience no
matter how long their visit is.
With that said, there are different types of memberships that regular golfers can be a part of.
Memberships are renewed annually and give great deals to those who play golf frequently.
Memberships are not required, however they can be purchased at any time. We offer three
membership options and within each option there are two types of versions the customer can
purchase. Members will also be issued identification cards.
Single membership- defined as any individual over the age of 16 that wants to obtain access
to Newberry Golf Course
o
Monday-Friday range access
$1,500 includes cart fees, clubs fee, 30 rounds of golf, 80 buckets of balls
If the customer decides to come on the weekend to play they will only be charged for
the golf cart.
o
7 days a week access
$2,200 includes cart fees, clubs fee, 50 rounds of golf, 100 buckets of balls
Family- defined as spousal set and children (if applicable), must live together for at least six
months prior to obtaining membership
o
Depending on the size of the family depends on the cost of membership
o
2 person family
Monday-Friday range access
7 days a week range access
o
$2,400 includes cart fees, club fees, 65 rounds of golf, 130 buckets of balls
3 person family
Monday-Friday range access
$1,900 includes cart fees, club fees, 60 rounds of golf, 130 buckets of balls
7 days a week range access
o
$1,700 includes cart fees, club fees, 45 rounds of golf, 110 buckets of balls
$2,600 includes cart fees, club fees, 80 rounds of golf, 150 buckets of balls
Each additional person in the family membership whether a child or spouse is an
additional $200.
Junior Membership- for children 16 years of age and younger, can have more then one child
on this membership but they must live in the same household. Each child is an increase of
$400, saving $200 per child for siblings that register together. There is only 7 day a week
access for junior membership, which includes clubs fees, 20 rounds of golf, 60 buckets of
balls.
o
$600 for one child
o
$1000 for two children
For those who visit Newberry Golf Course every couple of months or whenever they feel like
it, they are able to pay for play as soon as they step inside the clubhouse. On weekends that
Newberry Sports Complex hosts tournaments, some parents during their down time could easily
come to the course to play a few holes of golf. There are two options for guests, they can rent a
cart and play or they can walk and play. The rates below will increase 20 percent on the
weekends.
For non-members, a set of golf clubs can be rented for $15 (or golfers can bring their own) and
golfers can either buy a pack of golf balls at the Pro Shop or bring their own.
Cart Fees
Greens Fees
o
3 holes for $5
3 holes for $5
o
6 holes for $7
6 holes for $10
o
9 holes for $10
9 holes for $14
o
12 holes for $13
12 holes for $19
o
15 holes for $15
15 holes for $24
o
18 holes for $15
18 holes for $28
Twilight hours allow guests to pay $20 to play as many holes as one can/wants to. This
includes a golf cart, clubs and balls. Winter twilight hours start after 2:00pm and summer
twilight hours start after 4:00pm.
Private lessons are an essential part of any golf course. Many players enter golf courses
without the proper knowledge or skills to have a more enjoyable golf experience. We offer
private lessons that are specifically tailored to the players ability and goals seven days a week.
Adult private lessons are $50 an hour and junior private lessons are typically done in 30 minutes
for $25.
Reservations can be made based on how many people are playing and the time of play. Four
players can reserve up to 30 days in advance with a credit card guarantee. Two or three players
can reserve a time up to six days in advance. Twilight is a first come first serve basis. Walk-ons
will be put on course when tee times or groups smaller than 4 are available.
Newberry Golf Course will also run weekly summer camps. This will include a PGA head
professional and one assistant professional. These camps will be from 9am-12: 30pm MondayFriday and will cost $100. These camps will contain a specific amount of children per group
depending on how many sign up, age level and ability.
Many golf courses have dress codes and codes of conduct, and although we are a public
course we like to uphold tradition.
Collared shirts are preferred
Slacks or shorts are preferred
No tank tops or halter tops
No gym shorts or running shorts
No metal spikes
Marshalls and starters on the golf course will be volunteers (usually retired elderly) who will
also have access to the range for free. In case of an emergency all marshals and starters will be
equipped with radios who will have access to employees, the fire department and police
department. All employees and volunteers are trained in CPR, AED and first aid and have also
been briefed on what to do in case of an emergency.
Alachua County has 243,574 current residents. The population of Newberry is 4,368 as of
July 2009. This number has increased about 32 percent since 2000, with the median age being
35.1 years old and a median household income of $49,907. According to the city of Newberrys
codes and zoning, our golf course will be a Residential, Single Family Zone (RSF). There are
many opportunities for adults and children to join our golf course as it is cheaper then most
country clubs offered whether it is purchasing a membership or playing a few times a year.
Our facility and course will be up to ADA standards as it is brand new. For those
needing assistance we will provide them with the upmost care. Course passages will be a
minimum of 48 inches wide so that a golf car can easily pass. All man-made barriers must have
openings that are 60 inches wide no further then 75 yards apart. This provides access to the
course at reasonable intervals, enabling a golfer using a golf car to play the game without
extended travel distances and time requirements. The forward teeing ground for each hole is
connected by an accessible route or passage. Either an accessible route or a golf car passage must
connect the forward teeing ground for each hole. Weather shelters must have clear ground space
of five feet by 8 feet in order to allow a golf car to be directly driven into a weather shelter.
SWOT Analysis
There are many strengths associated with our new style of golf course. The biggest
strength that we have is going to be our partnership with the Newberry Sports Complex. This
partnership will allow us to have an instant marketing strategy with them helping to get our name
out there. Partnering them with will also allow us to attract big name organizations such as the
USGA to bring in the big amateur championships and other large tournaments. Not only will the
partnership with the Newberry sports complex bring in many golfers it will also make it easier to
fund our course through contacts that they already have. There are also is another benefit that
our course can offer that no other course can, this benefit is that we can offer different length
rounds based on 3 hole increments. Each length round price will depend on how many holes that
are being played. This will allow lower income families to get their kids interested in golf due to
being able to afford a few holes at a cheaper price. Not only will be able to offer this different
style of golf course we will be the only golf course in Newberry. This makes us the only place
for the entire city of Newberry to play. Another big strength we have is a state of the art course
management system that will allow us to keep the course from backing up. This will minimize
players having to wait to tee off and will make everyone have a very enjoyable golfing
experience.
While we have many strengths, it is very hard to find many weaknesses with our golf
course but there are a few. The biggest problem that we have with our course is that in Newberry
there is not a large market for golf. This makes us need to be able to pull golfers from other areas
where there are already many courses for those players to play. Another big weakness that we
can see is that we are creating a new style of play that has not been tried yet. We are not entirely
sure that the golf community will be open to playing the different lengths of a round. It is hard to
say whether or not people will come out to play only three or six holes of golf while on a limited
time schedule. This could be a big problem because this is one of our main marketing strategies
to entice people to come out to our course. Having said that, we believe that people will enjoy
the shorter rounds and will come out to play on our course.
There are also many opportunities that our golf course has to create a huge draw for our
course. As stated in our strengths we are partnering with the Newberry Sport Complex which
gives us many opportunities to achieve our goals as a golf organization. The tournaments that
we can bring in due to this partnership will bring in a lot of revenue for our course. Not only will
these tournaments benefit us but so will the other tournaments that the Newberry Sports
Complex brings in. All the participants of the other sports and their parents can now come over
and golf on our course during their down time from the other tournament. This is where our new
style of play is also a big opportunity because of the small amount of time that the participants
and their families will have in between their games or events. These are all big opportunities that
will be large revenue generators for our course.
Unfortunately since our course is in Florida there are several threats that must be taking
into account. The biggest of our threats is that there is a huge number of courses in the state of
Florida that will draw our golfers away from our course. This is a huge threat because if we
cannot draw golfers from other areas because of the courses that are closer to them then we will
not be successful. Another big threat we have to consider is the fact that this new style of play is
untested and we are not sure if it will be affective in drawing in the niche market that we are
going after. Will anyone really only want to play 3 holes of golf or is that too short? While we
acknowledge these threats we think our opportunities and strengths outweigh these potential
problems.
Financial Information
Golf course construction and management is a very expensive and tedious venture. The
obvious first hurdle is securing an appropriately sized portion of land that has good qualities that
are conducive to building a golf course. Luckily, we have found a 100 acre plot of land in
Newberry that is priced at $1,000,000 which has an excellent location in relation to the
Newberry Sports Park and it is a piece of land that is conducive to golf.
The next area of concern is paying an architect to come up with a suitable plan for our
clubhouse and make sure it is designed to our standards. The spread sheet below will go over the
costs for the property, architect, and clubhouse complex budget:
A lot of areas that can be expensive to the bottom line are avoided in our construction
costs. We will purchase a golfer-friendly parcel of land that will be aesthetically pleasing and
challenging for golfers:
As a golf course that is going to be somewhere in between high end and a traditional
municipal course, we have budgeted our construction costs to reflect an average course. Our
irrigation and pump station will not be top of the line, but it will be a system that will serve our
needs very well. Likewise, our greens are a large portion of our budget, but for cost reasons we
are not striving for the best greens in all of Florida. Instead we are trying to construct a course
that appeals to all players.
After we construct the course, our attention will then turn to securing our long term
equipment that we can depreciate on our books over time for tax savings. This equipment will
include the large mowers and grass rollers that are required to maintain the course. The following
spread sheet goes over our initial PP&E budget:
*Range balls were found to be sold for $100 for 300 balls
The next element of our cost structure will be the part of the budget that will account for
labor. The following table goes over the amount of labor hours that will be required throughout
the year to maintain the course:
From this table, it is apparent that the amount of man hours to properly maintain a golf
course is staggering, especially during the peak season. While this table is dated, and some
processes may now take less time, it is still very accurate for the purposes of having a number of
man hours to budget for planning purposes. The next step is to now determine an appropriate
wage budget for our maintenance staff. We find that an appropriate wage for a maintenance
worker in Newberry, Florida is $15/hour. Based on this hourly wage, we have prepared the
following budget for the labor required to maintain our golf course:
The other large labor components will be our golf course superintendent, golf
professional, and assistant professional. According to the Golf Course Superintendent
Association of America, the average salary of a superintendent is $81,044 per year. PGA certified
golf professionals make on average $60,000 per year while an assistant pro makes $30,000 per
year.
For our driving force of revenue, our main focus is to latch onto the success of Newberry
Sports Park and the crowds of people they will attract with their massive baseball tournaments
year round. Like any golf course, our peak season will be in the summer months, which will
coincide with Newberry Sports Parks peak months. With that knowledge, we are looking for the
following numbers to drive our golf operations revenue stream :
Next we will hope to secure membership from roughly 5% of the Newberry community.
For the ease of calculating our potential membership revenues, we will take 5% of the male
population of Newberry, FL. From our base target of 5% of the population, we will aim for a 1%
membership growth rate per year. The male population of Newberry, FL was 2,089 in 2009
according to city-data.com.
So, with all of this information, lets look at the bottom line:
Capital Costs
Operating Budget
Revenues
In this total, the initial membership revenue number of $157,500 is not included in our
total revenue because it is not an accurate reflection of the revenue we will receive in a given
year. Rather, the 1% growth rate revenue is included in the total which is a more accurate
reflection on the revenue we will receive from membership in a given year.
Costs
This list of our expenses is a budget that we will set for any given year. These expenses
can fluctuate, but our revenues should be large enough to adjust for any large increase in our
costs.
Bottom Line
This final chart represents the profit we will haul in each year. This profit will be
immediately reinvested to take care of loans that will be needed to finance the construction of the
facility.
Funding our Course
There are many options in funding a municipal golf course. We have to ways to fund our
golf course. We decided to get a $1,700,000 million revenue bond. A steady revenue stream
backs revenue bonds and there is no voter approval required in order to pass this bond. This is a
20-year bond with monthly payments. The second funding method is to have First National give
Newberry Golf Course a $5 million loan. First National directly lends to golf course owners and
developers, allowing us to purchase a single loan. Amortization charts are provided, and total
monthly payments total $40,191.73.
Total Payments
(monthly)
Bond
12,425.78
Loan
38,765.95
Total
40,191.73