Does your golf course need to increase revenue? How Golf Program in Schools can help you now!
Being sophisticated real estate investors, in early 2007 my family and I decided to purchase the Sun City Country Club in Sun City Arizona. It was a can’t miss decision,127 acres of in fill land, zoned R1 6000 at $2550 per lot made the decision easy, even if the business was failing, right? Five months later my banker told me we purchased a toxic asset meaning no cash flow for two years means no loans are possible. So, we sold other assets at depressed prices and cut our losses each year until 2015 when we neared the breakeven with an overhanging amount of deferred maintenance. Does this sound familiar?
At this same time, I was serving on the Board of Directors for the Peoria Education Foundation, a501(c)3developed to help students and teachers with funding. While on a committee reviewing ‘Against all Odds’ scholarship applications, from students who excelled despite horrible family crisis and/or personal crisis, I came up with an idea that could help kids overcome their obstacles and revive my family golf course at the same time. My mantra became ‘Do well in my business so I can do good in my community’. This thought process lead to founding a non-profit that I now sponsor and lead.
Golf Program in Schools, Inc (GPS) was formed in August 2015 and the foundation was set and the course laid out to introduce kids to golf, free to the students and schools, allowing students who complete the program to play free golf until they graduate high school, when accompanied by a paying adult. The goal is to have kids play golf with their families in a social media free zone! When we began, it was just myself and one other underpaid golf teacher, introducing all the students in gym class as part of their PE curriculum, six classes per day, 40 students per class. Each school was scheduled four days use of the gym and then bus the kids over to our golf course for a field trip. It started slowly until the schools felt comfortable with us. Since 2015 we have introduced over 30,500 students to golf and are preparing to add a second teaching team that will introduce an additional 8K –10K students per year.
We estimate that one golf course can support 2 teaching teams at 20,000 introductions per year. About half of the students in the program attend the field trips each year and about 80% of those request the certificate to play free golf with paid adult. Using the Sun City Country Club as a pilot program last year we had an increase in outside rounds played of 16% and overall revenue increase of 14%. This allows us to continue to grow this program. Two years ago, a volunteer contacted me and suggested that we start a golf academy here at Sun City Country Club. We have now established the GPS Golf Academy, a for profit owned by the non-profit. The goals of the GPS Golf Academy are to pay the GPS staff, teachers and overhead to support 20,000 introductions to golf each year and to provide an incentive for golf course owners to host our GPS Golf Academy at their courses.
The GPS Golf Academy is the major sustainable revenue stream for the GPS model. Each Academy will be built with the idea to support the free program in schools. Initially the academy was set up with $10,000 in equipment and labor. As the program grows it will be necessary to invest an additional$40-$60,000 to fully fund the academy plus the cost of space and practice facilities. It is the GPS model to work with existing golf courses as partners or licensees to introduce 20,000 kids to golf per year. GPS will contact schools in surrounding areas and bring our free program to those schools. Our program is unique in that after it is initialized it becomes self-sustaining with no additional funding, while generating revenue for the host golf course. The students that complete the GPS program will be up streamed to the GPS Golf Academy. We will then work with the golf course owners to provide free golf to the students when they bring a paying adult to play the course. GPS then becomes a sustainable income source that will help golf course owners raise revenue, while positively impacting the lives of students, their families and the surrounding communities!
We invite all General Managers and golf course owners to visit our website at www.golfps.org. We are able to accommodate interested parties to visit us in the schools to view our program as we grow the game of golf one family at a time and increase revenue at golf courses.
You may contact me directly:
Tom Loegering,
Founder of GPS, Owner/CEO of Sun City Country Club
623-399-1353 x6 or [email protected]
