Page 20 - BusinessWest April 14, 2021

it didn’t take as long to get in 18. Golf is the quint- essential social-distancing activity, and with so much else of everyday life shut down, people started taking up the game — or talking it up again after putting it down for a while.
This phenomenon is reflected in the numbers. Jamie Ballard, the pro at the Crumpin-Fox Club in Bernardston, said the club recorded just over
allow golf in 2020; we definitely started the year behind the 8-ball, but things really turned around quickly.”
Meanwhile, at the private Springfield Country Club in West Springfield, owner Camile Han- noush said membership and play were up last year, as individual members and families made the club the place to go when there was nowhere
JAMIE BALLARD
“We had some serious growth in play last year. It was great to see that resurgence in golf.”
else to go — a trend he expects to continue in 2021, to some extent, at least.
“Social memberships are what we’re pushing, and we’ve gained many of those,” he said, adding that the club expects to add more, especially with extensive reno- vations to its pool area now in progress. “If you’re a family of four and you’re not going on vacation, an investment in a county club makes sense.”
COVID didn’t cure all of golf’s ills in 2020; in fact, it deeply impacted many of the other revenue streams — from daily busi-
25,000 rounds in 2020, nearly a 25% increase from the year prior — and
that was despite losing most of the month of May to a COVID shutdown that included golf, and then longer intervals between tee times (later to be relaxed) that restricted the number of players.
“We had some serious growth in play last year,” he said. “It was great to see that resurgence in golf.”
Kevin Piecuch, the long-time head pro at
the Country Club of Greenfield, said his course doesn’t track rounds, but he concurred with that 20% estimate for overall growth in play.
“It was a fantastic year — and we lost the entire month of May,” Piecuch told BusinessWest. “Massachusetts was the second-to-last state to
ness at the 19th hole to weddings and other events in the clubhouses; from charity golf outings, many of which were canceled in 2020, to sales in the pro shop, which were affected by supply-chain issues, said Mike Fontaine, general manager of the Ledges Golf Club in South Hadley, now managed by Inter- national Golf Maintenance Inc.
“We bounced back from being closed down early, but we didn’t bounce back enough to cover everything we lost, especially on the restaurant and outings side of the business,” he told Busi- nessWest. “The restaurant we have here just hem- orrhaged money; it was a definite challenge, and it seemed like there were new rules every week. COVID was good for golf, but not the whole business.”
Mike Fontaine says COVID boosted the golf side of the business, but severely handicapped the restaurant and event side.
Hannoush agreed, noting that, for like clubs like Springfield, most revenues are generated from the food-service and event sides of the led- ger, operations that were all but entirely shut down by the pandemic.
“Last year was a financial struggle for the club
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