Page 5 - BusinessWest April 3, 2023

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EJ Altobello, head pro at Springfield Country Club, is among those projecting the recent surge in the region’s golf industry will continue in 2023.
As the 2023 season begins for most courses in the region — a few others were open for play through during stretches of the win- ter — they are hoping that their springs, summers, and falls are as good, relatively speaking, as Perez’s winter was.
Actually, they’ll settle, if that’s the right word, for what they’ve seen the past few years, a recognized surge in
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play that started during the summer of 2020, the height of the pandemic, when there was little else for people to do — they couldn’t even play tennis due to restrictions imposed by the state.
“My father used to say, ‘it’s like finding money on the street.’”
That surge continued into 2021 and then
2022, said Jesse Menachem, executive direc-
tor and CEO of the Massachusetts Golf Assoc.,
noting that the numbers were down slightly in 2022 from 2021, but still better than the years leading up to the pandemic.
“We saw levels jump considerably in 2020 and into 2021,” he told BusinessWest. “In 2022, we were able to sustain levels and continue to grow. Overall, we’ve been able to retain the new golfers and the golfers who were brought back into the game by the pan- demic. Our facilities, our operators, and our organizations are doing a great job of keeping the game sticky, keeping it relevant.”
The questions on everyone’s mind going into the new year are ... will this surge continue?, and to what extent? As with the weather — always the biggest question mark heading into a new year — no one really knows the answers, but those we spoke with project another solid year for the local golf industry.
EJ Altobello, head pro at Springfield Country Club, a private club, said most all signs point to a continuation of current trends (his club now has a healthy waiting list for membership), and he points to Florida, where the first three months of the year have been on par (yes, that’s an industry term) with the past few seasons, as evidence.
“They’re off to a great start,” he noted. “Golf retail is off to a great start, golf rounds are off to a great start, and I think things will go the same way up here — there’s no reason to believe otherwise.”
Steve Elkins, chair of the board at Amherst Golf Club, a nine- hole track owned by Amherst College and managed by the board members, agreed. He said the past few years have been solid, and revenues have helped put the course on more solid ground than it has been in some time.
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