Page 22 - BusinessWest April 4, 2022
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                 When the pandemic closed many indoor (and some outdoor) options when it came to sports and recreation, golf became an attractive alterna- tive in the late spring and summer of 2020, and many of those who took up the game or returned to it after pausing for one of many reasons stayed with it in 2021, said Dan Burak, manager of a number of area commercial properties, who added Tekoa Country Club in Westfield to his portfolio in 2009.
“We’re trying to staff up, like everyone else, and the price of staffing is at a level that we’ve never seen before. And we have to be creative with how we go about handling that; we’re getting more applicants, which is positive, but it’s still a challenge.”
“The golf side of the business has been phe- nomenal the past few years,” he told Business- West, adding quickly that the banquet side of the ledger has not recovered as quickly, but there are many positive signs there for 2022, which we’ll get to later. “We were almost too busy on the golf side. We had to say no to a lot of people and tell them that there were just no tee times available. We hated to say no, but it was a good problem to
have.”
Jesse Menachem, executive director and CEO
of the Massachusetts Golf Assoc., said courses across the state have seen significant increases in play over the past two years, with many of them recording record years in 2021, despite frequent rain that closed facilities for several days during the season.
“Last year saw a continuation of the demand, the increased level of interest and activity, from the latter part of 2020, the second half of that year,” he said. “It was really encouraging in terms of tee sheets being very full, merchandise sales being through the roof, and, in some cases, hit- ting some record numbers — membership lev- els being high, wait lists at many private clubs that had not experienced that in the past years ... across the board, those trends are really solid.”
Looking ahead, course owners, managers, and pros alike are expecting those patterns to con- tinue into 2022. But despite this generally upbeat outlook, there are many formidable challenges to overcome. These include everything from work- force issues — golf operations are in the same boat as almost all businesses in the broad recre- ation and hospitality category — to simply stock- ing golf balls in the pro shop; from sharp increas- es in the price of everything, from gas to food to fertilizer, to deciding how much of these increases can be passed on to the consumer.
The workforce crisis is being handled the same way it is in other sectors — by increasing wages when necessary and casting a wide net when it comes to recruitment, said Mike Fontaine, gener- al manager of the Ledges Golf Club in South Had- ley, a muncipally owned, semi-private facility.
“We’re trying to staff up, like everyone else, and
Jesse Menachem says some courses posted record years in 2021 as golf witnessed a resurgence, and he and others expect that momentum to carry into 2022.
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    22 APRIL 4, 2022
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