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Just 15 days ago, in St Andrews, Michael McEwan met with Blane Dodds, who left his role as CEO of Scottish Golf yesterday, to discuss his ‘blueprint’ for the future. This interview, which is believed to be the last he gave in his former role, was due to appear in the upcoming issue of bunkered, which goes to print this week. Obviously, that’s not going to happen now. Nonetheless, we thought it important to share with you. Here it is.
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It has been just over a year since Blane Dodds was named the CEO of Scottish Golf.
Succeeding Hamish Grey, who stepped down shortly after the drawn-out amalgamation of the Scottish Golf Union and Scottish Ladies’ Golfing Association was completed, the former chair of Tennis Scotland has not exactly had his troubles to seek.
His first task was to streamline an organisation that was spending more money than it was bringing in. A new business strategy was drafted, which resulted in significant personnel changes behind the scenes and new working practices being implemented.
With that taken care of, it was onto looking at ways and means to better serve Scotland’s golf clubs, many of whom have been hit hard in recent years by large membership attrition rates and other blows to their revenue streams.
So, to describe sportscotland’s decision earlier this year to cut its funding to Scottish Golf by over a third (down from £1,025,000 to £665,000) as ‘bad timing’ would be something of an understatement.
All of which has brought the organisation to the point of hosting of a Special General Meeting in Stirling on December 2, where it hopes to push through a raft of changes designed to ‘lead our game to a brighter future’.
EXCLUSIVE – Scottish Golf to ‘back down’ on affiliation fee hike
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the proposed changes are not wholly popular, with the suggestion to more than double the annual levy paid by club golfers to Scottish Golf through their membership having already caused considerable consternation on social media. A new Customer Relationship Management system has also received a broadly lukewarm welcome.
To his credit, Dodds is aware of the restlessness. Well aware of it. However, he is adamant that what he and his team are proposing is not change for change’s sake. Instead, he says, it’s fully required, with Scottish Golf – and Scottish golf, for that matter – having reached ‘a fork in the road’
“Where is Scottish Golf right now?” he asks rhetorically. “It’s in a difficult position. Over the past few years, we’ve had a downturn in membership figures and clubs are struggling. Don’t get me wrong, there are some that are doing very well and will continue to do so, but the majority are experiencing a real lack of growth and, as a result, a lack of investment.
“What I would like to do is totally turn that on its head and get investment back into the game at grassroots level, participation level, development level, club level. That’s where the best opportunity to grow exists.
Lest anybody think this is scaremongering on Dodds’ behalf, it is worth noting that a recent KPMG report revealed that the number of registered golfers in Scotland fell by more than 6,000 from 2015 to 2016 – only the Czech Republic had a sharper rate of decline of the countries surveyed – whilst 19 Scottish courses were lost during the same period.
The home of golf now has 578 courses, with an average of 333 registered golfers per course. As concerning was the finding that 80% of registered golfers in Scotland are adult males, with comprising just 12% of the total and juniors 8%.
“Things are very challenging,” nods Dodds. That’s where the new four-year strategic plan comes in. Scottish Golf says that it is designed ‘to deliver a platform for growth to our clubs, develop our players through enhanced coaching provision, and put our Areas and Counties at the heart of an exciting future of our game’.
A nice sentiment – but what does it actually mean? For Dodds, the solution lies, at least in part, in making golf clubs the ‘centrepiece of our communities’. “That’s one of the main priorities of the strategy,” he says. “A lot of golf clubs have been left behind by the changes in the fitness and leisure market. Linked to that is the massive growth in multi-sport, multi-activity centres. You think, ‘Well why is that?’ and it all harks back to the way society operates.
“The days of a partner working all week and then disappearing all day to participate in their favourite sport at the expense of participating in something with their families are going, if not gone. Therefore, if a sport doesn’t offer multi-activity assets and facilities then they’re going to struggle.
“Golf had such a strong run for a number of years that it has probably been caught a little off guard in terms of the changes in society and changes in buying trends. Where we believe we come in is in helping them catch up.”
All of which, when you really scrub away at it, requires investment. And with less Government cash to go around, not to mention ongoing challenges in the sponsorship market, that means one of two things: operating on a significantly reduced budget and, therefore, with significantly reduced ambitions; or filling the shortfall in income from other revenue streams.
Which brings us to the single most contentious issue in the proposal – the suggested levy increase.
Back in 2010, a club golfer in Scotland paid a £7 annual ‘affiliation fee’ to Scottish Golf through their membership. Recognising the danger of relying on Government funding and National Lottery grants as the major revenue stream back then, SGU chairman Douglas Connon helped increase that fee to £10 over a three-year period.
At present, the affiliation fee stands at £11.25 – the second-lowest membership fee in Europe. Spanish golfers, for example, pay €75 per year to their governing body, with French golfers paying €52.
Dodds believes it is time to bring Scotland’s price up and is suggesting an annual contribution of £24. That would be enough to boost the coffers by almost £2.5m and would, in Dodds’ view, enable Scottish Golf to help clubs help themselves.
The conflicting view is that such a hike may prove to be the final straw for many people who feel that they are no longer getting value for money from their membership, whilst also ‘penalising’ clubs who have their houses in order and who are performing well.
“Absolutely, I get that,” adds Dodds, “but I think the context is very important. The feedback I got from clubs, Areas, Counties and other people when I undertook a series of road shows around the country earlier this year was that we need to change direction. We can’t keep going the way we’re going and expect different results. But the changes we’re talking about require investment.
“With the proposed levy increase, we’re talking about asking club members to go from paying 94p per month to £2 per month, which is still at the very low end compared with other countries and even the governing bodies of other sports in Scotland.
“When I’ve spoken direct to club members, a lot of them don’t know how much they’re currently paying for their affiliation fee. No idea. Some people have even said to me that they thought they were paying about £20 anyway!
“In real terms, we’re talking about the cost of a sleeve of golf balls over the course of a year. That’s it in a nutshell. And do you know what? We’ve not had a massive amount of alternative suggestions brought forward by anyone else.”
That being said, for many people, the issue isn’t the amount of money they’re paying but who they’re paying it to. There’s a perception, held by many Scottish golfers, that Scottish Golf prioritises performance and ‘elite’ amateurs over the needs of its constituent clubs – and that perception has manifested into resentment.
What does Scottish Golf do for me? That’s the question many are asking.
“First and foremost,” says Dodds, “in order for a club member to enjoy their club, the club has to be well supported, well resourced and well run. That’s where we believe we can offer assistance. You can’t build without strong foundations.
“Clubs that have their houses in order are better positioned to offer well-conditioned courses, better catering – in general, a better customer experience. That’s why we exist but, without having the right resources and adequate funding ourselves, that’s difficult to achieve.”
Dodds will find out the extent of the support for his strategic proposals at a Special General Meeting at the Stirling Court Hotel, on the University of Stirling campus, on December 2.
Naturally, he’s hoping for the best. But what if the opposite happens? What happens in the event of the proposals being rejected?
“More reductions and more cutbacks,” he says matter of factly. “Now, if that’s what people want then okay.
“They’re the members, they’re the stakeholders and we’ll deliver as best as we can with the resources available to us – but we’ll be able to deliver less and on a vastly reduced scale than we presently are. Surely nobody wants that?”
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