Courses ‘will have to close’

IRELAND’s golf industry isin need of an umbrella body to look after its interests and help prevent further pain in the current tough economic climate, according to the organiser of last week’s first Irish golf business conference.

Carr Golf Services last Friday hosted ‘Road to Recovery — Golf Business Conference’ in Dublin at which it presented findings of the first comprehensive research report into the Irish golf industry.

Among those findings were revealed a significant level of debt amongst clubs, a lack of strategic planning and an average of only 1% of revenue allocated towards marketing, while over-capacity could cause the constriction of the industry and the closure of as many as 50 clubs and courses across Ireland.