If your 2020 golf tournament was cancelled, let me just first start out by saying that I feel your pain. Out of the over 1,500 events that we provide hole in one coverage for, 1,350 were cancelled due to the pandemic. The pandemic summer of 2020 was a severe blow to all of us. Thousands of charities and organizations across this great nation lost in some cases their major and only fundraiser for the year.
Golf as a recreational sport skyrocketed in the United States during the pandemic, as players across the country looked to breakout as the coronavirus pandemic rolled on. The National Golf Foundation speculatively projects that total rounds for 2020 golf season could be up as much as 20 percent over 2019, but the NGF also points out that the increases in rounds haven’t benefitted all courses the same. The recovery has been a blessing for many public and private facilities, but many resort courses have not seen such as increase due to travel restrictions and the pandemic conditions and restrictions in their respective states. There is much positivity here in that the game of golf is growing much like it did during the Tiger boom in the late 1990’s. What these statistics do not mention as it relates to the golf courses are the losses of outing revenue and what a major blow it is to the facilities bottom line whether they are a public or private course. Trust me, the courses want you back in 2021, in a big way.
Golfers also want to return to tournament golf and support your cause. As a result of fewer golf outings to play in during the summer of 2020, golfers had additional recreational spending which translated to a major increase in golf equipment and apparel sales which totaled over 1.1 billion dollars for just the months of July, August and September alone.
Even though we are now in the winter months and cases of Covid 19 are slightly on the rise, there is a good news on the horizon. With the promise of a vaccine being rolled out and dispersed in record fashion in early 2021, the summer golf outing season looks very promising and things may return to some sort of normalcy as it relates to golf outings. In the last few weeks, we have reached out to many golf courses that we deal with throughout the country as well as many our hole in one insurance outing clients. We surveyed them on their outlook and plans for 2021 as it relates to golf outings and I must say large majority of the courses and outings are planning on proceeding with planning and holding their 2021 tournament. They feel that the Covid 19 virus will be under better control than it was in 2020 and that along with a vaccine will open conditions up to be able to proceed and keep their golf outing alive, only having to skip one year.
The common denominator with all the events that we surveyed was that they plan to come back bigger and better in 2021. Those surveyed said they plan to really expand on their event by incorporating new formats, more games and contests and larger prizes.
Sounds great to us!
