Insights · The Business
The Saturday is the inventory
Tee times are perishable. The member-guest has to beat the outing on the same Saturday — or you made a yield decision.
Golf is a perishable inventory. An empty Saturday does not come back. Keegan’s operators have been saying a version of that about tee sheets for years: credit-card holds, cancellation windows, stop giving the time away.
On a private club the perishable unit is not a public tee time. It is a Saturday the member already paid for. Every outing occupies it. Every member-guest occupies it. They are not the same rate.
Two products, one calendar
A guest day is a courtesy. A member-guest is a week with a name. Do not sell them as the same event. If an outing wins the prime Saturday because the check cleared, you made a yield decision. Write it down. Do not be surprised when the shop is empty and the member who wanted to host has nowhere to put a guest.
The member-guest can lose money on the event P&L and still be correct — the member who hosts a clean week is the member who does not resign in January. Use that once. Do not use it to justify wasting the gift line or giving June to a cheap outing.
What 1233 weeks teach about timing
The field is not a survey. It is weeks clubs already published. Names and years cluster. Lottery nights and one-days sit next to three-day invitationals on the same property. The pattern is: clubs that treat the week as a product put a date on it early and a name on it that can travel. Clubs that treat it as a leftover Saturday publish a generic title and a date that moves.
Saying no to another outing is how the member-guest stays the week it is supposed to be. Yes is how calendars fill. See when to say no and the calendar as a yield tool.
The hard question
Look at next year’s Saturday map. Which dates are already spoken for by something cheaper than your guest fee? That is the list to take to the board — not the theme.
From the field
- Duke’s Cup Southern Highlands Golf Club
- Chianti Classic The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe
- Annual 3-Day Member-Guest Merion Golf Club
More from the desk
A written plan for this year’s week. Request a consult · Services · All insights