Lateral Hazard / Editorial and Campaigns
The economics of owning a golf course
Documentary editing / 45-second excerpt
Inside the edit
The opening 45 seconds of a longer golf documentary. Location footage, on-screen figures and editorial graphics establish the business question. FDM's contribution here is the documentary edit and graphics, not filming the source footage.
Read automatic transcript
Automatically transcribed from the showcased film. Wording may contain errors. This is the client’s narration, not advice from FDM.
Watch a busy course on a Saturday, and it looks like one of the great businesses on Earth. 200 people arrive, hand over $50 each, rent a cart for 20 more, buy a beer at the turn, and then leave. Nobody takes anything with them. The product does not need restocking. The inventory is grass, and grass grows back for free. Now look at what actually happened to those businesses. America has lost about 13% of its golf courses in 20 years, somewhere near 2,000 of them shut. Here is the number that explains the confusion. According to industry survey data, a mid-range American course charging $30 to $60 a round brings in roughly $1.31 million a year and spends about $1.06 million running itself. That is a 19% margin, which would be a perfectly good business. Move up a tier, and it looks better. A premium course charging $60 or more.
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