Gordon Dalgleish’s 2010 Crystal Ball

Golf/Golf Architecture

Gordon Dalgleish’s 2010 Crystal Ball

By td ⋅ November 6, 2009 ⋅

Here’s a new blog that I’m looking forward to following. Gordon Dalgleish, the president of Perry Golf, has as clear a view as anyone into the inner workings of the golf business. That comes with the territory when you run a luxury golf-travel company, but what makes him a little different is that he’s always been willing to share his insights with others–whether it be about his own business, the competition, or the ever-shifting terrain of hotel and course management. I’ve never been on a Perry Golf junket, but I’ve always heard good things about the trips. And mostly I’ve just been impressed with the effort Gordon makes to know the golf-travel landscape.

Anyway, in this post Gordon reflects on the down year that was 2009 and offers his thoughts on what next year might look like. A few things stood out to me. First was his point that during the financial crisis, “It was hard to find a group of eight guys who historically travel together who were all unaffected by the downturn. Given the dynamics of golf groups, if two or three of the usual participants could not travel, the group as a whole would not travel.” A few months ago, Mike Tanner chipped in with a piece here about having to miss his group’s annual throwdown in Virginia, but maybe the psychology of the international buddy trip is different. Perhaps with more money on the line for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, folks want to make sure that all of their buddies will be around to share those memories. Another interesting comment in the post was that Tom Watson’s inspiring run at Turnberry actually triggered a run in late-summer bookings. I guess the man from Kansas City does touch the right demographic for big links-golf packages.

One point that intrigued me, though, was Dalgleish’s assertion that “the situation exists in Scotland where people now can stay at a 5 star hotel for the same price as a 3 star in the same town.” I didn’t see this, based on my cursory look at the comparative prices for a spring stay at the four-star Rusacks Hotel versus the three-star Ardgowan. Both are in St. Andrews, but there’s a £90 per night spread between the former and the latter–and the 5-star Old Course Hotel charges a premium above both of them. But maybe such a situation does indeed exist elsewhere in Scotland. I’m sure we’d all love to know!