Missing the Links?

Quintero Golf Club

“Normally, our clientele consists of a lot of people from out of state or even international travelers. We’re a destination or ‘bucket list’ golf course, so a lot of people who travel to Arizona, do so to play here,” says Quintero general manager Mike Poe. When the country shut down in March, the only people who could golf here were Arizonans, so Quintero had to adjust its operations to accommodate the change in customer base. One of the initial changes was reducing rates to bring locals to the course. “We took a stab at the rate we thought would best entice people in the area to drive out here and play, and we hit that amount right on the nose,” Poe says. “We got lucky.”

Mike Poe, general manager of Quintero Golf Club

The Economic Roller Coaster

Between mid-March and mid-May of 2020, Quintero Golf Club lost 65% of its annual revenue, with people cancelling their trips and tee times in the middle of prime golf season. People were even cancelling the trips they booked for the fall and winter. “We saw all our tee times dropping off the books. It was a nightmare,” Poe relates. Although Quintero responded by adjusting its rates to serve the local clientele, it took a while for people to notice those reduced rates and start securing tee times. “We lost a lot of high-value bookings in prime season. It was tough.”

Things began to turnaround for Quintero toward the end of May, when Arizona allowed golf courses to operate while surrounding states like California and Nevada were totally shut down. Noting that people began leaving those nearby states and travelling to Arizona where things were more open and they could golf, Poe says, “This created a big surge in the Arizona golf industry — something we weren’t really expecting.”

In fact, Quintero started to experience an increase in volume over the summer that it had never experienced before. Summer golfers had traditionally been local as very few people travel here to golf in Phoenix’s blazingly hot summers. “We paid close attention to our clientele and where they were coming from, and, because we had so much business coming in, we decided to try and get back some of the revenue we lost in the spring months,” Poe shares. “We increased rates to match demand thinking it would slow things down a bit, but people kept coming. We actually had to increase rates three more times over the summer to keep up with demand. People just wanted to get out of the house to do something and they were willing to pay the higher rates to do so.”

Poe found one of the most challenging aspects of operating through a pandemic was keeping up with guidelines. Rakes were removed from sand pits, guests were told to not touch the flags, golf carts were sanitized, and the patio area was closed. The constantly changing rules forced us to adapt quickly while business was still going on. “We had to stay on our toes to make sure the guests knew we were doing our best to follow the CDC guidelines as they came in,” Poe says, noting it seemed like daily there was some new adjustment to make.

A-HA!

One innovative change Poe made to survive the economic challenges of the pandemic was to turn the entire golf course into a restaurant.

Although attendance on the golf course surged, the club’s onsite restaurant couldn’t serve food, which, obviously, was really hurting the food and beverage revenue numbers. “Then we realized if other restaurants were allowed to deliver, there was no reason we couldn’t turn our whole golf course into a dining experience,” Poe says. “We put our full menu on our golf carts’ GPS system and began delivering food on course, remaining within CDC safety guidelines. That was huge for the drinking and dining aspect of our club.”

The question was how receptive people would be to ordering electronically. But not only was that successful, Poe says it worked out even better than expected. “We had to add two additional team members to service our guests and deliver food, so we were actually employing more people during the pandemic because of that move,” he says. Guests ordered through the GPS system on the golf carts; since the carts were already equipped with those capabilities, all that was needed was to expand the menu so people had more options. “Now that people could eat on the course, our customers could leave fed and happy. At this point, it’s almost an expectation that our course will serve them food while they’re out,” Poe says, adding, “There’s a demand for it, and we love it.” 

There was a learning curve in rolling out the food service. One already mentioned was adding staff so as to be able to deliver over all 485 acres of the course. Poe also changed what foods could be ordered. “At first, I thought people would only want clean, easy-to-eat food while golfing, but learned that people still want the greasy, messy food on the course.” He added those messier options after a short time, and reports food and beverage numbers are way up because of it.

Staying Strong and Moving Forward

“We evaluate our results with a simple year over year comparison. Like any business, we want each year to be better than the last,” says Poe. So how did Quintero do last year? Poe reports the club took a hit at the beginning of 2020 but the year finished as its most profitable year on record: Quintero’s 2020 numbers were up roughly 34% across the year over 2019, and food and beverage revenue alone was up 27% in 2020.

“The pandemic increased our overall customer based with other states migrating to AZ. Additionally, a lot of people took up golf that hadn’t played before or some people even revisited golf after not playing for a while because it was the only activity left. All of which is helping our future business,” says Poe.

Poe maintains Quintero in great shape even in the hot summer months, so the club was ready to go when the influx of out-of-state and new golfers began arriving — and has already welcome many of them back as returning guests. “Those repeat customers alone is enough to increase market share,” he says.

The past year has also brought in more business travelers — people conducting business on the course, doing things virtually and playing a round. “During the pandemic, that’s the only place they could go to do business,” Poe notes, observing that now they love it and don’t want to go back. Poe says there is also an increase in the number of female golfers as well as an influx in kids coming out with their families.

“We also recently added ‘stay & play’ options to our course, which we hope will drive even more traffic to the club,” Poe says. “We offer six luxury condominiums right on the course that are perfect for families, groups of friends or even just a romantic vacation/staycation. We can provide meals, grocery shopping, entertainment, our chef can cook in the fully equipped kitchen, whatever you want we can make happen. We can also arrange fun activities nearby like a boat ride at Lake Peasant, horseback riding, ATV-ing, shooting at the nearby range, all that fun stuff. It’s a full desert experience with the bonus of an amazing golf course right outside your door.”

Notwithstanding successfully operating through a pandemic, Poe notes that this phase of returning to normalcy is just as difficult to predict as the beginning of the pandemic. “We don’t know how people will react as the rest of the country and other countries open,” he says. For instance, will Quintero lose clients as people travel internationally? Would people rather travel to play golf in nearby Canada or Mexico instead of staying in the states? Staying on top of the unknowns will require keeping an eye on data and paying attention to what’s going on with clients and future bookings, but Poe says, “We’ll keep working hard and serving our customers to the best of our ability because we know now is not the time to put it on cruise control.”

Quintero Golf Club is one segment of the June 2021 cover story “Fun Is Our Business: Survivors of a year that’s been anything but fun.” 

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