EAST LONDON GOLF CLUB
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Te e i n g o f f Jane Bordenave talks to General Manager of East London Golf Club, about the effect of hosting important golfing events has had, and how important competition is in the golfing world.
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ounded in 1893, East London Golf Club is one of the oldest clubs in South Africa. Located on the East Coast, the course offers magnificent views of the Indian Ocean and presents new challenges every day to even long time members. With over 1000 members and 70 employees, East London Golf Club is the largest club in the Border Golf Union area. The Club which has consistently been rated in the Top 20 courses in South Africa, has played host to the South African Open Championship on nine occasions, the South African Amateur Championship on 12 occasions and, as of 2009, it is the home of the Africa Open Tournament, “we’ve had many of the South African golfing greats play here over the years,” says Brenden Fourie, General Manager of the Club, “Gary Player, Bobby Locke and Ernie Els amongst others, have visited, and Retief Goosen won the Africa Open here in 2009.”
East London Golf Club FEATURE
This increase in championship and celebrity activity at the Club is more than just a badge of honour, though, it is also an important marketing hook. Currently, 70% of rounds played annually at the club are played by members, which makes up 50% of the annual revenue. Due to its location, the Club gets few visitors, South African or international, as Mr Fourie explains: “We are regarded as being off the Garden Route – the area around Port Elizabeth – so whereas golf clubs on the Garden Route may get upwards of 1000 international visitors per year, we see under 100.” However, one month after hosting the Africa Open Tournament, the club saw an increased number of international visitors come to play, “the Tournament is co-sanctioned by the European Tour and coverage of the competition was broadcast to 66 countries across five continents. Clearly
having this event here has helped to raise our profile amongst golfers in South Africa and across the world.” While numbers have died down as the winter season rolls in, Mr Fourie is hopeful that the publicity brought by the major sporting events held at the club will continue to increase visitor numbers. But increased media exposure isn’t the only consideration regarding East London Golf Club’s membership and visitor numbers: While competition is good for all businesses, in the world of golf the relationship between neighbouring clubs is more complex, “We are 130km from the nearest course that is of a similar level to us and, as most people don’t want to travel for an hour and a half when they go on a tour, this does impact negatively upon our visitor numbers,” says Mr Fourie. The reality for golf courses is that, without other competing facilities of a comparable www.southafricamag.com
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East London Golf Club FEATURE
level within easy reach, you find yourself dependent entirely on the local population for business, with little hope of increasing the flow of visitor numbers. However, things are about to change for East London Golf Club – a new rival golf course is in the process of being built just across the Gonubie River. This situation is, of course, as Mr Fourie describes it ‘a double edged sword’; while the new course will almost certainly take away some of the rounds played at the East London Golf Club, it will help to attract new national and international visitors, boosting overall revenue. Sport is not the only side of East London Golf Club’s business, though: 45% of the club’s annual revenue comes from use of its function facilities. The club offers seven different conference facilities ranging in size and is a popular wedding venue. “Many local companies make use of our function facilities for conferences that may last from a day up to a week,” says Mr Fourie, “we also get a significant number of government departments holding meetings here, and the occasional group from outside the local area. As such, this is another important area of our business.” Situated in the Nahoon Point Nature Reserve, the natural environment is one of East London Golf Club’s most important assets and a big draw for potential 4
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Red Alert Red Alert is proud to be associated with the East London Golf Club and assisting to ensure it is one of the premier golfing facilities in the Eastern Cape. Club members and visitors enjoy a modern Halfway House which was sponsored and built by Red Alert.
customers. Upkeep of the club’s property with conservation and environmental concerns bourn in mind is therefore of great importance, and something that it takes very seriously, “our green keeper is well versed in environmental concerns regarding the club and the local area, so he knows what needs to be done and how to go about it,” Mr Fourie says, “most recently we have planted around 50 native
Gary Player, and Ernie Els amongst others, have visited, and Retief Goosen won the Africa Open here in 2009 trees as part of an ongoing project.” The Club has been working with the Nature Reserve to remove alien species of plant and replace them with South African ones, but this is not something that can be done over night. Many of the foreign species of plant that are present on the grounds are, in fact, mature trees that cannot simply be uprooted all at once. Although the club is planting both saplings and older trees, it will still take between 20 and 50 years for them to grow to the size of those that are in situ. This means that both the Club and the Nature Reserve are effectively working to nature’s time scale – this renaturalisation programme has been going on so far for ten years and still has a way to go. Nevertheless, this project has commercial benefits as well as environmental ones; golfers enjoy playing
courses that are well kept and that are beautiful to look at and be in. One of the club’s largest recent investments has been in this area of improving player experience, having spent R4 million improving the greens and tee boxes. East London Golf Course is clearly a largely undiscovered gem, with beautiful surroundings and excellent facilities. Although it is off the beaten track, away from the South African golf clubs that receive the largest proportion of visiting golfers and are perhaps the most famous, it is East London that has been chosen to host the Africa Open Tournament. While increasing the number of rounds played at the Club is more complex than simply ramping up its marketing activities, being known as the home of Africa Open will no doubt increase interest amongst both international and domestic visitors. It is through this and its own work on maintaining all its facilities that will reveal East London Golf Club to be one of the jewels in the South African golfing crown. END
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East London Golf Club PO Box 8039 Nahoon 5210 Email: Brenden@elgc.co.za Telephone: 0027437351356 Fax: 0027437351390
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