How the coronavirus throttled the Myrtle Beach golf market in 2020, and how it survived
* Editors Note: This is one article in a two-story package on the impact of the coronavirus on golf in 2020. The other story can be found here.
The coronavirus pandemic took its toll on the Myrtle Beach golf industry in 2020.
It took a big chunk out of the number of rounds played in the market, and it took an even bigger chunk out of revenue at area golf courses.
While play attributed to locals followed a national trend and increased last year compared to 2019 on the Grand Strand, tourist rounds dropped significantly, particularly during the normally lucrative spring golf season, when travel in the U.S. nearly halted.
Total rounds in the market in 2020 were down 7.8 percent, or approximately 205,000 rounds, at the 72 public courses (or 75.5 18-hole equivalent courses) that are members of the Golf Tourism Solutions marketing and technology agency that promotes the Myrtle Beach market, according to GTS.
Green fee revenue was down 20 percent last year, or approximately $20.5 million.
“Even though our total rounds are down for the year, that’s primarily a result of not having traveling golfers come to the area,” said Tracy Conner, executive director of the Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association. “The number of local rounds and daily fee rounds were up significantly year over year.”
Golf package rounds, which combine lodging with tee times and are indicative of play by visiting golfers, were down 46.3 percent – a drop of 327,000 rounds – in 2020 compared to 2019, accounting for a drop in revenue of $25 million, Conner said.
“Losing the spring season like they did we just can’t recover from that. We’ll never make up the revenue or the rounds when you almost completely lose the spring season,” said Steve Mays, president of Founders Group International, which owns and operates 21 Strand courses. “Then throughout the summer and fall, we did have vacationers come but not at the volume we’re used to seeing on our golf courses.
“That’s where the golf courses and golf market generate all our revenue, that’s where we make all our dollars is on our vacationing golfers and that stayed down throughout the year.”
Member rounds for the year were up 137,000 for a 17.3-percent increase.
Total rounds played in 2020 were slightly more than 2.4 million in the market from Pawleys Island to the Shallotte, N.C., area, for an average of approximately 32,000 rounds per 18-hole course.
The revenue loss stated by GTS consists of only green and cart fees, and does not include ancillary revenue such as food and beverage, pro shop merchandise and lodging.
Tourist play largely provides the market with the highest green fees in the spring and fall golf seasons.
Surviving COVID
Golf courses were able to offset some of their losses through the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and the MBAGCOA acted as a conduit for gathering information about both PPP loans and the general COVID protocols to follow through the pandemic.
“The PPP program that the golf courses and golf industry was able to participate in absolutely is the difference-maker,” said Conner, who is also GTS’ director of technology services. “Between the PPP program and increased local play the golf industry was able to survive 2020.
“There’s not any golf courses out there that are going to have to close their doors at this point in time.”
FGI received between $2.5-$3 million in the first round of PPP loans and payments last spring and summer, according to data released by the U.S. Small Business Administration and Treasury Department.
“Without question we needed those dollars to survive and continue to keep our staff up and running and keep our golf courses open and doors open,” Mays said. “It would have been difficult for us to maintain any level of employment throughout that process. That came at the right time.”
The market was coming off its second increase in rounds played in three years in 2019 following 12 consecutive years of decreases, as golf participation waned nationally for more than a decade.
Rounds played in the market in 2019 increased 3.7 percent compared to 2018. They were down 7.1 percent in 2018, which was a terrible year in terms of weather, after an increase of 4.1 percent in 2017 compared to 2016.
The market was off to an encouraging start prior to the COVID impact. In the first two months of the year, rounds were up 4.2 percent and revenue was up 6 percent, according to GTS.
Though courses in the Carolinas were never forced to close by state government mandates, hotels and short-term rental accommodations in the Myrtle Beach area closed for five to six weeks in the midst of the spring golf season.
“The first two months of the year were strong months and we were off to a good start,” Conner said. “The pandemic hit and the market closed its doors to out-of-town guests and that’s when we play the majority of those rounds and the majority of our revenue comes in those three months [of March through May]. We recovered starting in June for the rest of the year, but the hit to our market from the spring was so severe, even though we had a relatively strong summer and fall golf season we never could recover from the spring and not having the package golf.”
At the end of May rounds were down 27.2 percent for the year, which was about 347,000 rounds, and revenue was down 46.2 percent, or approximately $25 million.
Package play was down about 22 percent in the fall, Conner said, though play overall was up slightly in the months of October and November.
“We didn’t have as many people as we traditionally do travel and play golf this fall, but it opened up an opportunity for our locals to play, and they played at a volume that we’ve never experienced maybe ever before,” Conner said.
The golf industry was able to capitalize on its ability to remain open throughout 2020 by initially instituting COVID safety measures at golf courses that included players riding solo in carts, sterilization of carts after use, and the elimination of common touch points by removing bunker rakes and making holes shallow.
“Golf courses really jumped on the trend very early on in the pandemic of providing a safe place to come out and play and making sure we were following all the protocols and in some cases inventing the protocols as we were going to determine how we could have golfers in a safe way,” Mays said.
Looking ahead
What’s in store for 2021?
Bookings for the upcoming spring golf season are down about 30 percent compared to this time last year.
“It is impossible to predict the rounds of golf and revenue we’ll generate this spring season,” Conner said. “There are too many unknowns. The best-case scenario is the vaccines gain traction and are distributed and people become more comfortable with traveling and we return back to the new normal.
“There have been lots of conversations on budgeting for this coming year and people have different philosophies on what they’re budgeting for. I don’t think there is a right answer for it, but I’m optimistic we’re going to continue to play more local rounds of golf to fill in the soft spots through the winter and I’m hopeful we . . . get close to the [spring] numbers we traditionally play.”
If conditions improve with the pandemic, the area could receive a boost from late bookings.
“We did see a lot of last-minute travel, a lot of last-minute bookings from vacationers, so we hope we’ll still see that as we head into the spring,” Mays said. “We hope they’ll make last-minute decisions to come as they see the weather. We had great weather during the fall so that helped us, and hopefully that trend will continue.”
Nationally, golf rounds were up more than 13 percent compared to 2019 through November despite losing an estimated 20 million rounds due to coronavirus-related course shutdowns in March and April, according to the National Golf Foundation.
“There are a lot of people taking advantage of playing golf, being outside and social distancing,” Conner said. “I think the future is brighter for golf in January 2021 than it has been in 10 years in that there are more people playing golf throughout the country than we’ve had in quite some time.
“With that comes an opportunity for more of them to come to Myrtle Beach and play a round of golf once we work our way through this pandemic. I’m very optimistic there is going to be pent up demand to travel to Myrtle Beach to play golf.”
The NGF says Myrtle Beach has more than 6 million golfers within a 500-mile radius.
“As travelers return, I think Myrtle Beach both as a vacation destination and specifically as a golf destination is well-positioned for them to return fast because of our proximity to all the drive markets on the East Coast,” Mays said. “I think the spring is still going to be rough, but I think towards the end of the spring and going into the summer we’ll start seeing some recovery, then hopefully a full recovery for our fall golf season.”
Rounds Since 2004
(Rounds played in the Myrtle Beach golf market, percent change from previous year)
Year | Percent change |
2004 | +2.3 % |
2005 | -3.4 % |
2006 | -3.3 % |
2007 | -4.7 % |
2008 | -8.4 % |
2009 | -12.5 % |
2010 | -1.9 % |
2011 | -0.6 % |
2012 | -0.7 % |
2013 | -5.9 % |
2014 | -1.6 % |
2015 | -1.0 % |
2016 | -0.6 % |
2017 | +4.1 % |
| 2018 | -7.1 % |
| 2019 | +3.7 % |
| 2020 | -7.8 % |
* Some percentages compare paid rounds from the previous year and others compare total rounds from the previous year.
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 6:50 AM.
