Golf Club Operations Online Certificate

The goal of this course is to give a starting point to evaluate financial activities. Plain-language explanations and golf specific examples will help you identify areas in your club that could be improved, and methods you can use to evaluate planned changes to operating activities.

This course is available via Distance Education.

This is just the course for you if you want to learn or understand so much more about Canadian golf club operations. You’ll learn about Canada’s two basic types of golf clubs: private (there are four of them) and public (there are three), and their organizational structure and characteristics.

You’ll discover the four types of Canadian private golf clubs: member-owned, equity-owned, single or corporate owned, and semi-private, ranging from the most exclusive of golf clubs to golf clubs that will allow anyone to play.

You’ll also familiarize yourself with Canada’s public golf clubs: the municipal, resort, and “owner/operator” golf clubs.

You’ll see how these golf clubs are managed by a single general manager or a triumvirate partnership of the club manager, golf pro, and golf course superintendent all working together and all reporting to the golf club’s board of directors or owner.

You will learn about the historic evolution of clubs and the major issues and trends facing golf clubs of today.

You’ll bone up on the organizational structure and terms of reference of the board of directors, the volunteer committees, the general manager, and all department heads. You’ll review how they all work as one large team to satisfy their particular clientele and you’ll discover exactly what their roles and responsibilities are.

You’ll ponder on how to manage the clubhouse with its inherited problems and realize the importance of formal and informal budgeting. You will become familiar with the “Daily Operation Report”, a tool used for revenue and expense control and learn why there are so many difficulties in managing the golf club’s food and beverage operation.

You’ll discuss clubhouse maintenance, housekeeping, and locker room management from the toiletries to stock and laundry systems to be used.

Come join us for a thorough overview!

This course is available via Distance Education.

Food and Beverage control is critical to the financial well-being of any food operation. Fundamentals of internal controls and information systems for food and beverage operations will be covered. The course covers techniques of effective purchasing, receiving and production; sales control and food and beverage cost calculations. Labour cost control methods are explained and discussed. Note: It is recommended that students apply early in order to recieve the textbook prior to the course start date.

This course is available via Distance Education.

Have you wondered about the best way to pinpoint the cause of some of the financial weaknesses in your organization? Do you know what questions to ask your accountant/bookkeeper so you get just the information you need?

If you’re feeling a little outside your area of expertise at the AGM or at Finance Committee meetings, this course will help put many of your questions into perspective. The content is designed to help you make sense of much of the financial information provided to you every month, and to use this information to assist with making financial decisions in the future.

You don’t have to be an accountant to understand the information you will encounter in this course – that’s the whole point. Plain-language explanations and golf specific examples will help you identify areas in your club that could be improved and methods you can use to evaluate planned changes to operating activities.

Students in this course will be assigned short readings to clarify what is going to be discussed in the next on-line discussion group, and will use a variety of case examples to demonstrate how the information is relevant to your club’s operations. The goal here is to give you a starting point to evaluate your financial activities and then discuss these points with fellow students. These discussions will certainly lead to the sharing of “best practices” used by other golf clubs. Some of these will work for you, some will not, but the discussion groups will offer you a wide range of options to help you with locating some of the causes of financial weaknesses that exist in many clubs.

Throughout this course you will see what data needs to be collected to improve your financial overview of the club activities. As they say “information is power”, but collecting too much of, or the wrong type of information is an expensive and time consuming exercise.

This course is available via Distance Education.

The golf shop is the focal point of the club’s activities. There is so much more member contact with the golf shop operation than with any other club department. Today’s successful General Manager realizes the importance of operating a well organized, excellence-oriented shop (staffed with outstanding employees) where the main goal is to exceed the expectations of the client in every possible way.

You’ll learn about all facets of the golf shop operation from the shop personnel, the golf shop’s floor plan, layout, and design, to analysis of the sales, the preparation of a retail buying plan, inventory management and control, and the “open to buy” formula.

You’ll discover the four elements of promotion, how to acquire and manage a golf car fleet and all about the advantages and disadvantages of golf shop contracting or leasing - the whole gamut.

This course is available via Distance Education.

This course will focus on the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully market a golf facility. With unerring focus on maximizing return on investment (ROI) from all marketing endeavors, students learn how to employ systematic research and strategic marketing planning tools. Also covered are the 11 P’s of the marketing mix, the use of 3^rd Millennium technology, how to interpret socio-economic trends, the gamut of modern advertising options, and how to employ public relations and media relations. Students also learn how to conduct marketing audits to determine strengths and weaknesses of existing marketing programs.

This course is available via Distance Education.

Turf grass management is a great discipline for people who love golf and who love working outdoors in park-like settings. The tasks and responsibilities of the course superintendent are analyzed, and the principles of good turf grass management are studied. Students learn about course construction, irrigation, drainage, course design, soil management, fertilizers, mowing techniques and procedures, water management, equipment use and maintenance, how to mitigate insect pests and diseases, as well as alternatives to chemical turf treatments.

This course is available via Distance Education.

This course takes a practical look at how to plan and put in place a comprehensive personnel administration system. The curriculum covers job analysis (determining the number and types of positions needed), the creation of job descriptions, recruitment and selection of job candidates, job interviews, reference checking, orientation, training, performance evaluation, disciplinary procedures and strategies, and termination processes that respect individual rights and that are also in accord with current legal statutes.

This course is available via Distance Education.

One of the greatest challenges a manager faces is to create and maintain a harmonious and productive work force. Through an examination of one’s own leadership style as it relates to accepted leadership theories, students learn how to achieve organizational and personal goals. Why people behave the way they do in an organization is studied along with delegation, motivation, decision making, effective business meeting structure, conflict management, coaching, and team building.

This course is available via Distance Education.

No doubt one of the most popular courses among students, in this course you will discover the in’s and out’s of planning and conducting special activities and programs at the golf club.

You’ll analyze the need for standard grass roots programming at the golf club level and learn, specifically, the importance of developing strong junior golf and members’ programs.

You’ll examine how to organize “opens,” “invitationals” and “corporate” golf days while learning about the financial impacts of these events at all levels. You’ll learn to plan and coordinate exactly how to make tournaments and special events successful.

Catering to the wants and needs of the larger groups will be emphasized as you tune into the tricks and tips of tee time booking procedures, practice/teaching facility do’s and don’ts and back shop operations supervision...the whole nine yards.

Join us to learn (while you earn)!

This course is available via Distance Education.